Nahandji v. World Wrestling Entertainment, LLC

In case alleging that WWE stole independent wrestling producer’s unique audiovisual sequence, district court holds that plaintiff failed to plausibly allege that WWE had access to plaintiff’s audiovisual sequence, that there was any substantial similarity between the parties’ sequences or that plaintiff’s sequence qualified as trade dress, dismissing all claims with prejudice.

Plaintiff Nathaniel Tatha-Nahandji operated WCWA Wrestling, an independent wrestling association in Arkansas. In December 2025, plaintiff filed a lawsuit against World Wrestling Entertainment LLC, its parent company and several companies that produce and distribute WWE video games, alleging that defendants were liable for direct copyright infringement, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, and trade dress infringement. Specifically, plaintiff asserted that defendants had copied something he termed the “Tier 1 Sequence,” which consisted of a lead wrestler lifting his arm and finger skyward in a “#1” gesture, and then surrounding wrestlers following suit. Plaintiff alleged that defendants were aware of, and had access to, the Tier 1 Sequence because they monitored WCWA content from 2019 through 2021, and that defendants then used the Tier 1 Sequence to create a similar sequence for the WWE “Bloodline” wrestler group in both live wrestling matches and video games based on those matches.

Defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim, arguing that plaintiff had not plausibly alleged that they had access to the Tier 1 Sequence, that there was no substantial similarity between the Tier 1 Sequence and the Bloodline sequence, that plaintiff failed to plead any secondary copyright infringement, and that plaintiff failed to allege that the Tier 1 Sequence qualified as trade dress. The district court granted defendants’ motion in its entirety and dismissed plaintiff’s claims with prejudice.

The court first addressed plaintiff’s claim for direct copyright infringement, finding that plaintiff did not plausibly allege either access or substantial similarity. To allege access, plaintiff needed to show a reasonable possibility that defendants had seen the Tier 1 Sequence, which plaintiff attempted to do by alleging (1) an independent wrestler provided a tape of a WCWA match to WWE employees; (2) a WWE employee attended a WCWA match in March 2019; and (3) WWE employees otherwise monitored WCWA’s publicly available content. As the court noted, neither the WCWA tape that was allegedly given to WWE nor the WCWA match that a WWE employee allegedly attended included the Tier 1 Sequence, and plaintiff’s allegations of WWE monitoring were entirely unsubstantiated. Plaintiff therefore had not shown a reasonable possibility that defendants had access to the Tier 1 Sequence.

Plaintiff likewise could not allege any substantial similarity between his Tier 1 Sequence and the WWE Bloodline sequence. The Tier 1 Sequence had a number of elements that were unique to it and not found in any of defendants’ productions—including timing, staggered hierarchical placement, camera angles and cuing—and while defendants’ productions were all similar to one another, they were not substantially similar to plaintiff’s Tier 1 Sequence. Given the lack of both access and substantial similarity, the court held plaintiff had failed to state a claim for direct copyright infringement.

Having dispensed with the direct copyright infringement claim, the court also dismissed the contributory and vicarious infringement claims because they could not exist in the absence of a viable direct infringement claim.

Last, the court addressed plaintiff’s trade dress claim. The court explained that trade dress refers to “the total image of a product or overall impression created” and must rely on distinctive, nonfunctional elements in order to be protected under the law. Moreover, when a trade dress is unregistered—as plaintiff’s alleged trade dress was—courts require allegations showing that the public viewed the trade dress as a source identifier. Given those standards, the court found that the Tier 1 Sequence did not qualify as trade dress. Not only did the Tier 1 Sequence not depict any image or create any sort of impression for WCWA, but also there was no showing that WCWA’s audience viewed the Tier 1 Sequence primarily as an identifier for WCWA’s products or services.

As a final matter, the court determined—based on plaintiff’s comments at oral argument and a proposed amended complaint that plaintiff had filed while the motion to dismiss was pending—that amendment would be futile, and it dismissed plaintiff’s claims with prejudice.

Summary prepared by Tal Dickstein and Edward Delman