Netflix’s high-quality dubbed version of the South Korean zombie thriller #Alive is under fire for copyright infringement by the Hollywood Innovation Group. The film was hugely successful in South Korea and on Netflix. Still, when Hollywood Innovation Group released their English version, it tanked, and they claim now that Netflix infringed “on the plaintiff’s exclusive rights to make non-Korean language versions based on the same underlying script.”
“Netflix’s release of #Alive devastated the market for Alone and its October 2020 release,” according to the complaint. “Adding insult to injury, critics and audiences alike have incorrectly derided Alone as a knock-off of #Alive.”
In an interview, John Tehranian, an attorney for Hollywood Innovation Group, said, “Until recently there was no money in dubbing because there was no commercial marketplace,” Tehranian said. “But the language in the license is very clear — the Korean maker had the right to make only one single Korean-language movie.”
Hollywood Innovation Group requests the judge to bar Netflix from dubbing other film versions and pay damages and attorney fees. Netflix allows viewers to watch #Alive dubbed in French, Spanish, German, and Russian, among other languages.
– Excerpt from an article for Courthouse News Service by Edvard Pettersson. Read the full article here.
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