A local author named Cynthia J. Clay recently filed a copyright infringement lawsuit alleging that the motion picture Avatar infringes her novel, entitled Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe. The complaint, which was filed in the Southern District of Florida federal court, alleges instances of “strikingly similar” copying of portions of the novel, and claims that the name of the novel, Zollocco, was used as a war chant by principal characters in a critical scene in the movie (allegedly “Zha-lah-coooh”).
The Defendants in the lawsuit include James Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox. As with any lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, the issues to be determined will include: (1) the Defendants’ access to the novel; and (2) the degree of similarity between the accused work and the copyrighted work (“substantial similarity” if access can be proven, otherwise the alleged infringing work must be “strikingly similar”).