Sophia Stewarts' day in court ends with dismissal for the 'Mother of the Matrix'
Quentin Wells
Issue date: 7/20/05 Section: Entertainment
This case, which began as one of the largest (in terms of potential damage awards, if successful) and highest profile copyright infringement cases in U.S. history, has already had a tortured history since its inception, with a staggering amount of misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies and libel being circulated about it on the Internet and through thousands of news outlets around the world. A significant amount of the reports about the Sophia Stewart v. Andy Wachowski, etal. case have been sourced to an article headlined "Mother of the Matrix Victorious" by Martha Carter which appeared in the 28 October 2004 issue of GlobeLink.
This article, written by Miss Carter following a personal interview with Sophia Stewart contained some misleading information regarding the current status of the lawsuit. Although a correction was posted within 48 hours, few people read this revised and accurate description of the progress of the lawsuit. Over 600,000, however, read the erroneous original report and unknown millions more have since read other equally misleading stories based on the GlobeLink story (without correction) that have appeared on literally hundreds of other web sites around the globe.
Readers of the misleading information erroneously concluded that the copyright infringement trial had been held in early October 2004 and that Sophia Stewart's assertions that the "Matrix" and "Terminator" movies were based on her manuscript, "The Third Eye," copyrighted in 1981, and submitted by her in the mid-eighties in response to an ad placed by the Wachowski Brothers, requesting new sci-fi works. In actual fact, the court proceedings in October 2004 simply confirmed that Sophia Stewart appeared to have sufficient merit in her claims (and, by implication, sufficient documentation to substantiate them) to warrant a trial that would establish or refute their validity.
As a result of the June 14, 2005 summary judgment that question will probably never be answered, at least not in an objective forum with established rules of evidence and procedure. Ms. Stewart has given numerous interviews and widely publicized her claims on the Internet and in other media in recent months, but regrettably, she has not provided to the defendants she was suing, or to the court in which she filed her claim, the factual information that would have verified her assertions that she is really the "Mother of the Matrix."
This article, written by Miss Carter following a personal interview with Sophia Stewart contained some misleading information regarding the current status of the lawsuit. Although a correction was posted within 48 hours, few people read this revised and accurate description of the progress of the lawsuit. Over 600,000, however, read the erroneous original report and unknown millions more have since read other equally misleading stories based on the GlobeLink story (without correction) that have appeared on literally hundreds of other web sites around the globe.
Readers of the misleading information erroneously concluded that the copyright infringement trial had been held in early October 2004 and that Sophia Stewart's assertions that the "Matrix" and "Terminator" movies were based on her manuscript, "The Third Eye," copyrighted in 1981, and submitted by her in the mid-eighties in response to an ad placed by the Wachowski Brothers, requesting new sci-fi works. In actual fact, the court proceedings in October 2004 simply confirmed that Sophia Stewart appeared to have sufficient merit in her claims (and, by implication, sufficient documentation to substantiate them) to warrant a trial that would establish or refute their validity.
As a result of the June 14, 2005 summary judgment that question will probably never be answered, at least not in an objective forum with established rules of evidence and procedure. Ms. Stewart has given numerous interviews and widely publicized her claims on the Internet and in other media in recent months, but regrettably, she has not provided to the defendants she was suing, or to the court in which she filed her claim, the factual information that would have verified her assertions that she is really the "Mother of the Matrix."
