1 Jun – The Mouse House has been sued with a copyright infringement lawsuit by Royce Mathew, a Florida-based author of supernatural adventure stories, who claims that he came up with numerous elements of the hugely successful "Pirates Of The Caribbean" film series, including the characters, supernatural elements, storylines, plots, themes, sequence structures and screenplay elements. Mathew will have to pass the tough legal test of demonstrating that the movies were substantially similar to his own work, but this is not the first time that Mathew has sued! About a decade ago, after seeing the first "Pirates" film, Mathew began contacting various lawyers looking for someone to represent him, but without much success.
Mathew claimed that he provided Disney with copies of his creations over a period from 1991 to 1995, through direct meetings and the Creative Artists Agency and William Morris Agency, but apparently Disney subsequently credited "Pirates Of The Caribbean" writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio with the creation of those works. Further, Mathew claimed that he is entitled to the billions of dollars that Disney has generated, or allowed others to generate, from the defendants' unauthorized use and exploitation of his own work. Disney has not yet responded for comment.