Filia Kourtis Con Kourtis v. James Cameron International Creative Management Mario P. Kassar Jeffrey Berg Joseph Rosenberg

We must decide whether the creators of the yet-unproduced film The Minotaur are collaterally estopped from pursuing a copyright infringement claim against the producers of Terminator II.

I

In 1987, Filia and Constantinos Kourtis developed the concept for a film entitled The Minotaur, which details the exploits of a half-man, half-bull that can transform itself into various human and inanimate forms. The Kourtises set forth their ideas in a thirty-page “treatment” that provides a synopsis of the prospective film. They registered this material with the Worldwide Register of Copyrights and then hired William Green to write a screenplay based upon their treatment. The agreement between Green and the Kourtises provided that the Kourtises would own the screenplay’s rights.

In 1989, the Kourtises began to shop the screenplay around to various Hollywood production companies. Jeffrey Berg, an employee of International Creative Management (“ICM”), received a copy, and he informed the Kourtises that he would share the materials with film maker James Cameron, who was an ICM client. Cameron contacted the Kourtises and initially expressed an interest in The Minotaur, but ultimately neither…