Avatar plagiarism case heading to court

BEIJING - A plagiarism case against Hollywood director James Cameron has been accepted by a Beijing court, setting up a confrontation between the movie mogul and an amateur Beijing writer.

"I was told to go to court next Monday to provide more material," writer Zhou Shaomou told China Daily on Friday.

Zhou, the general manager of a Beijing-based hi-tech business, said he spent more than seven years writing Tale of the Blue Crows, a novel which recounts the epic journey of six astronauts to a distant planet, home to a race of blue-skinned beings. He said 80 percent of the plot and key elements of the movie Avatar are similar to his story, which he finished in 1997.

Zhou said he was prepared for a possible "long march" lawsuit.

"I don't mind. I'm OK if it takes a long time in court. And I'm even prepared that I may lose," he said.

Lu Yao, with the Beijing No1 Intermediate Court, said that it could take at least half a year for the case to be heard in court.

"Due to the fact that some accused parties are foreigners or foreign companies, it takes time to send the indictment through diplomatic channels. And if they have Chinese agents, the communication with them is also time consuming," Lu said.

This is the second time that Zhou has filed his lawsuit against Avatar. He went to the people's court in Haidian district on March 7 and asked for as much as 1 billion yuan ($147 million) in compensation, but he was turned down for providing insufficient material in his indictment.

Zhou also complained that nobody took him seriously.

But on this second attempt, he erased the sum of the compensation and reserved the right to seek economic compensation before any sentence is announced.

Besides Avatar's director, Zhou also sued 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, two domestic distributors in China as well as Haidian Theater, where he watched the movie, asking them to admit the copyright infringement and give a public apology.

None of these accused have yet officially responded.

A staff member with 20th Century Fox's Greater China Region, Avatar's distributor, told Beijing News earlier that the outline for Avatar was in place as early as 1995. Zhou's work was said to have been written in 1997, which the staff said means copyright infringement was not possible.

"It doesn't matter that we have divergent explanations. Let's leave it to the judges," Zhou responded.

Although the court's decision to accept the case sends out a good signal, the chance of Zhou winning the case is "very slim", according to a lawyer.

"Even if the Chinese court decides in Zhou's favor, if James Cameron or his representatives are absent, then the judgment is unlikely to have much effect," Yang Huipeng, a lawyer from the Beijing-based Tianyuan Law Firm, said.

Coincidently, the Beijing court also accepted another case recently against Avatar.

He Dexiang, a Beijing resident, claimed Cameron's movie was based on his 2003 script and asked for an apology and compensation, according to Mirror Evening News.

No further information was available from the court about this case.