Ninth Circuit Dismisses Copyright Claim Against Showtime Networks

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a district court’s dismissal of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Anna Biani against Showtime Networks, Inc. The case, Anna Biani v. Showtime Networks, Inc. et al., was decided on September 8, 2025, and focused on claims related to the series Penny Dreadful.

Biani alleged that the series had infringed on three original characters she created for an online role-playing forum. She claimed that Showtime had integrated elements of her characters into two of the show’s characters and argued that the defendants had access to her work due to similarities between the characters.

The district court initially dismissed her complaint, stating that Biani did not adequately demonstrate that Showtime had a reasonable opportunity to copy her work. The court utilized the extrinsic test to evaluate what constitutes protectable material under copyright law. It determined that many of the characteristics Biani claimed were unique to her creations were, in fact, common traits found in the public domain and typical of Victorian-era fiction.

Following the dismissal, Biani was offered the chance to amend her complaint but opted not to pursue this route, leading to a dismissal with prejudice. Subsequently, she appealed the decision.

In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit confirmed the lower court’s dismissal of Biani’s claims for lack of sufficient evidence to support a copyright infringement argument. The court clarified that for a claim to be valid, a plaintiff must plausibly assert both ownership of a valid copyright and evidence that the defendant copied protected aspects of her work, encompassing factual copying and unlawful appropriation.

Biani did not contest the district court’s finding that she had failed to adequately demonstrate evidence of access to her work. Instead, she maintained that the similarities between her characters and those in Penny Dreadful were so significant that they excluded the possibility of independent creation.

While the Ninth Circuit panel acknowledged that the district court had mistakenly filtered out unprotectable elements, it deemed this error inconsequential. The court found that Biani’s claims still did not provide a compelling basis for inferring copying, as any likeness between the characters was insufficient to rule out mere coincidence or prior common sources.

Furthermore, the court agreed with the district court’s findings under the “unlawful appropriation” analysis. Biani had not demonstrated substantial similarity in protectable expression. Applying the extrinsic test, the Ninth Circuit focused on the objective similarities between the works and assessed only the protectable elements of Biani’s expressions.

The court concluded that many characteristics Biani considered distinct—such as the characters’ age, strength, beauty, and involvement in witchcraft—were actually traits frequently found in public domain works and typical to the Victorian genre. As a result, the Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal, reaffirming that Biani had not established substantial similarity in protectable expression.

This ruling underscores the challenges faced by creators in claiming copyright infringement, particularly when elements of their work may fall within common tropes of established genres.