I have a legal question about my script

Tracey Lee

Tracey Lee

Well-known member
How far can you go before you are considered stealing ideas from other stories or films?

I mean, if I put the Wolfman or Frankestein in my film no one will say anything, but what if I want to take a couple of ideas from a book I like? Where is the line?

Thanks for your help!
 
That question can't really be answered. Legally there's a line, Morally there's a line, and creatively there's a line. I'd say if it's obviously recognizable where you got your ideas... people will say you stole it. If you can do it in a way that seems new, who cares where you got it. We all take inspiration from various things so thats no different from using a specific source for inspiration. Maybe in your credits you could give a shout out to the author of the book as adding to your creative vision.

Be original but you don't have to re-invent the wheel. Progress is progress. Just make sure the work is YOURS not THEIRS.
 
octopi_films said:
How far can you go before you are considered stealing ideas from other stories or films?

I mean, if I put the Wolfman or Frankestein in my film no one will say anything, but what if I want to take a couple of ideas from a book I like? Where is the line?

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...


Frankenstein is a literary figure from a book that is in the Publid Domain. Wolfman has been the subject of a number of movies, and is based on the 'werewolf' legends, and with a number of Public Domain sources.

If you make 'your' Wolfman look like one of the toys/films you could run aground, but the concept and perhaps some number of 'storylines' there's enough to get from the PD sources, to not worry about an infringement.
 
Ideas are not copyrightable, but the expression of an idea is.

For example, look at Twilight -- a story about a family of unconventional vampires, and the mindreading son takes an abnormal fascination with a homely girl because he can't read her mind and can't figure her out. Should sound very familiar to any fan of Terry Pratchett's work, since that's the basis for his Carpe Jugulum. But even though the ideas are very similar (and I wouldn't be surprised if Meyer was a fan of Pratchett and may have been subconsciously influenced by it) the resulting stories are extremely dissimilar. There are just some ideas in common.

Orson Scott Card has pointed out how very similar the Harry Potter books are to his own Ender's Game. Same thing -- nobody, on the surface, would say that Harry Potter is a retread of Ender's Game, but the basic story ideas are there enough for him to make the comparison.

Ideas are ideas. It's what you do with the idea that counts. For a really, really comical version of how this plays out, read James Cameron's Avatar = Pocahontas.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/04/avatar-pocahontas-in-spac_n_410538.html

Now, clearly, Avatar is an entirely and completely different movie from Pocahontas, even though (according to the post above) the plotline is so similar that it's eerie.

So I guess the question goes: are you inspired by an idea? Or are you intending to "steal" an idea? Because ideas are ideas, they aren't property, but if you are just planning on taking someone else's characters or ideas, that's not appropriate at all of course.
 
Universal Studios owns *their version* of Frankenstein's monster and The Wolf Man (the specific werewolf character).

There was a huge legal issue in making GODS AND MONSTERS because they used the Universal version of Frankenstein's monster. Money changed hands before they made the movie.

You can do an *original* version of Frankenstein's monster without any problem - there's a movie called MR. STITCH about Frankenstein's monster, and the Darabont version with Robert DeNiro as the monster. Neither looks like the Universal version.

You can do any werewolf movie you want - as long as the werewolf is not the same one from some other movie. That would be theft.

Basically, any specific character from another movie you can not use (unless the source material is in public domain, and then you can only use what is in the source material). But a type of character is fair game.

- Bill
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top