Hollywood Reporter: In the annals of Hollywood, there have been many tales of writers realizing their dreams by successfully pitching a studio on a film. But these days, with many studios getting sued left and right for allegedly ripping off ideas from writers, executives have become a lot more careful about unsolicited submissions. Now comes the amazing tale of James Erwin, a largely unknown author who successfully got Warner Bros. to buy movie rights to his story about what would happen if U.S. Marines traveled back in time to fight the Roman Empire. Erwin accomplished this by posting a series of stories entitled "Rome, Sweet Rome" on Reddit.com, an online community that allows users to post links and have discussions with each other. Warner Bros. aggressively snapped up rights to this story upon seeing it, but does the studio really hold exclusive rights to adapt a film adaptation?
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Does Warner Bros. Really Have Exclusive Movie Rights to a Story Posted on Reddit?
Hollywood Reporter: In the annals of Hollywood, there have been many tales of writers realizing their dreams by successfully pitching a studio on a film. But these days, with many studios getting sued left and right for allegedly ripping off ideas from writers, executives have become a lot more careful about unsolicited submissions. Now comes the amazing tale of James Erwin, a largely unknown author who successfully got Warner Bros. to buy movie rights to his story about what would happen if U.S. Marines traveled back in time to fight the Roman Empire. Erwin accomplished this by posting a series of stories entitled "Rome, Sweet Rome" on Reddit.com, an online community that allows users to post links and have discussions with each other. Warner Bros. aggressively snapped up rights to this story upon seeing it, but does the studio really hold exclusive rights to adapt a film adaptation?
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5 comments:
Copyright infringement and laws are getting to be a bit ridiculous these days. It seem like a lawsuit is just around every corner which can really stifle creativity and innovation. The story isn't the worst of it but it shows how ridiculous people get over the simplest of things. Intellectual property protection isn't necessarily a bad thing but the extents that people go to protect it is crossing the line.
While I feel bad for James Erwin, I am glad that this issue is finally getting that attention it deserves because there are far shadier and murkier ownership agreement on the internet that people seem to totally breeze by rather then pay any attention to. I think it was on this blog that I learned that FaceBook owns anything you put on it, and can and will sue you if you use it in certain ways. Public forum and other similar sites while "friendlier" in there rules then sites like FaceBook, they still have a tendency to become owners of anything and everything you post, which lots of people seem to forget.
While I agree that some of these user agreements are a bit ridiculous, it is the responsibility of the users of these sites to read the agreements before just checking the "I Agree" box and continuing on like 99% of users do. I became a huge deal when people started realizing that facebook could take pictures and anything else you post and use it anyway they like. But that is very clearly spelled out in their user agreement, and to an extent I don't really have much sympathy towards people who don't pay attention to what they are agreeing to. I think in this instance it is unfortunate that the author of the story may not get credit for what he wrote, it is clearly outlined, and he can't really blame the site for simply following up on that they said they would do.
While I understand the point that in the end it is up to the user or customer or whatever to understand their rights, the fact is that these companies generally don't try to make it any easier to get through their agreements. I mean, if you think about the iTunes and iTunes Store agreements you have to acknowledge, those can generally be up to 50 pages long, and can change every few months at least. An everyday person does not have the time or the willpower to go through and figure out what has changed and what half of the legal mumbo-jumbo is saying. I think while user's do need to try to be aware of what they're rights are to content they post online, I think the sites that they are posting at need to make a concerted effort to give them information on it in a more concise manor. This also gets back to the point that others and the article is making itself, in which the copyright laws have gotten very fuzzy and outdated in regard to intellectual property on the internet, and at some point in the future, it's going to need to be fixed
This feels like one of those situations where everyone has been so worried about covering there ass legally that it has resulted in a bigger issue than it needs to be. Enter rant about reforming legal system. i think this is pretty clear cut that Erwin wrote it and its his intellectual property. I agree with Tiffany that he should have paid closer attention to reddits policies. but to me it just sounds like exploiting someones work.
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