## Facts

- An author claimed a motion picture infringed her copyright in a novel featuring a fictional foreign prince who travels to the United States and experiences romance and adventure.
- The novel portrayed a serious narrative combining (1) political unrest and attempted seizure of a throne in the prince’s home nation and (2) the prince’s experiences in the United States, including romantic plot developments.
- The film portrayed a fictional foreign prince traveling to the United States to find a spouse who would love him without regard to his royal status, presented as a romantic comedy driven by culture-clash humor.
- The author identified numerous claimed similarities (plot points, characters, scenes, themes, dialogue, and sequence of events) and argued that their cumulative effect showed copying.
- The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, concluding that the asserted similarities involved noncopyrightable elements and that no reasonable jury could find substantial similarity in protected expression.
- The author appealed and argued, among other things, that strong evidence of access should reduce the required degree of similarity under an inverse-ratio theory.

## Issues

1. Whether the film was substantially similar to the novel in protectable expression, as opposed to unprotectable ideas, stock themes, or scenes à faire.
2. Whether summary judgment was proper because no reasonable jury, properly instructed, could find substantial similarity of protected expression.
3. Whether an inverse-ratio approach (greater proof of access requiring less similarity) applies and alters the substantial-similarity analysis.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for the defendants.
- The court held that, after comparing the works themselves, any similarities concerned unprotectable ideas or scenes à faire rather than protectable expression.
- The court agreed that no reasonable jury, properly instructed, could find the works substantially similar in protected expression.
- The court rejected the plaintiff’s inverse-ratio argument as a basis to relax the required showing of substantial similarity of protected expression.

## Legal Principles

- Copyright protects expression, not general ideas; similarities at the level of premise or broad plot concept do not establish infringement.
- Scenes à faire and stock elements that naturally flow from a basic premise or genre conventions are not protectable.
- Courts may grant summary judgment in copyright cases when, upon comparison of the works, the alleged similarities concern only nonprotectable elements and substantial similarity of protected expression cannot be found by a reasonable jury.
- Evidence of access does not substitute for, or reduce the need to prove, substantial similarity of protected expression, and does not convert unprotectable ideas into protectable expression.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed judgment for the defendants because the shared premise and other alleged overlaps were unprotectable, the works’ protected expression differed in plot structure, characterization, setting, and tone, and access— even if assumed—could not cure the absence of substantial similarity in protectable expression.


Beal v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 20 F.3d 454 (11th Cir. 1994)