

The billion-dollar Moana franchise can finally move past its legal troubles. A federal jury has deemed allegations of copyright infringement unfounded. The allegations had first surfaced on January 10th, when Buck Woodrall filed a lawsuit claiming that the idea of Moana had been directly taken from his story without his knowledge or consent. The story in question is his project Bucky the Surfer Boy. Woodrall went on to accuse Disney of being a “fraudulent enterprise that encompassed the theft, misappropriation, and extensive exploitation of Woodall’s copyrighted materials.”
The story of Moana is the story of a girl that is called to the ocean, despite her responsibility to become chief. When her people’s crops start dying, she journeys across the ocean to find the demigod Maui, and she enlists his help to restore the heart of Te Fiti, the mother island. In doing this, she hopes to save her people.
The court decided that there was no way to prove that Disney had even seen or read Bucky the Surfer Boy, and since simply drawing inspiration from Indonesian culture is not considered theft, the rights to the Moana franchise remain exclusively Disney’s.
Both Moana and Moana 2 are available to stream on Disney+.