In a decision Monday, Judge McMahon granted summary judgment in favor of the author of the Crave series of “romantasy” fiction in a suit accusing the author of allegedly lifting major aspects of the books from the plaintiff, an unpublished author who shared the same agent (see our prior coverage here).
Judge McMachon noted that, between the Crave series and in the plaintiff’s unpublished manuscripts (titled “Blue Moon Rising” and “Masqued” and referred to in the opinion as “BMR/Masqued”), she had read over 6,000 pages of “romantasy” fiction in an eight week period. The resulting opinion—157 pages—explains that the two series of novels are not “substantially similar” within the meaning of copyright law. Copyright “protection extends only to a work’s particular expression of ideas, not to the ideas themselves,” which is why, Judge McMahon explained, the “common trope of ‘boy meets girl from opposing factions/boy and girl fall in love/boy and girl end up dead’” is not protected, but specific expressions of that trope (Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story) are protected.
For the case at hand, Judge McMahon explained that many of the overlapping plot elements were nothing more than staples of “romantasy” genre, including ones common to the “granddaddy” of the genre, the Twilight series:
Both BMR/Masqued and Crave include the inevitable love story between the heroine and a hot boy who turns out to be a paranormal – this is “romantasy” fiction, so there has to be a romance, and hot boys are a staple of the genre. Indeed, the romances in both Plaintiff’s and Defendants’ works are reminiscent of the love story in Twilight, the granddaddy of the current generation of romantasy novels. But aside from a first kiss under the night sky (the Aurora Borealis in BMR/Masqued and a meteor shower in Crave) – which is truly a scène à faire in any romance novel set in the Far North (as many of them are) – those love stories play out in entirely different ways.
Judge McMahon also rejected the argument that the tropes were expressed in the same way, because, in fact, the details differed considerably, including, for example, with respect to the plaintiff’s argument that “both heroines’ drinks are spiked” in the two writings:
At the highest level, that is true – and a spiked drink is surely an unprotectable trope of teen fiction (has there ever been a high school party in literature or film that does not feature spiked punch?), or fairytales more generally (the poisoned apple in Snow White being one of the better-known examples). But again, the expression of this trope is vastly different in each work. Anna/Mia’s fruity punch is spiked with Everclear, a colorless, odorless grain alcohol; Grace’s tea, which she drinks with Jaxon in his tower, is spiked with poison that incapacitates the heroine. . . . [T]here is a massive difference between getting drunk at a party and having one’s inhibitions loosened, and being poisoned so that one can be tied up and used as a human sacrifice.