Lexis Nexis: Check the Matrix!

December 6, 2004 12:32 PM

Can someone check Lexis Nexis to see if this case is real: Sofia Stewart vs Andy and Larry Wachowski, Joel Silver and Warner Brothers, United States District Court of California? Boing Boing says that the Matrix was stolen by the Wachowski Brothers from Sofia Stewart and they lost a court fight but the only source is a college newspaper! The only thing I found on Google was some guy saying that the details were on Lexis Nexis.
posted by exhilaration to law & government (8 comments total)

Yes, it's case number 2:03-CV-02873-MMM-VBK, filed April 24, 2003. It's actually "Sophia Stewart" (not "Sofia"). Additional defendants include Gale Ann Hurd, James Cameron, Hemdale Films, 20th Century Fox, and Thea Bloom.

Most recent activity was October 22, when the plaintiff filed a motion to extend time to amend her complaint.
posted by pardonyou? at 12:40 PM on December 6, 2004

By the way, it does not appear that they "lost" -- the case is still open. In fact, it appears that a good chunk of the original complaint was dismissed (meaning they "won"), but the court gave Stewart an opportunity to amend, which is where the case stands.
posted by pardonyou? at 12:51 PM on December 6, 2004

pardonyou? beat me to it.

A motion to dismiss the entire case was denied in October, as well as a motion to strike two paragraphs that deal with specific (alleged) attempts by Time Warner to settle the case in a discrete, hush hush manner.

RICO counts (which carry triple damages and attorney's fees) were dismissed in October, with leave to replead.

I searched for a 1999 case or reference to the FBI investigation, and found nothing in the Court docket.

In the absence of settlement, it looks like there's still a ways to go before the case is resolved.
posted by AgentRocket at 12:57 PM on December 6, 2004

News and documents about the case here. Theres some embedded audio in there, so turn down your speakers. Also they have a pretty big bias towards Sophia, and call the matrix producers "The Pirates." Even more weird is that they seem to take the matrix seriously as a religious concept and are really into "black power." Hell, you could make a movie about these people and this case. Grain of salt as usual. The PDFs are court documents, once you get past their cheesy intros.

I'm a bit surprised any of this can be enforceable in court. Cyborgs, time traveling, virtual worlds, etc are old sci-fi concepts. I guess its all in the implementation/screenplay.
posted by skallas at 1:13 PM on December 6, 2004

Thanks, guys!
posted by exhilaration at 2:12 PM on December 6, 2004

Which CA district is the case in?
posted by falconred at 2:15 PM on December 6, 2004

BoingBoing tend to be rather too quick to rush to the best conclusion before checking stuff, I find. If a story fits their mindset (corporations = bad, lone guys (preferably lone guys personally known to one of them) doing stuff = good, quirky stuff = good), they'll stick it up without doing much or any checking...
posted by humuhumu at 2:47 PM on December 6, 2004

This is being discussed on the Blue right now. Consensus is, she's not won anything at all yet.
posted by mrbill at 5:09 PM on December 6, 2004