Muneefa Abdullah v. Walt Disney Company

714 F. App'x 758

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 8, 2018
• Docket: 16-55888
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

MEMORANDUM ***

Muneefa Abdullah appeals from the district court’s judgment in favor of The Walt Disney Company in this copyright action. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. After a careful examination of each alleged similarity between The Snow Princess and Frozen, the district court concluded that the two works are not substantially similar under the extrinsic, test as a matter of law. We agree and therefore affirm for the reasons stated by the district court in its well-reasoned decision granting The Walt Disney Company’s motion to dismiss. 1

AFFIRMED.

*** xhiS disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

1 . For the first time on appeal, Abdullah contends that the witch is the princess’s subconscious. Even if that were apparent from the text of The Snow Princess, which it is not, the outcome is the same because it is an entirely different expression of the idea of a princess with ice powers than presented in Frozen. See Funky Films, Inc. v. Time Warner Entm't Co., 462 F.3d 1072, 1078-79 (9th Cir. 2006) (rejecting appellants’ "attempt to link up” the main characters in the works because the expression of the generic traits of those characters was different).