“The Last Shark” vs. “Jaws”

The 1995 Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary defines “Plagiarism” as: “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”

Check out the video clip “The Last Shark” (aka Great White) from YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHWiSiNfklo. This Italian-made Jaws knock-off was banned in the United States because of an injunction issued by the Honorable David V. Kenyon, Judge of the Federal District Court in Los Angeles.  Actually, this film is more of a mash-up of Jaws and Jaws 2, which came out in the United States in 1982 when Jaws 3-D was about to be released.  The script for this movie was extremely similar to the Jaws movies, but there were differences also.  For example, the police character was changed to an author.  In short, this movie was not word-for-word copying of the scripts of the Jaws movies.

a.  Discuss whether this injunction was properly issued.

b.  Discuss whether copyright law protects ideas, concepts, or only the written expression of those ideas.

c.  Can you think of other movies that are suspiciously similar to other movies? If so, list them and explain.