The Ninth Circuit has ruled that claims against Apple TV+ program “Servant” infringed on a 2013 film should not have been rejected.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declared a week after the debate that director Francesca Gregorini saw enough parallels between “Servant” and her “The Truth About Emanuel” to file a lawsuit. Ninth Circuit alleged that similarities vary from the overall premise of a woman who has lost a child employing someone to care for a doll to particular cinematic decisions that are comparable to her own.
Ninth Circuit Revives Case Against Apple TV+ Series
The filmmaker Francesca Gregorini sued the production and director M. Night Shyamalan, claiming that Servant is nothing more than a copy of one of his works from 2013, The truth about Emanuel.
Both stories revolve around a mother who cares for a doll as if it were a real kid and the bonds with the nanny. Judge John F. Walter terminated the lawsuit in May 2020, noting that the two series were sufficiently different, and ordering Gregorini to pay court fees totaling more than $ 162,000.
He also stressed how unfair and inaccurate the director’s charges were to establish a forced resemblance between the two pieces. However, it appears that the case is not yet concluded, since the Ninth Circuit’s court of appeals has reopened the situation. Gregorini was granted the authority to pursue her lawsuit against Apple and Shyamalan once again. The appellant challenged the first sentence’s legality, claiming that the similarities between the two works were to be discussed in a separate court. Gregorini first claimed reimbursement for damages, the halting of production, and the destruction of all material judged to be relevant to its intellectual property.
At this stage, a verdict in his favor would very certainly result in the cancellation of the next season and the removal of the series from the Apple TV Plus list, but it is still too early to tell.