Yesterday filmmaker Regina Kimbell filed a $5 million copyright infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against Chris Rock, HBO, the domestic and foreign distributor theatrical distributors for soon to be released documentary “Good Hair.”

What is interesting to me about this is the question...can a doc idea be infringed upon?

Obviously, docs are not like feature film scripts or ideas. Beyond what is actually a long tradition of story overlap in the doc world - Is Darwin's Nightmare about to sue Crude which will be sued by Pirate of the Sea which will be sued by Whale Wars? - there is the question of whether the value of a doc idea is ever specific enough to have an inherent value, since documenting life is generally not a scripted activity.

In other words, would "I want to do a superhero movie... and the guy flies... and he wears tight clothes and fights really well" be a pitch that would lead to a claim that would be allowed to go far in a lawsuit against Marvel for infringement?

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