OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — A San Francisco tech company is seeking to prove that Disney benefited from the innovation of its copyrighted facial motion-capture technology to create the lead character in the 2017 film “Beauty and the Beast.”
That company, Rearden MOVA, has said in federal court filings in California that it can prove that Disney benefited from access to its copyrighted facial performance motion capture tech. It says Disney accessed the technology by contracting the company DD3, which employed a former Rearden employee.
Rearden maintains that its MOVA technology is a leading innovation that drove the success of major films. The technology is so advanced, CEO Steve Perlman said last week, that it makes computer-altered faces look convincingly real.
On Monday, Rearden played recordings of actor Dan Stevens, who played the Beast in the film, under deposition and at interviews promoting the film’s release. Stevens has repeatedly described the complicated computer capture process used to morph his face into the computer-generated character.
In a clip from the IMAX premiere of “Beauty and the Beast,” Stevens was shown describing how often he was busy getting tracked by the motion capture technology for the role.
“It’s never been used this extensively before," he said in the clip. "Certainly not for a romantic lead."
Rearden’s next witness, former company programmer Tim Cotter, said that when he helped create the MOVA program to capture actors' facial expressions, it was unlike anything on the market at the time.
“It stitched, like Frankenstein, all those pieces together, and you end up with the entire face,” he said.
Cotter said he was proud to have eventually received an Academy Award for his work on the MOVA technology. Although he is friends with Perlman, he said he was not aware that Perlman was angry when Cotter was nominated for the award in 2015 at the Oscars Sci-Tech Awards.
Greg LaSalle, the former Rearden employee accused of taking the tech to DD3 before that company was later contracted by Disney, was also nominated for his work on the tech.
Cotter’s deposition was read out loud, showing he was aware that Perlman was “upset” and “extremely jealous” about the award because Perlman himself wanted to be recognized. Perlman even sent an appeal letter to the Academy.
“Steve and I have never sat down and discussed what happened at the Academy Awards," Cotter said, looking uncomfortable. He said Perlman had used exaggeration and hype to promote the product. “He’s a salesman in the same way that Steve Jobs is a salesman.”
Rearden’s next witness was MOVA’s vice president of engineering, Roger van der Laan, also recognized by the Academy for his work on the technology. Van der Laan described how a high level of precision and timing are important for MOVA to work. It took complex trial-and-error to get the software right, he said.
Van der Laan described how much of MOVA was programmed internally, including by him. That was not only because nothing else like the tech was available for purchase in the early 2000s but also because the company operates on “the bleeding edge,” he said. He said he understood that his work belonged to Rearden.
Under cross-examination, van der Laan admitted there that Rearden briefly lost ownership of the MOVA contour technology in 2012. He said nobody asked him to change the name of the software to show a change in ownership and that he did not have an ability to impose a copyright notice.
Jurors and U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, an Obama appointee, will have to weigh these factors of copyright novelty and ownership in a trial that is expected to last through Thursday.
In its original suit, Rearden claimed that LaSalle, its former employee, stole equipment and copies of a copyrighted software program from a secure facility before he left to work for DD3 in 2013. Disney contracted with DD3 to create lifelike animated characters for hit films using MOVA Contour technology.
Rearden says Disney knew about and could have stopped DD3’s purported infringement, because Disney had the right to terminate DD3’s services under contracts for the two films. It seeks damages of around $400 million for lost profits. Disney, on the other hand, argues Rearden’s MOVA technology is out-of-date and not as valuable as Rearden claims it is. It says neither DD3 nor MOVA technology were critical to the success of “Beauty and the Beast," which netted the entertainment giant more than $1.2 billion in box-office profits.
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