#top-gun

#top-gun

The Ninth Circuit kicked off 2026 with a major copyright decision in the long-running Top Gun dispute, affirming summary judgment for Paramount in the lawsuit over Top Gun: Maverick. In this episode of The Briefing, Weintraub Tobin shareholders Scott Hervey and Tara Sattler break down the Ninth Circuit's reasoning and why it matters for studios, writers, and anyone adapting real-world stories.

The dispute centered on the 11-page article published in California Magazine in 1983, which vividly described the experiences of Navy fighter pilots at the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, popularly known as "Top Gun." Following the article's publication, Ehud Yonay granted Paramount all rights to the work, leading to the 1986 release of Top Gun. In 2020, the Yonays terminated the copyright grant by invoking 17 U.S.C. § 203(a)(3), which allows an author's heirs to terminate certain grants.