Copyright/Legal advice on dialogue?

Norm Sanders

Norm Sanders

Script Wrangler
Venturing out with my first short film, and have a line/short section of dialogue that I got from a moment in Family Guy. Thought it was hilarious, and wanted to kind of pay it homage, and use it in our short. There's nothing else similar about the character really, or the story as a whole.

The line(s) was dead on enough that a friend of mine picked it up & brought it to my attention, knowing it was from Family Guy.

To my knowledge, actual lines can't be copywritten, just the story, with regards to word for word re-write. Otherwise, you would never have other movies repeating lines from other famous movies, such as Jerry McGuire, StarWars, etc.

Thoughts?
 
this is just my personal opinion...

it's okay if you're using it as a reference to the original material. like if somone says the phrase, "hasta la vista, baby". people get what you are referencing.

it's not okay if you're stealing jokes and pretending like you wrote them. think: carlos mencia
 
Norm Sanders said:
To my knowledge, actual lines can't be copywritten, just the story, with regards to word for word re-write. Otherwise, you would never have other movies repeating lines from other famous movies, such as Jerry McGuire, StarWars, etc.
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That is not correct, but there may be fair use entirely dependent on context. All of this revolves around the details.

If you're concerned, you should consult an attorney.
 
So really more of an ethical thing, then huh? Since there should be no real legal precedence with "I'll be back", etc. Problem is, those films are SO well known, of course people don't know it's original .... however, not everyone watches Family Guy, so perhaps only 10% of the audience will have seen the specific episode where we copy the gag (literally 3-4 sentences, tops), and the rest will just assume it's our own personal thing.
 
In order to prove copyright infringement they have to be able to show you used them as the source for the copying(if you had never seen their work, you couldn't have copied it). Sadly for you, this post gives them all the ammo they need.

So now your in the realm of the fair use defense. "Yes your honor, we stole this, but we had a really good excuse." And you might, depending on the nature of what was taken, the nature of your work, etc. At this point a bunch of people will tell you to either get permission or to ask a lawyer.

A lawyer will give you an opinion, perhaps without any research at all. And well, that would be close to worthless. Remember in every civil lawsuit there are two lawyers and one of them loses. Fifty percent is not exactly a bedrock of trust.

You could also just go with it because what your doing is so minor and unnoteworthy no one would bother you over it. What you should never do is ask a bunch of random internet strangers if you should commit a civil crime. Since lets face it, we are even less reliable than the lawyer. :D

Remove the homage. Write your own stuff, it can be much funnier than Family Guy, then you have no issue.
 
Good thoughts & feedback, internet strangers, thanks! :)

I MAY try & reach out to the show, and see if I could by some freak chance get their okay. Otherwise, I'll change the wording ... since I had the idea for this to happen BEFORE seeing the Family Guy episode, and then decided to just word it the same way.

Anway, good stuff, again, thank you.
 
msorrels said:
At this point a bunch of people will tell you to either get permission or to ask a lawyer.
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There's a reason for that.

msorrels said:
A lawyer will give you an opinion, perhaps without any research at all. And well, that would be close to worthless. Remember in every civil lawsuit there are two lawyers and one of them loses. Fifty percent is not exactly a bedrock of trust.
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One does not call any random attorney on matters like this. There are attorneys out there who specialize in copyright law. There are some that specialize in the film industry. There's crossover between the two. None of them are cheap, but they know their stuff. It's also possible that they may throw you a pretty good answer for this basic question without much of a fee, if any.

msorrels said:
You could also just go with it because what your doing is so minor and unnoteworthy no one would bother you over it. What you should never do is ask a bunch of random internet strangers if you should commit a civil crime. Since lets face it, we are even less reliable than the lawyer. :D
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Yet, you just advocated committing said crime...
 
Let's put this in practical terms. It's your first movie, uh short film. How much money do you actually expect to make from it? I have no idea of what your abilities are but generally speaking a persons first short film is an exercise. It's just practice.

Lawyer cost money, for both you and the people who want to sue you. Unless you are making money from this, they won't bother with anything more than to ask you to take it off the internet, and that is if they happen to see it and for some reason think it is worth their time. So I doubt you have to worry about being sued.

