Copyright Question

R

robcg

New member
There is a non-fiction book written about a true life event that happened in 1976. The book came out in 1984 by a pretty well known book author. I have been in touch with this author to try to acquire the rights to the book but he no longer has the film rights. He sold them many years ago and I am in the process trying to figure out who exactly has these rights.

The true-life event involved 10 people. I have been in contact with one of the characters in the book and he is willing to do a documentary with me. It will involve interviews and b-roll of newspaper headlines of that time and other video as well.

He remembered signing a character waiver with the author, basically stating that everything he relayed to the author for his book was true. Maybe he signed something else but he doesn't remember. This was more than 20 years ago.

My question is this: Do you think I can freely pursue doing a documentary on this event on my own, without getting into any copyright issues with the author or the publisher? Of course I will do my own research, etc.

Second question: How about a screenplay? I know that if I can't acquire the film rights I will not be able to base my screenplay directly from the book but this is where my biggest confusion is coming from. Since this was a true life event there are only so many facts I can write about that are surely in the author's book.

It seems to me that I am freely able to write a screenplay based on the actual events and not get into trouble. I understand that if my screenplay has the same name as the author's book and everything unfolds exactly the same as in the book then it can be an issue. Is my thinking on this correct?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

- robert
 
You can't pursue the book without having the rights. You could, however, interview a person who was there during the event and develop your own story about the events.

The book author does not own the story of the events. They own their telling of it. Get someone else to tell you their side of the story and sell you the rights to their story and you should be okay. But if you base it on an existing book, and use the book's title, and an attorney could convince a jury that it's reasonable to assume that you just used the book's story, then yes you're probably in quite a bit of trouble.

So don't do that. Find someone who was there, who hasn't sold their story away, and start from scratch with them. Or, alternatively, hunt down whoever owns the film rights to the book you already have and try to make a deal with them.
 
It would be rare that the film rights were sold in perpetuity, so unless the author is still getting option payments for that option, they most likely have lapsed. If the author has an agent, they would know who has the film rights and if they are still in play or not.

usually these are done on a 1 or two year basis, then a yearly renewal until it is let go, or the film has been made at which time the rest of the contract is honored.

As Barry says - get another POV or story and work it from there - public events are based on your research if you want to start from scratch.

Michael
 
thanks for the feedback guys.

the author did tell me that he sold the film rights a long time ago. he is not being very helpful so i am in communication with the book publisher to try to figure this out.

getting the character to sell me his rights to the story is probably the best option for the screenplay. do you know where i can get a sample contract for this?

however, for the documentary i don't need to worry about any copyright issue correct? since a documentary is totally different from a book and I will be doing my own research and interviews.


- robert
 
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