Netflix, Author at Odds Over Movie's Origins

Netflix and producer Mandalay Entertainment are denying they stole the two-volume Burning Sands book series for creation of the 2017 Netflix original film of the same name. In a pair of docket 17-cv-03212 answers posted Tuesday (see here and here, in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, the companies said the film was created independently of, and not copied from, books by plaintiff Al Quarles of Pennsylvania. They also said to the extent Quarles' books relied on facts, ideas, cliches and conventions of storytelling, his claims lack copyright protection. Quarles, in his 2017 copyright infringement suit (in Pacer), said his books are novels not based on real-life events or characters and alleged more than 100 instances of what he said was substantial similarity between the film and the books.