Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Netflix show FUBAR is being accused of plagiarism, legal letters obtained by DailyMail.com show.
A major plot point in the action series revolves around a supermarket app invented by Schwarzenegger’s character’s son – but an entrepreneur says show writers stole the app idea from him, and is demanding $1.5 million compensation.
Entrepreneur and former rock star Aharon Jason Curtis claims he came up with the idea for ‘Aisle’ in 2015, an app that knows the location of items in grocery stores, plots a route through the store, reminds users of items they forgot, and allows them to scan bar codes.
Curtis, 54, says he only told two people: his manager at the time, who ‘now works as a writer specializing in scripts for action films and streaming series’ according to a legal letter, and a friend ‘who is now a writer working at Netflix in Los Angeles’.
Curtis – who, as Aharon, had fleeting fame with his 2004 hit Dreamer – says he was ‘shocked’ when he turned on the TV in September 2023 and saw his app idea featured in FUBAR.
Entrepreneur and former rock star Aharon Jason Curtis, 54, (pictured) claims writers from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hit Netflix series FUBAR stole his app idea from him
In the series, Schwarzenegger’s character’s son develops a supermarket app called ‘Maisle’. Curtis claims he came up with the idea for that app in 2015 called ‘Aisle’. (pictured: Schwarzenegger at the FUBAR premiere in May 2023)
‘In FUBAR, Schwarzenegger’s character’s son, Oscar, played by Devon Bostick, develops an app that is unmistakably copied directly from the Aisle app that Curtis developed,’ an April 3 letter from Curtis’s attorney Edward Johnson to Netflix, Skydance Television and Blackjack Films, said.
‘The app in FUBAR is designed to optimize the grocery-shopping experience in the same way as Aisle—in any supermarket it “will tell you the exact aisle the item you’re looking for is in.”
‘The app in FUBAR even has an almost identical name—“Maisle,” explained as pushing together “my” and “Aisle.”
‘In total, Aisle features in at least four episodes (half the series) and is mentioned no less than seven times.’
Neither Skydance nor Netflix responded to DailyMail.com’s requests for comment.
The lawyer’s letter accuses the production companies of ‘copyright infringement’, ‘trade secret misappropriation’ and ‘unjust enrichment’.
‘When I watched FUBAR for the first time, I was like, what the? Wait a minute! That’s my idea, I wrote that! That’s my app!’ Curtis told DailyMail.com.
A legal letter on behalf of Curtis accuses the production companies of ‘copyright infringement’, ‘trade secret misappropriation’ and ‘unjust enrichment’
On May 24 Skydance’s attorneys hit back with their own letter dismissing the claims
‘I felt violated. Like someone had come into my home, someone I trusted and stolen from me.’
‘Mr. Curtis is prepared to forego litigation and provide a full release for a payment of $1.5 million,’ his lawyer’s letter said. ‘If we don’t hear from you, we intend to promptly commence a court action to vindicate Mr. Curtis’ rights.’
On May 24 Skydance’s attorneys hit back with their own letter denying the claims.
Nicolas Jampol of law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP wrote that Curtis’s idea was ‘unprotectable’ because he hadn’t actually built the app yet.
‘While you contend that your client has “conceived” of the App, and written down some ideas for the App, he has not actually developed or created the App, or fixed the App “in any tangible medium of expression”,’ Jampol wrote.
He added that ‘Skydance produced the Series, not Netflix’, and that Curtis had failed to show any links between his confidants and Skydance needed for a copyright claim.
Jampol argued that other apps with similar ideas already existed, so there were no ‘trade secrets’ in the case.
However, in an interview with DailyMail.com, Curtis’s lawyer Johnson pointed out that the Skydance lawyers did not provide ‘any factual rebuttal’ to his client’s claims.
Curtis says he is now preparing to file a lawsuit against Netflix, Skydance and others.
‘I want to be fairly compensated and credited for my work,’ he said.
