A copyright lawsuit filed against Steven Spielberg was tossed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
Judge Laura Taylor ruled that Spielberg’s 2007 sleeper hit “Disturbia,” which starred Shia LaBeouf and made about $117 million worldwide, wasn’t a rip-off of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” the New York Post reports.
“The main plots are similar only at a high, unprotectable level of generality,” the judge wrote in her ruling of the movies, which both feature a main character staring from his window to a neighbor. “Where ‘Disturbia’ is rife with sub-plots, the short story has none. The setting and mood of the short story are static and tense, whereas the setting and mood of ‘Disturbia’ are more dynamic and peppered with humor and teen romance.”
The literary agent who owned the rights to the short story filed suit against Spielberg, DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures.
