Movie Makers’ Appeal Dismissed In “Room Full Of Spoons” Copyright Infringement Saga

On October 1, 2024, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) released its decision in Wiseau Studio, LLC v Harper, 2024 FCA 157, dismissing Wiseau Studio, LLC’s (the Appellant) appeal from a Federal Court of Canada (FC) decision finding the Appellant’s claims of copyright infringement against six respondents (collectively, the Respondents) were barred based on cause of action estoppel.

The Respondents in this case are the creators of the documentary “Room Full of Spoons” (the Documentary) which chronicled the making of another movie, “The Room,” created by the Appellant.  The Documentary, which contains more than seven minutes of footage from “The Room,” was briefly released in theaters in 2016, but was quickly pulled when the Appellant alleged that the Documentary violated its copyright.

This decision of the FCA is just the most recent installment in a years-long series of litigation by the Appellant attempting to keep “Room Full of Spoons” out of theaters: in 2020, the Ontario Superior Court dismissed the Appellant’s initial action for copyright infringement, as previously reported by the E-TIPS® Newsletter here; in 2021, as reported by the E-TIPS® Newsletter here, the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario stayed the Appellant’s action against the Respondents for fraudulent misrepresentation; in 2022, the FC found Appellant’s action for copyright infringement against the Respondents to be barred by cause of action estoppel, as previously reported by E-TIPS® Newsletter here; and in 2023, the FC dismissed an the Appellant’s appeal from the 2022 decision, as previously reported in E-TIPS® Newsletter here. It is from this most recent decision of the FC that the Appellant appealed to the FCA.

At the FCA, the Appellant argued that the FC judge should have adopted a more flexible approach in evaluating cause of action estoppel, and that, as its action related to a relatively new provision of the Copyright Act (s. 41.1), it deserved adjudication through fulsome trial.  The FCA dismissed these arguments finding that the FC judge had considered all relevant circumstances of the case and made no error, and further found that “even if” they were to accept that s. 41.1 of the Copyright Act is a relatively new provision, “this newness, in itself, would not warrant adjudication in the absence of a justiciable claim.”

Summary By: Claire Bettio