Rear Window copyright claim rejected

A US judge has dismissed a claim that Shia LaBeouf's thriller Disturbia stole the plot of short story Rear Window.

Lawyers for a trust which owns the rights to Cornell Woolrich's story, had claimed film company DreamWorks did not get permission to turn it into a film.

In both plots, a man spies on a neighbour from his window and becomes convinced they have committed murder.

But a New York District Court judge said the similarities were not enough to constitute copyright infringement.

"The main plots are similar only at a high, unprotectible level of generality," judge Laura Taylor Swan wrote in her ruling dismissing the complaint.

"Where Disturbia is rife with sub-plots, the short story has none.

"The setting and mood of the short story are static and tense, whereas the setting and mood of Disturbia are more dynamic and peppered with humour and teen romance," she added.

Disturbia made $117 million (£74.6m) at the box office worldwide in 2007.

Alfred Hitchcock made an Oscar-nominated 1954 version of the story which was filmed with permission.

A TV version was also made in 1998 starring Daryl Hannah and the late Christopher Reeve.