Cameo Clips

The creators of a film treatment weren't collaterally estopped by a prior ruling against a writer of the treatment's screenplay from pursuing a copyright infringement claim against the defendants that the screenplay writer had unsuccessfully sued, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided. Kourtis v. Cameron, 03-56703. Filia and Constantinos Kourtis created the concept for a movie titled “The Minotaur” about a half-human, half, nonhuman character, then hired William Green to write the screenplay. Filmmaker James Cameron considered but passed on the project. Green later sued but lost his case against Cameron for copyright infringement over the film “Terminator II: Judgment Day.” After winning a suit in Australia against Green over copyright ownership of “The Minotaur,” the Kourtises then sued Cameron, his agents and film producer Mario Kassar. The district court dismissed the Kourtises' complaint.