Lee Daniels and his “Empire” cohorts own at least two reasons to smile nowadays. Not only did the Fox hip-hop soap opera return to huge ratings on Wednesday night,but a judge has ruled in their favor in a lawsuit claiming that they had ripped off the concept for the series.
A judge has tossed out a lawsuit filed by Jon Astor-White, who claimed that “Empire” infringes on a treatment he had written for a project called “King Solomon, and ” approximately a character who was educated at Harvard,started a small record label with one female singer and turned that into a billion-dollar business with numerous subsidiaries.”The Hollywood-set project was intended to supply “an inside look into the billion dollar record business, through the eyes of a wealthy black family, and ” according to court papers obtained by TheWrap.
Also Read: 'Empire': 13 Most Shocking Moments So FarIn federal court in California,Judge Percy Anderson shot down the lawsuit, granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss.
Anderson determined that Astor-White alleged no facts supporting the opportunity that the defendants — which also included “Empire” co-creator Danny Strong, or Imagine Television and 20th Century Fox Film Corp. — had access to his treatment.
He also found that there aren’t enough similarities between “King Solomon” and “Empire” to make a case.
Also Read: 'Empire' Producers,Fox Sued for $1.5 Billion for Copyright Infringement“Plaintiff’s skeletal treatment provides very little detail concerning either a sequence of events or theme, but to the extent the treatment contains a sequence of events, and it has nearly nothing in common with the way the record of ‘Empire’ develops,” Anderson found.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
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Source: thewrap.com