A lawsuit was filed against Steven Spielberg, DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures Corp., claiming the movie “Disturbia,” made by the director and the two companies, ripped off Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1954 film “Rear Window.”

Dreamworks, its parent company Viacom Inc, and Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric Co's NBC Universal, are all accused of copyright infringement, as well as breach of contract for making the movie without first obtaining permission from the copyright holders, the lawsuit said.

“What the defendants have been unwilling to do openly, legitimately and legally, (they) have done surreptitiously, by their back-door use of the 'Rear Window' story without paying compensation,” the lawsuit said.

The legal documents claim that the movie copies both “Rear Window” and the short story on which Hitchcock’s film was based. The story, called “Murder from a Fixed Viewpoint,” was written by author Cornell Woolrich in 1942. The latter owned the rights to both the film and the story, but he died in 1968 and the rights were sold to Mr. Sheldon Abend, who also died in 2003. The lawsuit was filed by the Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust, which seeks unspecified damages.

“Disturbia” features actor Shia LaBeouf who plays Kale Brecht, a teenager who spies on his neighbors, including a man that he suspects of being a serial killer. Brecht starts his strange hobby when he is sentenced to three months house arrest after punching a teacher in the face for making a comment about his recently deceased father.

The lawsuit claims the two movies are “essentially the same,” with identical plots and characters. The protagonist in the three works behaves in the same way and interacts with other characters in the same way.

“Disturbia” earned about $80 million at the U.S. box-office, but none of the revenue was shared with Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust.