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Unbearable: Randolph man charged with making up story about how he created Kung Fu Panda
By adamg on Mon, 12/21/2015 - 11:57am
Gordon's drawing, DreamWorks drawing, Disney coloring-book drawing.
A Randolph man who sued DreamWorks on charges they ripped off his ideas for a panda who becomes a kung-fu master was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he was the one trying to rip them off.
In an indictment unsealed today, Jayme Gordon, 51, was charged with four counts of wire fraud and three counts of perjury. He is scheduled for arraignment this afternoon at the Moakley Courthouse, the US Attorney's office reports.
According to the indictment, Gordon filed the lawsuit as part of a fraud scheme designed to obtain a multi-million-dollar settlement from DreamWorks. To further his fraud and persuade DreamWorks to agree to a settlement, Gordon fabricated and backdated drawings of characters similar to those in Kung Fu Panda, lied repeatedly during his deposition, and destroyed computer evidence that he was required to produce in civil discovery. ...
The indictment alleges that, in early 2008, several months before the movie’s June 2008 release, Gordon saw a trailer for Kung Fu Panda. After seeing that trailer, Gordon revised his “Panda Power” drawings and story, which he renamed “Kung Fu Panda Power.” He made these revisions as part of his scheme, so that his work would appear to be more similar to the DreamWorks pandas he had seen in the trailer. In February 2011, Gordon filed a copyright infringement suit against DreamWorks in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, and later that year, he proposed that DreamWorks agree to settle the suit by paying him $12 million. DreamWorks rejected that proposal, and the litigation continued for another two years.
During the course of the litigation, it is alleged that Gordon intentionally deleted relevant evidence on his computer that he was required to produce in discovery and lied during his civil deposition. Furthermore, Gordon fabricated and backdated sketches that served as support for his suit. The full nature of Gordon’s scheme came to light when DreamWorks discovered that Gordon had traced some of his panda drawings from a Disney Lion King coloring book.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Its Panda-Moneum!!!
Woot Woot!
Or is it...
Skunk-o-luscious :-o
Coincidence?
Does this have anything to do with why Amazon offered free digital copy of Kung Fu Panda and only Kung Fu Panda when I bought a DropCam the other day? I don't believe in coincidences...
I seriously doubt it's more than a coincidence
Sounds more like Amazon just isn't very good at offering free promotions to entice people to buy products.
why
Why would you want credit for something so terrible? Money, I know, I know, but honestly. At least take false credit for something good, like Beyoncé songs or whatever.
I'm surprised
they didn't get him based on the fox as well - that looks far more Disney-ish to me than the panda does.
Pick your chumps better than that
Why would you sue a company famous for having thousands of lawyers foaming at the mouth and on retainer?
The only thing dumber than
The only thing dumber than suing a lawyer juggernaut is submitting traced copies as evidence that you got ripped off.
How far did he expect this to go?
The indictment alleges that,
Indirectly proving a theory I've had for a long time - the more advance publicity a movie gets, the crappier it usually turns out to be. Especially when it's targeted at kids (i.e. fast food toys) but is rated PG or PG-13 instead of G.
Kung Fu
nit wit.
So was "Panda Power" in fact about a
Panda who becomes a Kung Fu Master? With a rodent-like trainer?And did somebody at Dreamworks steal at least that idea, if not the drawing? Did the guy have an actual copyright on the idea? Wouldn't the copyright registry (is there such a thing) have everything, all the right dates and so forth? Why did the case drag on for so long if there was so little merit? Maybe Dreamworks merely got away with one here, but got spooked. This whole case is suspicious and off-putting, smacks of corporate billionaires co-opting the government in a vindictive, sore-winner scheme.
Looks like this guy may have had the copyright
on the panda and his rodent-like trainer in 2000, 8 years before Kung-Fu Panda came out? He probably should have won the suit- he really did come up with the stupid thing before the scumbags at Dreamworks. Can you imagine how pissed he was when he saw that trailer? Thinking, "I've got a copyright on this shit, how can they do this?" Knowing that somehow they would probably get away with it. And boy, was he ever right. Of course, it was a huge mistake to try to copyright something he had partially copied , even if the end product bears only "superficial similarities" to the thing he traced (which, after all, is kind of subjective, wouldn't you say, Carmen?) And it sounds like he started to do stupid things as the trial progressed and he realized just the kind of scumbags he was up against.
Still, Ortiz should be ashamed of herself for pursuing these charges. After all, Dreamworks clearly did infringe the copyright. And isn't that a type of fraud? Of course, this dude could be potentially be sued in civil court for infringing Disney's coloring book's copyright, but that doesn't change the fact that Dreamworks stole his idea. He should re-file the lawsuit against Dreamworks.