Can You Own A Basic Story Idea?

from the someone-owes-Shakespeare-lots-of-money dept

Wed, Mar 21st 2007 12:36am — Mike Masnick

Plenty of folks seem to be rethinking the ideas surrounding ownership -- especially when it comes to story ideas. After all, there really aren't that many "unique" story lines out there (just ask Shakespeare). Yet, in this world where all we hear about is the importance of "intellectual property" and protecting that property, is it any surprise that people tend to try to hang onto ownership of very basic story ideas as well? While it's not quite as bad as the case of the guy trying to patent a basic story line, apparently some artists are upset at the NBC show Heroes after a character in that show could "paint the future," which was an idea that the artists had used in a short story, series of paintings and short film for an art exhibit. Of course, this hardly seems like a particularly unique idea. There have been stories since pretty much the beginning of story telling about people who could tell the future in one form or another -- and using paintings to do so hardly seems like such a huge derivation that it requires some kind of special protection. In fact, to some extent, you have to wonder if the artists aren't using this just a bit as a reverse Streisand Effect, to get more attention for their own artwork.

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18 Comments

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Peet McKimmie (profile), 21 Mar 2007 @ 3:19am

Is a "reverse Streisand Effect" where the more you repeat an idea, the less people are interested in it? I thought that was called TV advertising.

(First?)
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Evostick, 21 Mar 2007 @ 3:46am

The "Basic" Plots in Literature
There are only 7 (or 5, 20, 36, 37...) basic plots

http://www.ipl.org.ar/ref/QUE/FARQ/plotFARQ.html
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Nasty Old Geezer, 21 Mar 2007 @ 5:08am

Paint the future
Hmmm -- I can't recall the name of the novel I read 20+ years ago, but one of the major plot elements was a painter working on a huge mural. It turned out to be a painting of the main character's future, but he didn't know it. Just thought it was some crazy old man, and let the painting be destroyed.

There really are only a few basic stories and this is not one of them -- it is derivative of much earlier stuff. One of the features of being and writing about humans. The value is in telling a familiar story well, and giving a fresh insight in current terms and situations.
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|333173|3|_||3, 21 Mar 2007 @ 6:08am

prior art
where is he estate of the first person to tell a story about a person able to see the fututre but not recognise wht it is he is seeing?
Oh, they were so long ago thatt he idea is no longer copyrightable. Well, the term of copyright obviously neds to be retroactively extended to five thousand years (or better still, 6011 years) so that any idea can be covered. Then the Publishing society of America need to sue everyone on behalf of the long-dead original authours for stealing thier IP.
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Overcast, 21 Mar 2007 @ 6:48am

True |333173|3|_||3,

If they have been used in the past - then they should clearly be a part of the public domain.

The greed of some people is simply astounding anymore. They run out of ideas because they are idiots, and start suing people.
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TheDock22, 21 Mar 2007 @ 7:52am

Not so sure...
I mean, if he can prove no one else before him came up with the idea then maybe he has a case, since the short stories would be copyrighted if he had them published. This will be an interesting case.

It is not like I would be able to go out a right a novel about a young boy wizard who finds out his parents were killed by an evil wizard and so he must go to school to learn about magic to have a chance at defeating him, now would I?
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Jesse McNelis, 21 Mar 2007 @ 10:13am

Re: Not so sure...
Nope, but you could write a story about a young wizard whom goes to school and whom's parents died in a train crash.

Nobody could sue you for that.

Painting the future is fairly broard, just like a young wizard
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Mar 2007 @ 10:28am

The patent system is so arbitrary, it is fruitless to ask these questions.

Can something be patented? Try it and see. At this point, it says nothing illuminating about the fundamental nature of the thing.
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Comics, 21 Mar 2007 @ 11:23am

DC Comics sued Marvel for the character "Captain Marvel" whom you may know as Shazaam saying that he was too much like superman. They won. DC Comics now owns Superman. If you look at the 2, they are very different.
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Howard Plumley, 21 Mar 2007 @ 11:41am

Stupidity = Greed = Bad Business
A Frenchman (c.1916) published a study showing there were only 37 dramatic plots (storylines). 300 years earlier Shakespeare had complained of only three dozen good stories, when critics ragged about his reuse of classic (historical) stories. It is NOT the storyline that is unique, it is the characterization. Nora Roberts has written dozens books with the same storyline. We read them for the characters and their interaction. People who try to exclude competition with patents and copyright wrongly applied, desrerve contempt and empty pockets.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Mar 2007 @ 11:48am

