IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—S.D. Cal.: Claim of copyright infringement for a fantasy fiction work will move forward, (Nov 20, 2025)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

But statutory damages and attorney fees are ruled out.

The two authors behind a popular series of fictional works are entitled to move forward on their claim that another writer and her publishers purloined their works, the federal court in San Diego has held. But the court, in dismissing for the second time a motion to dismiss by the accused author and her publishers, found that the two authors had moved too slowly to preserve their claims for statutory damages and attorney fees (L ALD LLC v. Gray, No. 3:24-cv-02195-GPC-MSB (S.D. Cal. Nov. 18, 2025)).

The lawsuit arises out of a dispute between two sets of authors in the young adult fantasy fiction genre. On the one side are sisters Lesley and Lindsey Alrich, who in 2022 and 2023 authored and posted to web-novel platform Wattpad two novels: The Boy with the Beautiful Name and The Boy with the Beautiful Soul. On the other side is Rebekah Gray, another fantasy fiction writer and the author of a novel called Nightweaver. That book was released publicly by publishing company Merlin’s Pen Publishing in 2023. Hachette Book Group purchased the rights to the book in 2024 and made plans to publish the book, in a somewhat altered version, in 2025.

The Aldrich sisters, claiming similarities between their books and Nightweaver, sued Gray, Merlin, and Hachette and sought an injunction preventing Hachette from releasing the book. In early 2025, the court denied that motion, finding that the Aldrich sisters had failed to present enough evidence to support their claims that Gray had access to their work and that the two works were substantially similar. Things changed, however, when Gray and her co-defendants moved to dismiss the now-amended complaint. The court, emphasizing that the standard on a motion to dismiss “is quite different from the standard for granting a preliminary injunction,” found that the Aldrich sisters had made sufficient factual allegations to support moving forward with the case.

The Aldrich sisters then filed a second amended complaint, which Gray and her co-defendants also moved to dismiss. This opinion followed.

Access. The court stood by its earlier opinion that the Aldrich sisters had adequately pleaded that Gray had access to their work. Before getting to the merits, the court had to address a procedural question. Gray tendered a copy of the manuscript for Nightweaver that was attached—she claimed—to an email she sent to her publisher before the Aldrich sisters posted their novels. But the Aldrich sisters vigorously disputed the authenticity of that manuscript, claiming that it had been fraudulently backdated. In light of this dispute, the court refused to take the manuscript into consideration at the motion to dismiss stage. “After the completion of discovery,” the court emphasized, Gray and her co-defendants were “free to renew this argument as part of a dispositive motion.”

Turning to the facts alleged in the second amended complaint alone, the court found the Aldrich sisters again alleged adequate facts to support a claim of access. Notably, the court emphasized, the complaint alleged that the first of the two books had over 630,000 views and the second had over 175,000 views on Wattpad. Moreover, the court noted, the Aldriches alleged that the first book had 100,000 views by July 20, 2022, and was ranked #1 on Wattpad’s “Fiction” section for 12+ weeks. “This is significant enough,” the court found, to find that the book enjoyed “a substantial degree of commercial success.” As such, the court concluded, there was enough visibility for the two books on the Wattpad platform “such that Defendant Gray’s access to the [books] can be circumstantially established.”

Substantial similarity. The court also stood by its earlier finding that the Aldrich sisters adequately pled substantial similarity between their two books and Nightweaver. The Aldrich sisters alleged 42 plot similarities, 58 similar character traits, and 99 scene similarities—backed up by several charts to compare those similarities. To be sure, the court noted, it was necessary to “filter[] out the similarities that were too general to be protectable ideas, such as generic and common fantasy and romance tropes.” But even after this filtering, the court found, the claim was adequately pled. For example, the court noted, the Aldrich sisters alleged that both works feature an antagonist who has a tattoo on his arm that identifies him with a rebel group of pirates causing fear and mayhem. Moreover, the court noted, the complaint alleged that the lead female in both stories “sees the tattoo early in the story but doesn’t know the true identity of the antagonist until the end of the book, where—in a major plot twist—he reveals his identity.” There were also “surprising scene similarities,” the court noted, such as “a garden picnic with apple pie made from a cookbook owned by someone other than the protagonist and the male character mentions that he dislikes flowers.” These and other allegations of similarity were enough for the complaint to go forward.

Statutory damages and attorney fees. But while the complaint would go forward, the court found an award of statutory damages and attorney fees would be ruled out. Under the Copyright Act, statutory damages can be awarded only if the work has been registered prior to the commencement of the infringing activity. Here, the court emphasized, Gray completed Nightweaver in 2022 and began publishing it in October 2023, months before the Aldrich sisters registered their works. That was enough, the court found, to rule out statutory damages and attorney fees.

Nor could the Aldrich sisters point to Hachette’s post-registration conduct—acquiring Nightweaver in March 2024 and releasing an edited version to the public in March 2025—to support their claim for statutory damages and attorney fees. The Aldrich sisters claimed that there were “legally significant differences” between the two acts of infringement in light of the change of publishers, the registration of a new copyright, and the revisions Hachette made to the book. But these did not constitute “an infringing activity that is significantly different from the first alleged infringement,” the court found. “They, rather, clothe the first infringement…in slightly different garments.” The passage of time between the two different publications also did not save the claim. “Though 17 months have passed between the first and second publications of Nightweaver with Defendant Hachette acquiring the story’s rights,” the court noted, “the post-registration infringement by Defendant Hachette just continues that original pre-registration infringement rather than constituting an independent act.” Statutory damages and attorney fees were therefore ruled out.

The Case is No. 3:24-cv-02195-GPC-MSB.

Judge: Curiel, G.

Attorneys: Cody R. Lejeune (Lejeune Law, PC) for L ALD LLC. Allison Michelle Aviki (Mayer Brown LLP) for Rebekah M. Gray.

Companies: L ALD LLC

Cases: Copyright CaliforniaNews GCNNews