M. Night Shyamalan and Apple didn’t rip off a 2013 independent movie in the making of psychological thriller series Servant, a jury has found in a verdict that highlights the difficulty creators face in substantiating claims of copyright infringement.
The California jury’s unanimous decision, delivered on Friday after a day of deliberation in the seven-day trial, ends a long-running legal battle initiated in 2020 by Francesca Gregorini. She alleged in a lawsuit seeking $81 million a conspiracy to copy almost every aspect of her film The Truth About Emanuel, which she wrote and directed, in the making of the first three episodes of Servant. Both works follow a mother who cares for a doll as if it were real to grieve the loss of a child and her relationship with a nanny she hires to take care of the doll.
The verdict reaffirms the high bar in convincing a jury that any alleged similarities between two works constitute copyright infringement. Copyright law doesn’t protect general ideas — or incidents, characters and settings considered standard in the treatment of particular topics (think a priest in a movie about possession) — only the particular expression of those ideas. In this case, jurors found that Shyamalan didn’t steal protectable elements of Gregorini’s film, which allegedly included everything from plot, characters and directing to camera angles, lighting, props and set design, in the Apple TV+ series.
The decision comes amid a shift in the vetting of copyright lawsuits that’s increasingly encouraged creators to sue. In recent years, federal appeals courts have been cautioning lower courts against early dismissal and from imposing their views on whether two works are similar enough to warrant allowing lawsuits to proceed. One of those rulings — at least the third since 2020 overturning a defense-friendly decision in a copyright case — reversed a federal judge’s decision to toss Gregorini’s lawsuit on the premise that dismissal at was premature because “reasonable minds could differ” on whether her and Shyamalan’s works are substantially similar.
“This is a case in which discovery could shed light on [the] issues that actually matter to the outcome,” the order stated. “In particular, expert testimony would aid the court in objectively evaluating similarities in cinematic techniques … determining the extent and qualitative importance of similar elements between the works, and comparing works in the different mediums of film and television.”
The lowering of legal barriers in copyright lawsuits by the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over most copyright cases involving studios and productions companies since it oversees the California federal courts, is believed to be contributing to an uptick in infringement lawsuits. Over the past year, Don’t Look Up, Moana and Yellowjackets have been accused of lifting elements from prior works.
In testimony, Shyamalan denied accusations of intentionally copying ideas from The Truth About Emanuel and chalked any similarities up to a “misunderstanding,” reported Variety. When he saw it for the first time earlier this month, he said that “everything in it has come from other movies” while his attorney showed the jury shots from the Gregorini-directed movie that appeared to resemble sequences from The Sixth Sense.
“I don’t own them. Anyone can do these shots,” he added. “We’re all in a long line of learning from each other, from Hitchcock and Kubrick before us. And they didn’t invent it. It goes before them, and it keeps on going after that.”
Writer Tony Basgallop, who said the script for Servant was inspired by his life when he and his wife hired a religious nanny, executive produced the series with Shyamalan, Jason Blumenthal, Todd Black, Steve Tisch, Ashwin Rajan and Taylor Latham. Shyamalan’s Blinding Edge and Escape Artists were also named in the complaint.
Representatives for Apple, Shyamalan and Gregorini didn’t respond to requests for comment.