Re: Captain Marvel/Shazam
Captain Marvel (aka Shazam) was published by long-defunct Fawcett Comics. Marvel Comics has an unrelated character by the same name. There has never been a dispute involving him, and he is still a character in the Marvel Universe.
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DV Henkel-Wallace, 21 Mar 2007 @ 12:29pm

Re: Paint the future
I can't recall the name ... but one of the major plot elements was a painter working on a huge mural. It turned out to be a painting of the main character's future...
Perhaps you're thinking of the Μοιραι...
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Comics, 21 Mar 2007 @ 3:13pm

Re: Captain Marvel/Shazam
Captain Marvel is part of the Justice League which is DC comics. I didnt mention all of the details, but Fawcett Comics pretty much later became Marvel.

Due to the similarity of Captain Marvel to Superman, National Comics Publications (now DC Comics) sued Fawcett Comics for copyright infringement of intellectual property in 1941. After seven years of litigation, the National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications case went to trials court in 1948. The initial 1951 verdict was decided in Fawcett's favor. Although the judge decided that Captain Marvel was an infringement, DC was found to be negligent in copyrighting several of their Superman daily newspaper strips, and it was decided that DC had abandoned the Superman copyright.[1] DC appealed this decision, and Judge Learned Hand declared in 1952 that DC's Superman copyright was in fact valid. Feeling that a decline in the popularity of superhero comics meant that it was no longer worth continuing the fight.[3] Fawcett shut down its comics division in the autumn of 1953, laid off its comic-creating staff, and paid DC $400,000 in damages.
DC Comics then bought the rights to Captain Marvel.
Because Marvel Comics trademarked their Captain Marvel comic book during the interim between the original Captain Marvel's Fawcett years and DC years, DC Comics is unable to promote and market their Captain Marvel/Marvel Family properties under that name. Since 1972, DC has instead used the trademark Shazam! as the title of their comic books and thus the name under which they market and promote the character. Consequently, Captain Marvel himself is sometimes erroneously referred to as "Shazam."

Source: the somewhat reliable wikipedia
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Comics, 21 Mar 2007 @ 3:23pm

ok 2 differnet captain marvels...
Ok, my comments about Marvel comics was wrong. I did not realize that there were 2 different captain Marvels. Nevertheless, the real Captain Marvel was Fawcett Comics who lost a HUGE lawsuit in the 60s to DC comics. The amount was for $400,000 in the 60's which is about 2 billion today adjusted to inflation.

The story of Captain Marvel was not similar at all to the story of Superman. The idea of a flying superhero with a cape is the only similarity. Fawcett comics still lost the lawsuit which drove them to shut down the most successful comic at that time.

Inflation calculator:
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Mar 2007 @ 3:24pm

2 million... Still a lot.
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Ben D. Manevitz, 21 Mar 2007 @ 6:51pm

Storyline Patents
I think it's not totally inappropriate here to point to my blog entry about storyline patents which points to my article about storyline patents.

I don't think the Heroes issue discussed here, though, is the same thing. The Storyline Patent idea is for locking up plots at a much more general and preclusive level than has ever been (or rightly should be) considered by courts or legislatures. The instant claim is - or at least seems to be at first blush - about a straightforward claim of infringement of a sufficiently realized character.

I'll have to go investigate the actual claims and complaint to say that with any certainty, but that's what it sounds like.

--BDM
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BELOT, 3 Jun 2007 @ 3:20am

futere telling paintings
It happened and happens to me whole the time.
Anything I paint has to do with the future.
Visit my site: www.futuretelling.blogspot.com
BELOT
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Jake, 20 Jul 2013 @ 11:19pm

quote from #14 comics above:

"The story of Captain Marvel was not similar at all to the story of Superman. The idea of a flying superhero with a cape is the only similarity. Fawcett comics still lost the lawsuit which drove them to shut down the most successful comic at that time."

Actually if you read the lawsuit and the history Captain Marvel (shazam) was flying BEFORE Superman had that ability. In the early comics Superman could only leap very far. In one 1940s cover NAZis are looking through a sub scope to a SWIMMING superman who is coming at them (he could not fly over the ocean).

coverbrowser.com/covers/superman#i23
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