US Court of Appeals dismisses copyright claim over Top Gun: Maverick by Ehud Yonay’s kin

US Court of Appeals dismisses copyright claim over Top Gun: Maverick by Ehud Yonay’s kin

The wife and son had sued Paramount Pictures, seeking a share of profits from the Top Gun sequel

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in Pasadena, has dismissed a copyright lawsuit claiming that the American action-drama movie Top Gun: Maverick infringed on a 1983 magazine article that inspired the original 1986 movie Top Gun.

The bench upheld the recent dismissal by a lower court and ruled that the 2022 sequel of the movie did not substantially copy protected elements of Top Gun. The article, penned by journalist Ehud Yonay, profiled the San Diego fighter pilot training program of the US Navy’s elite unit.

The scribe had sold the rights of his article to Paramount Pictures in 1983 and was credited for the original Top Gun movie.

However, after his demise in 2012, his widow, Shosh Yonay, and son, Yuval Yonay, terminated the licence in 2020. Later, they sued Paramount Pictures, seeking a share of profits from the sequel, which universally earned US$1.5 billion.

(Top Gun: Maverick, starring Tom Cruise and directed by Joseph Kosinski, was released in May 2022. It became Cruise’s highest-grossing film and was highly praised for its aerial sequences and nostalgic moments).

While contending that Top Gun: Maverick imitated certain plots from the article, the Yonays maintained that the character traits and themes were also lifted.

However, the three-judge bench ruled that the similarities were either too general to be protected or not present in the film.

The Ninth Circuit Judge Eric Miller stated, “Their claim of substantial similarity fails because what is protected is not similar, and what is similar is not protected.”

The court held that the sequel comprised several significant plots that were not in the article. This included a romantic sub-plot and Tom Cruise’s character, Navy Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, returning to train younger pilots.

The judges added that the Yonays described both works at “such a high level of abstraction” that the alleged similarities were not protectable. They bench stated that Paramount Pictures had no obligation to credit the Yonay in the sequel, as the original agreement did not cover any future movie.

Pleased with the decision, Paramount Pictures termed the claims “meritless.”

Meanwhile, the verdict is unlikely to affect another lawsuit in New York, the trial of which will begin in March. Screenplay writer Shaun Gray alleged that he contributed scenes to the sequel without being given credits for the same.