A Beijing man who claimed that director James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar was a plagiarism of his online novel had his case dismissed by a Beijing court, AFP reported. Zhou Shaomou was demanding 8% of total worldwide revenue earned by Avatar – the highest grossing film of all time – alleging that the idea came from a novel that he published online in 1999. The court dismissed the case, claiming that Zhou had insufficient evidence that Cameron had stolen ideas from ‘The Legend of the Blue Crow’, which he wrote in 1997. "’Avatar’ is a film based on my fiction but shot by James Cameron," Zhou said. "But he never paid me any copyright fees." The author, who had several complaints dismissed by the courts before this latest case, is understood to be considering a second lawsuit against Cameron.
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