Grosso

Jeff Grosso appeals the district court’s judgment in favor of the defendants, Mira-max Film Corp. and others (“Miramax”), in his action alleging breach of contract under California law and violation of his copyright in his screenplay The Shell Game. Grosso claims that Miramax stole the ideas and themes of his work when they made the movie Rounders. In this appeal we consider two separate district court orders: one granting summary judgment on Grosso’s copyright claim and one dismissing his state law claim as preempted by the Copyright Act. We affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Miramax on the copyright claim, but we reverse its dismissal of the state law claim.

Summary judgment on Grosso’s copyright claim was proper. As the district court carefully and correctly explained, the two works are not substantially similar. The works do not have substantially similar genre, mood, and pace; their themes, settings, and characters are different; their plots and sequences of events are not parallel. Both works have poker settings but the only similarities in dialogue between the two works come from the use of common, unprotectable poker jargon.

Grosso’s state…