French court decides Netflix shark hit can keep streaming in copyright row

PARIS

A French court on July 3 ruled that a shark horror film titled "Under Paris" could continue to stream on Netflix despite a copyright case against it.

The Paris court threw out an emergency request from a film director who alleges copying to ban the streaming of the film because it was directed at the platform's French subsidiary, and not its international branch.

The court said Netflix France was not the "operator, publisher or host" of the streaming platform, according to its ruling seen by AFP.

But it did not rule on accusations that the watery nail-biter about a killer shark, set during the coming Olympic Games, largely copied the script for another unmade film about a giant catfish.

In a separate legal procedure, filmmaker Vincent Dietschy is also suing the producers of "Under Paris."

He claims the film, which has notched up more than 84 million views on Netflix since early June, unfairly borrows from his 2011 project "Silure," named after a type of catfish.

He and co-screenwriter Emily Barnett say their project included "the same story, the same characters and several identical scenes" as the shark thriller.

Netflix has argued that the similarities were questionable and that nothing proved a third party had gained access to Dietschy's project, which was never made.