I can't believe it's not Kung Fu Panda

I assume the companies that make the movies they rip off have no power to stop them from what they're doing? It's not really copyright infringement, I suppose.
 
Not really. For starters, the makers of Ratatoing and Little Cars and a lot of these other cartoons are not companies based in the United States, and cross-border copyright infringement suits can be challenging because of the different laws.

However, the movies are also either material that's in the public domain (anybody can do a Cinderella story), or movies that happen to borrow common elements. The latter can always be argued to be coincidence, parody, or just outright denied. If Pixar can't sue DreamWorks for announcing Antz right after Pixar announced A Bug's Life, there's no grounds for a cease-and-desist here, either.

In a lot of cases, the rip-off movies come out first, since they'll start on them when they have some details about what the new Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks movie is about and they can make their films a lot faster.

Besides, actually suing these guys would give them way more attention than they could ever manage on their own.

-- Ed
 
Back
Top