## Facts

- Timothy Burton Anderson wrote a 31-page treatment titled “Rocky IV” after viewing *Rocky III*, intending it as a proposed sequel.
- The treatment incorporated characters and elements from the existing *Rocky* films and identified Sylvester Stallone as a co-author.
- Stallone had publicly discussed general sequel ideas involving a U.S.–Soviet boxing conflict before Anderson wrote the treatment.
- Anderson met with an MGM executive and later with Stallone to discuss potential use of the treatment, with Anderson alleging he was told he would be paid if his work were used.
- Stallone wrote, and MGM produced, the film *Rocky IV* without crediting or paying Anderson.
- Anderson sued in federal district court asserting copyright infringement and various state-law theories, including unfair competition, unjust enrichment, and breach of confidence.
- Defendants moved for summary judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether the *Rocky* characters were sufficiently developed to be protected by copyright.
2. Whether Anderson’s treatment, which used those characters without authorization, was a protectable work or an unauthorized infringing derivative work.
3. Whether *Rocky IV* was substantially similar to any protectable expression in Anderson’s treatment.
4. Whether the state-law claims for unfair competition and unjust enrichment were preempted by the Copyright Act.
5. Whether the breach-of-confidence claim was barred by the statute of limitations.

## Decision

- The court granted summary judgment in part and denied it in part.
- The court dismissed the copyright infringement claim with prejudice, holding Anderson’s treatment was an unauthorized infringing derivative work not entitled to copyright protection.
- The court alternatively concluded no reasonable jury could find substantial similarity between the film and any protectable expression in the treatment.
- The court dismissed the unfair competition and unjust enrichment claims with prejudice as preempted by federal copyright law.
- The court dismissed the breach-of-confidence claim with prejudice as time-barred.
- The court denied summary judgment as to other, less central claims.

## Legal Principles

- Fictional characters can be protected by copyright when they are sufficiently and distinctively delineated rather than mere stock types.
- The copyright owner holds the exclusive right to prepare derivative works; a sequel treatment that incorporates protected characters without permission is an unauthorized derivative work.
- An unauthorized infringing derivative work is not entitled to copyright protection and cannot support an infringement claim against the owner of the underlying copyrighted material, including as to purported “new” elements.
- Substantial-similarity analysis focuses on protectable expression; similarities limited to general themes, unprotectable ideas, or preexisting characters do not establish infringement.
- State-law claims are preempted when they seek to vindicate rights equivalent to copyright within the subject matter of copyright and lack a qualitatively distinct extra element.
- Claims sounding in breach of confidence are barred when brought outside the applicable limitations period.

## Conclusion

The court held that a writer who creates an unauthorized sequel treatment built on protected characters lacks a copyrightable basis to sue the rights holders for infringement, and it further rejected attempts to repackage the dispute through equivalent state-law claims or untimely confidence-based theories.


Anderson v. Stallone, 11 U.S.P.Q.2d 1161 (C.D. Cal. 1989)