The only real issue is if you try to use the piece to show off your comedy scriptwriting. At which point someone may recognize the gag and think you're an ass for trying to pass off someone else's work as your own. If you are using the piece to show off your directing skills, well it really dosen't matter.
 
C2V said:
Yet, you just advocated committing said crime...
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You defame me sir, I never advocated anything of the sort. I merely presented options and opinion. The only thing I did advocate is dumping the lame Family Guy homage, cough rip-off cough, and writing something new and original.

As for the uber-lawyer theory, it doesn't take much to realize that most civil lawsuits are only possible if both attorneys actually have no clue what a court will rule. Which scares me no end.
 
msorrels said:
As for the uber-lawyer theory, it doesn't take much to realize that most civil lawsuits are only possible if both attorneys actually have no clue what a court will rule.
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There are so many problems with that, it's hard to know where to begin.
 
msorrels said:
As for the uber-lawyer theory, it doesn't take much to realize that most civil lawsuits are only possible if both attorneys actually have no clue what a court will rule. Which scares me no end.
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Most civil law suits settle, precisely because the lawyers usually have a pretty good idea of how good their cases are.
 
I'm just going to re-write the dialogue, though the actual situation/moment is still right out of Family Guy, or at least has already been done by them, if not done prior by someone else I'm not aware of.

As far as I know, you can't protect a "situation", otherwise we'd never have another car blow up from it's gas tank being shot, or some gal asking of there's something in the guy's pocket, of if they're happy to see them, etc.

Oh, and this isn't my first short film (as you can see in my signature), just my first comedy. My focus is not about my comedic writing, but instead about using it as a calling card for Producing & Directing.
 
Jockomo said:
Lawyer cost money, for both you and the people who want to sue you. Unless you are making money from this, they won't bother with anything more than to ask you to take it off the internet, and that is if they happen to see it and for some reason think it is worth their time. So I doubt you have to worry about being sued.
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Are you willing to bet your house on that?

Whether you're doing this for profit or not is irrelevant. Look at the RIAA lawsuits. People are getting hit with thousands of dollars for a few songs. And Family Guy is Fox, so they the deep pockets to have lawyers on staff just for this reason.

Now in reality, you probably wouldn't get sued. But is the the risk worth the reward? Better to get a lawyer's advice, or better yet, do what you're doing Norm and reach out for permission. They probably might even give it to you, and appreciate the fact that you asked.
 
Norm Sanders said:
Oh, and this isn't my first short film (as you can see in my signature), just my first comedy. My focus is not about my comedic writing, but instead about using it as a calling card for Producing & Directing.
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if you are using this as a calling card, then i would drop the family guy lines.
you don't want someone to recognize the dialogue and think you're a hack.
 
....But... Family Guy steals from EVERYONE!
Look at any show and it's bound to be a parody of something else, if not multiple things.
Do you think they would really mind if you stole from them? Probably not.
Perhaps rewriting the dialog so that it can qualify as parody/ satire is a good idea though. Better safe than sued.
 
Ha, you're right, they DO steal from everyone, lol. In fact, I remember one of their episodes saying "We expect to hear from your lawyers soon". :)

I can rewrite the lines enough to where it's my own, though the situation is exactly the same ... but again, a "situation" can't be protected, or else there would never be another bank robbery, adultry, or whatever else is always shown over & over again in films.
 
I remember a tweet on twitter once that I think came from Zak reporting from a seminar from a filmmaker. He reported that the fellow said that you should worry more about breaking yourself out of obscurity than copyright infringement.
 
Certainly not templated, just one joke that is the same as one in Family Guy.

So what do you think needs to be changed, so that there's no question of violation (just looking for opinions here, not seeking legal advice)? Just re-wording the dialogue?
 
?? Maybe I've made this seem bigger than it is? Out of the entire script (20 pages), this joke, which is the only thing that mirrors Family Guy, takes up 1/4 of one page, at tops. So I guess of a percentage was to be drawn, it would be around 1 or 2% of the script??
 
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