Copyrights and Film in Real Life

Hey everyone, so this is a follow up to my article Understanding Legal Issues in Film Part 1: Drafting the Script, where I described that one of the major issues that faces young filmmakers today is obtaining the rights to novels, plays, other artistic works.  Well after writing that article, I have noticed many lawsuits that have come out in recent weeks about this very topic.  So I decided to share with you some of these articles so that you can see how copyrights truly affect filmmakers and their films.

The first article deals with how important it is to find out who actually owns the rights to a literary work.  The article describes the lawsuit that Warner Bro.'s is facing for their Oscar-winning film Gravity starring Sandra Bullock. Apparently the lawsuit came about when Warner Bros. bought out New Line Cinema back in 2008.  New Line Cinema had already owned the rights to the material since 2000 and had entered into a contract with the material'a author. However, after the buyout the film was actually made, the author states that her contract had been breached because for one thing Warner Bros. did not own the rights to her material.  She did not have a say in what went on the film and is now suing Warner Bros. for copyright infringement.  The whole article can be read here.

The second article deals with the importance of not only obtaining the rights to a literary work, but also using those rights in the designated contractual period.  Like I said in my last article most authors will usually give the rights to their works of art for a specific amount of time and for a specific paid amount.  However, if the author sees that their work is being used by the company in a way that pleases them, then an author may extend the contract for a longer period.  Also, there are some contracts that authors make that say that after a certain period of time, as long as the company has done something with their work than the contract is extended for a longer period of time.  It is that contract that this second article deals with.
The article focuses on the deal between Red Eagle Entertainment and the rights to the popular fantasy epic The Wheel of Time series written by Robert Jordan.  Back in 2006 Red Eagle Entertainment bought the rights to The Wheel of Time series to be produced into a TV show before February 11, 2015.  Since then however, the company hadn't done anything with the series.  However, the company did not want to lose the rights so instead of going and negotiating a new contract with the wife of the deceased author who was going to get the rights back this week, the studio put together a sloppy, horribly-made episode based on the series and aired it on February 9, 2015 at 1:30 am on FXX.  Yes that is right.  Now with that being done, even though practically no one watched the episode and those that did hated it, this company gets to keep the rights for another couple of years in order to hopefully provide a better product than what they came up with. Now though, the company is in the midst of this major lawsuit against the author's wife, which could have all been avoided by just simple communication.  You can read the full article here.

Well there you go.  There are just a few real life examples of how copyrights can affect studios and movies in general.  What I really want to emphasize with this article is how important communication is in the process of drafting the script and how not communicating and not obtaining the rights to author's work can have a negative impact on the company and the film itself.  I hope that this has been helpful.  If you have any questions or comments for me, just email me or leave a comment below.