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P is an expert on children's emotional intelligence and development. She designed and promoted initiatives that help children cope with strong emotions like loss and trauma. The Moodsters were devised as a commercial application of this work. P hired a team to produce and develop her idea under the umbrella of her new company, The Moodsters Company. The initial product was The Moodsters Bible (Bible), a pitchbook released in 2005. It provided a concise way to convey Daniels's idea to media executives and other potential collaborators, and included a brief description of the characters, themes, and setting that P envisioned for her Moodsters universe. The Moodsters are five characters that are color-coded anthropomorphic emotions, each representing a different emotion: pink (love); yellow (happiness); blue (sadness); red (anger); and green (fear). P initially named The Moodsters Oolvia, Zip, Sniff, Roary, and Shake, although these names changed in each iteration of the characters. P released a 30-minute pilot episode for a television series featuring The Moodsters. P pitched The Moodsters to numerous media and entertainment companies, including D and Pixar, between 2005 and 2009. P also spoke by phone with Pete Docter, a director and screenwriter for D, and they discussed The Moodsters, although no year or context for this conversation is alleged. D began development of its movie Inside Out in 2010. The movie was released in 2015 and centers on five anthropomorphized emotions that live inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley. Those emotions are joy, fear, sadness, disgust, and anger. Docter, who directed and co-wrote the screenplay, stated that his inspiration for the film was the manner in which his 11-year-old daughter dealt with new emotions as she matured. P sued D in 2017 for breach of an implied-in-fact contract, arising from D's failure to compensate P for the allegedly disclosed material used to develop Inside Out. D eventually moved to dismiss, which the district court granted on the ground that The Moodsters are not protectable by copyright. P appealed.

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