IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—S.D.N.Y.: Luck runs out for Squid Game challenger, (Oct 2, 2025)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

Copyright infringement lawsuit against Netflix does not make it past the first round.

The author and streaming service behind the dystopian survival thriller “Squid Game” will get an early exit from accusations that they pirated the work of a Bollywood screenwriter, the federal court for Manhattan has held. The court, in dismissing the complaint on the pleadings, found that the Indian-born claimant did not have standing to bring the lawsuit and that the two works were “dramatically and drastically different from one another” (Shah v. Netflix, Inc. No. 1:24-cv-06925-RA (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2025)).

The lawsuit was brought by Soham Shah, an Indian citizen and the author of the screenplay for a 2009 movie entitled “Luck.” The movie, which had a modest theatrical release in India, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates, follows a series of contestants in a game of chance who earn money for each dangerous and violent round of a game they survive. The rounds include, among other things, firing a gun at another player without knowing whether the gun will fire a bullet or a blank, jumping from a helicopter without knowing whether their backpack holds a parachute, and finding the right key to unlock the handcuffs that attach them to a sinking shipping container before they drown or are attacked by sharks.

The screenwriter took aim at “Squid Game”, the South Korean series that earned huge followings and rave reviews during its three-year run on Netflix. The screenwriter’s complaint, which targets both Netflix as well as Squid Game author Hwang Dong-Hyuk, claims that the show is a “blatant rip-off” of his screenplay and the resulting film. The lawsuit targets only season one of the Squid Game series, which aired in 2021.

Netflix and Hwang moved to dismiss, leading to this opinion.

Personal jurisdiction. The court began by setting aside for later the question over whether it had personal jurisdiction over Hwang. Although normally matters of personal jurisdiction would be dealt with first in a lawsuit like this, the court noted, it made no sense to do that here because Netflix’s motion to dismiss, if granted, would end the case against Hwang anyway. Thus, to preserve judicial economy, the court found it “appropriate to assume without deciding that it has personal jurisdiction over Hwang” while it considered Netflix’s motion.

Standing. Turning to the merits, the court agreed with Netflix that the Luck screenwriter did not have standing to bring the lawsuit. Although the screenwriter claimed ownership of both the screenplay as well as the film, his infringement case rested solely on the content of latter. But that was fatal to the screenwriter, the court found, because he did not plead a legitimate basis for ownership of the film. Under Indian law, which controlled here, the original producer of a movie—in this case, Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision—is presumptively the owner of the copyright in the movie. While the screenwriter vaguely claimed to have some rights in the film, the court noted, he did not allege that he was the original copyright holder of the film, that he executed an agreement with Shree to that effect, or that he was assigned the copyright by Shree. Without any of these specific allegations in his complaint, the court noted, the screenplay had not “plausibly alleged ownership of the copyright” in the Luck film.

Nor did the screenwriter plausibly allege that he was the beneficial owner of the film, the court noted. The classic case of beneficial ownership of a copyright, the court noted, arises where the owner of the copyright assigns the right in return for royalties; in that case, even though the original owner no longer owns an exclusive right to the work itself, his legal entitlement to royalties gives him standing to pursue a claim of infringement of the work. Here, while the screenwriter alleged that he was entitled to some share of royalties from the film, he never explained how that claim arose out of any prior ownership of an exclusive right to the film. Merely because a plaintiff is “one of potentially numerous entities that potentially can generate revenue from use of [a work],” the court noted, “does not make [it] a beneficial owner of an exclusive right” in that work. The claim would fail on this ground alone.

Substantial similarity. And even if the screenwriter could make out a claim of standing, the court found, the 2021 show was not substantially similar to the 2009 film in any event. Both shows centered around the idea of players competing in a series of games to the death in the hopes of winning a significant prize. But the literary device employed in both of these works, the court emphasized, was “an idea explored in many others”—including the Jennifer Lawrence film series “The Hunger Games,” the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger classic “The Running Man,” and other popular works such as “Mean Guns,” “Battle Royale,” and the manga series “Kaiji.” That alone would not get the claim over the finish line.

Many other purported similarities cited by the screenwriter also failed, the court noted, because they arose inevitably from the nature of the two works—and were thus unprotectible under the doctrine of scènes à faire. For example, the court noted, “in a plot centered around a protagonist fighting for his survival in a series of deadly games, it is hardly original that the main character survives until the end of the competition and wins the prize money, learning about himself in the process.” Similarly, in light of the stakes of the game, the court noted, it “necessarily results that contestants will be motivated to participate by desperate personal circumstances, whether they result from debt, poverty, an ailing family member, a criminal conviction in their past, or a desire for retribution.” The court therefore had “little trouble concluding that many of the alleged similarities in the parties’ works are unprotectible elements that follow naturally from a work’s theme rather than from an author’s creativity.”

Indeed, the court noted, many features of the plots were meaningfully distinct in both the movie and the Netflix series. Most prominently, the court noted, the nature of the competitions in each game was “notably distinct.” In the film, 16 players compete in four games—Russian roulette, a jump from a helicopter, an attempted escape from a runaway train, and the like—explicitly designed to test their luck. In “Squid Game,” by contrast, the court noted, 456 contestants compete in a series of children’s games, “some of which are particular to Korean culture.” For example, participants compete to survive in “a game of red light, green light; carving out a shape from a Korean street candy without breaking the candy; tug-of-war; marbles; a type of hopscotch on glass tiles; and squid game, after which the show is named.” Moreover, while most of the competitions are not inherently dangerous, the court notes, “they have altered stakes such that if participants lose, they will be killed by one of the many masked, armed guards.” In this and other respects, the court noted, the plots of the two works were “dramatically and drastically different from one another.”

The 2009 film and the 2021 show were different in many other ways, the court found. For one thing, the pace, sequencing, and settings of these works “plainly and notably set the works apart.” “Squid Game” is set largely inside a playhouse-like building on an unidentified island off of the mainland, the court noted, where the players live in a single room filled with utilitarian bunk beds and are not permitted electronics or any way to contact the outside world. “It is a dark and dystopian series, in which few characters are fundamentally, morally good,” the court noted. By contrast, when the 16 contestants in the 2009 film are not competing, the court noted, “they are primarily depicted relaxing and forming bonds in a comfortable hotel.” During this time, they are not cut off from the outside world “and can do what they will with the winnings they earn throughout the game.” Indeed, the court noted, at times the Bollywood film “feels akin to a stylized music video, prominently featuring musical dances and upbeat music”—a far different experience than the 2021 series. The claim would not be permitted to go forward.

The Case is No. 1:24-cv-06925-RA.

Judge: Abrams, R.

Attorneys: Emily Bab Kirsch (Kirsch & Niehaus PLLC) for Soham Shah. Harrison Arthur Newman (Covington & Burling LLP) for Netflix, Inc.

Companies: Netflix, Inc.

MainStory: TopStory Copyright NewYorkNews GCNNews