IP outlaws and the day after tomorrow

Xinhua released the following news item this morning:

As the US filed a complaint against China with the WTO over intellectual property issues, a Chinese science fiction author met 20th Century Fox in court for the same reason. The infringement case opened on the 11th at the Intermediate People’s Court of Dongying, Shandong.

This author, named Li Jianming, claimed that the 20th Century Fox disaster film The Day After Tomorrow, finished in 2004, plagiarized the ideas and story of Annual Profection and Ice Meteorite, two science fiction plays.

Li Jianmin said that the incident-based science fiction film The Day After Tomorrow bears a substantial close resemblance to his works in theme, structure, major plot elements, setting, dialogue, and prop design.

He said that according to incomplete calculations per scene, there were similarities in 308 places, and there was similar dialogue in a similar context to his original works in 26 places.

Reportedly, Li Jianmin filed an infringement suit in March, 2006. On 26 April, the Intermediate Court of Dongying accepted his case.

Last year’s reports elaborated on Li’s complaints: his two plays were unpublished, but in 2002 he submitted them to China’s Science Fiction World magazine and the 2003 Xia Yan Film Literature Prize.

Two things distinguish this particular infringement case from the run-of-the-mill plagiarism allegations that seem to crop up every few weeks and which don’t usually rate a mention here. First, the reports link the case to the American WTO complaint – Xinhua’s English-language article, though less detailed than the Chinese version, mentions the US government’s filing in the second paragraph.

The timing’s just a happy coincidence, however; according to news reports from last year, the Dongying court predicted that it would require at least 10 months lead time, and set a preliminary court date in April. Li had been gathering evidence since late 2004 and had filed his lawsuit a number of times before the court finally accepted it.

Second, a bizarre fictionalized account of the affair done as a pastiche of traditional Chinese popular novels was posted to some online forums in late 2004. Li Jianmin and his friend “The Black Whirlwind” Li Kui navigate the labyrinth of Song bureaucracy to find out how the foreigners got their hands on his script. (Part I, Part II, Part III)

UPDATE (2007.07.15): Xinhua announces, via AP, that Li Jianmin lost his suit: “Li could not prove that his plays were completed in 2001 and 2002, nor could he establish that 20th Century Fox had access to his plays, Xinhua said, citing the decision by the Intermediate People’s Court of Dongying, in eastern China’s Shandong province.”