The court battle between two Australian movie-makers over the US$300 million gross from a best-selling motivational film and book is now in the US courts.
Rhonda Byrne (pictured), the creator of The Secret, which became an internet phenomenon, is being sued by the director, Drew Heriot, who claims Byrne should have shared credit for developing the project. The legal battle over copyright started in Australia, but is now being contested in a Chicago court.
Heriot claims to have written much of the screenplay for the 2006 film as well conducting most of the interviews and supervising editing and post-production. He also claims to have had a big part in writing the best-selling book.
For Heriot to win, he has to prove to the court that for the purposes of The Secret project, he was a co-contributor, not an employee. If an employee, he has no claim to copyright since copyright created by employees is automatically owned by the boss.
His chances don’t look good – he appears to have been an employee of Byrne’s company, Prime Time, for other projects.
Protecting Brands 
I didn’t know about this, thank you. It’s my opinion that Rhonda Byrne stole from a lot of people in this project. This is no “secret” and it’s easily proven that she’s not the first one to discover the law of attraction. What goes around comes around, and whether or not Heriot wins, I’m sure that she’ll get back what she gave out.
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That’s interesting – the thing is, even if Heriot believes Bryne took ideas from other people unfairly, he can’t say so because he will then jeopardise the $300 million takings and his share of it! And what he is claiming is that he and Bryne were co-creators of their interpretation of the Law of Attraction, not that they discovered the law themselves. It will no doubt all come out in court. Thanks for your comment!
Conservatorship says : I absolutely agree with this !
Contagiousness says : I absolutely agree with this !
I think the whole thing is built on GREED. Look at what the Aussie star in this production has created – exactly the same scenario. Could it be that they had the same advice? either way when people who have had no money in their lives suddenly get money they have no idea how to deal with it and always end up with nothing as a result. Being rich is a term which very few people really understand. Monetary wealth dissappears in a heartbeat but true wealth lives forever. I believe these people have been hideously greedy hence these results. They will never have anything or what they do get will never stay with them.
He could be lying for all we know; I’m sure Byrne gave credit where credit was do.