Funky Films, Inc. v. Time Warner Entertainment Co.
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
462 F.3d 1072 (2006)
Gwen O'Donnell wrote a screenplay, The Funk Parlor, about a family funeral home whose patriarch dies, leaving two adult sons to inherit and run the business, one of whom returns from elsewhere to help, and a romantic subplot develops; she shared the script informally, and it eventually reached an HBO executive. Months later, HBO developed Six Feet Under, also centered on a family funeral home following the patriarch's sudden death, with two sons inheriting the business and a returning-sibling dynamic, though set in a different city, with different specific character arcs (a gay sibling storyline, a third sibling, different plot resolutions), dialogue, mood, and pacing. O'Donnell and Funky Films (plaintiffs) sued HBO for copyright infringement without any direct evidence of copying; the district court granted HBO summary judgment, finding no substantial similarity, and the plaintiffs appealed.
Whether, absent evidence of direct copying, a court may find copyright infringement where the plaintiff shows the defendant had access to the copyrighted work and that the defendant's work is substantially similar to it.