December 12, 2025
A California federal judge has shot down an animation artist's bid for a new trial after a Los Angeles federal jury earlier this year rejected his copyright claim that the 2016 Disney blockbuster "Moana" ripped off his own Polynesian adventure story.
September 10, 2025
An attorney for Disney on Wednesday urged a California federal judge to issue $532,815 in sanctions against attorneys representing an animator who unsuccessfully alleged "Moana" lifted from his Polynesian adventure story, saying the lawyers knew or should have known a key document in the case is a forgery.
July 08, 2025
Two California judges were the first to deliver crucial rulings about what constitutes fair use in training generative artificial intelligence models — a question expected to test the boundaries of the copyright doctrine amid the emergence of the groundbreaking technology. Here is Law360's list of the biggest copyright decisions so far this year.
April 23, 2025
Disney asked a California federal judge to issue $532,815 in sanctions against attorneys for an animator who alleged "Moana" lifted his Polynesian adventure story, arguing Tuesday that the plaintiff's lawyers vexatiously prolonged litigation with "sanctionable misconduct" by pursuing "baseless" trade secret misappropriation claims that were untimely and premised on a forged document.
April 09, 2025
Disney doesn't deserve $5.7 million in fees for beating an animator's copyright suit accusing it of ripping off his Polynesian adventure story to create "Moana," the plaintiff said Tuesday, arguing his case wasn't frivolous, considering the California federal judge found multiple times that sufficient similarity existed between the works.
March 27, 2025
The Walt Disney Co. sought $5.7 million in attorney fees Tuesday after beating an animator's trade secret and copyright suit claiming it ripped off his Polynesian adventure story to create "Moana," arguing he engaged in bad-faith tactics like forging evidence, perjuring himself and improperly inflating purported damages.
March 10, 2025
A Los Angeles federal jury handed a win Monday to a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Co. in a copyright infringement trial over the 2016 blockbuster "Moana," rejecting a claim that the movie ripped off another animation artist's Polynesian adventure epic.
March 06, 2025
Counsel for a unit of The Walt Disney Co. urged a California federal judge to enter judgment in their favor as a copyright trial wound to a close Thursday, saying an artist has theories but no actual evidence that his work was stolen for the blockbuster animated movie "Moana."
March 05, 2025
One of the creators of "Moana" testified in a California federal copyright trial Wednesday that he "would never" use another writer's idea without permission, noting that one of his projects was killed after The Walt Disney Co. was unable to buy source material.
March 04, 2025
A longtime animation director for The Walt Disney Co. testified in California federal court Tuesday that his blockbuster movie "Moana" was inspired by Polynesian mythology and extensive research into the region and its culture, not the work of another artist now suing for copyright infringement.