Disney Ordered to Pay $600k in Motion-Capture Copyright Trial

A federal jury in California has ruled that Disney must pay nearly $600,000 in copyright damages for using Rearden LLC's motion-capture technology without permission in its 2017 live-action remake of "Beauty and the Beast." The jury awarded Rearden over $250,000 in actual damages and recommended that Disney pay over $345,000 of its profits from the film. Rearden had accused Disney of infringing its copyright in the Contour facial-capture software by working with another company, Digital Domain, to utilize the technology in the movie. Disney denied the allegations and expressed satisfaction that the jury rejected Rearden's request for $38 million in profits.