The Street Smart Writer by Jenna Glatzer & Daniel Steven

Author:Jenna Glatzer & Daniel Steven
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Book Industry, Writing Books, Publishing & Books, Writing, Education & Reference, Research & Publishing Guides
ISBN: 9780974934440
Publisher: Nomad Press
Published: 2006-01-01T09:24:52+00:00

Chapter 10

Special Screw-Overs for Screenwriters

Why Producers are Paranoid

Free Options

It’s Called “Back-End” Payment for a Reason

Script Submission Services

In recent years, producers have shifted further and

further into “cover your butt” mode, thanks to lawsuits

from screenwriters and wannabe screenwriters. While I

have no doubt that some of these lawsuits have been

legitimate, a great portion of them are from writers

who believe they can collect some cash because a

producer “stole” their idea.

The first issue here is that “ideas” can’t be copyrighted, which means you

can’t seek damages for an idea unless it is uniquely expressed in written

or recorded form. Although people can and do start lawsuits over poten-

tial copyright infringement—sometimes on amazingly tenuous grounds—

these kinds of lawsuits are more infrequent than you might think.

Copyright lawsuits must be filed in federal court, and federal rules provide

stiff penalties against both clients and lawyers for unjustified lawsuits. On

the other hand, when the book or movie in question was a big hit, lawsuits

have been common.

0

Take E.T., for example. Playwright Lisa Litchfield filed a $750 million

lawsuit because she alleged Steven Spielberg had stolen the idea for E.T.

from her play Lokey From Maldemar. Spielberg has also been sued over

Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Amistad, Small Soldiers . . . and probably

every other film he’s ever made. In each case, the writer (or cartoonist or

filmmaker) believed Spielberg had stolen something from his or her work.

In each case, a judge decided in favor of Spielberg.

An author who wrote The Legend of RAH and the Muggle s sued Time-

Warner over trademark infringement for the Harry Potter movies. Director

Orson Welles was sued for allegedly plagiarizing a biography of William

Randolph Hearst to make Citizen Kane.

I chose to break off contact with an aspiring writer I was mentoring

because of his constant paranoia about people stealing his ideas. He had

written spec episodes of The Simpsons, and watched the show vigilantly. A

week or two after sending the producers one of his specs, he was positive

they used one of his jokes on the air. The next week, he was sure they based

a plot on an idea in another of his scripts. I tried and tried to tell him there

was no way they read and incorporated his ideas into a show that aired a

week or two after he mailed the script, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He hired

a lawyer, and I gave up on him.

So, you see, producers are a little gun-shy about reading work from writ-

ers. If a writer sends in a script about bunnies, and ten years from now,

the company produces a movie about bunnies, that writer could very well

think, “Hey! They stole my idea!” and start up a lawsuit. It doesn’t matter

if the reader who was assigned to the script couldn’t get past page five of

the writer’s script because it was awful. It doesn’t matter if the produced

script has almost nothing in common with the writer’s script. Anyone can

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