Why Buy Movie Rights From Newspapers?
from the misunderstanding-copyrights? dept
It's no secret that many people have trouble understanding intellectual property law. It's quite common for us to see situations where people get mixed up about the differences between patents, trademarks and copyrights. What it usually comes down to, though, are people who want to claim ownership over as much as they can. With patents, we see this in obvious claims being granted. With trademarks, it's often about companies wanting to believe they have complete control over the use of their brand -- rather than just in situations where it would cause confusion. With copyrights, it's most often seen in attempts to copyright facts. Sometimes, people just like to claim control for the hell of it -- such as the recent case accusing Dan Brown of "stealing" the idea for his novel from a work of discredited non-fiction. Copyright is just designed to protect the specific work -- not the idea behind it. It's certainly not designed to give anyone ownership of facts. With that in mind, Tim Wu (guest blogging at Larry Lessig's site) is wondering why a movie studio would purchase the "rights" to a particular news story. Apparently, it happens all the time -- though, as Wu points out, the newspaper has no real ownership over the story, just the specific writeup they did. The facts of the story are facts -- and could be used by anyone to create a movie without having to pay the newspaper. Is it just a case of the movie studios misunderstanding copyrights? Wu has a few ideas, but is looking for more suggestions. His idea is that it's not particularly expensive and it could help prevent a bogus lawsuit (even if that lawsuit would get thrown out). His second thought was that it's a signaling method. Studios may use the purchase of "rights" to let other studios know that they're making a film based on that story, and others should stay away. The movie studios themselves would probably claim that it's to demonstrate how much they support intellectual property -- but many would suggest the idea of Hollywood doing much on moral grounds seems unlikely. Anyone else have any suggestions?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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talking point for agents
It's also a pity the lawyers made them cut the scene with the custom volume control that went to 11.
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Could it be a fake news story?
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Just think how rich
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Actually, it's understandable
In addition, there are other bits to be gained. Certain news publications present some unique perspectives, as can be seen from the old Fisher/Buttafucco story (there are at least three sides to the story: Amy's, Joey's, and his wife's). Different movie studios can purchase the "news" story from various sources and can come up with completely different stories.
I think it's more of a perpetuation of the Great Media Hype that comes along with our nation's attention deficit disorder (Who remembers Amy Fisher nowadays?). Make the movie, make it quickly to cash in on the notoriety, and reap in the rewards.
Studios don't really mind if there is competition for a particular story. They'll just say that theirs is the first to come out, theirs is the Definitive Version of the story, or they'll tell the movie goers see both/all of the versions to make their own decision.
It was obvious that 9/11 was going to be made into a movie. I'd be surprised if the "Missing White Student in the Carribean" story doesn't get made pretty soon, as Fox "News" has been hawking that one for quite a while.
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Movie Rights
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Ripper
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A Bribe?
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movie rights
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Scaring People
That's the nature of cease and desist letters - they announce the "ownership" of something and declare a private conclusion with regard to someone else's activities, just to get them to stop. The veracity of cease and desist claims that chill creative expression or otherwise legitimate use of IP, very often do not get tested.
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