Can You Own The Story Of A Band?
from the isn't-copyright-grand? dept
Here's a question for you: can someone own the copyright on the history of a musical group? We may find out as a lawsuit moves forward concerning the "ownership" of the story of a famous band. As you may know, there's been a popular musical called Jersey Boys about the history of the musical group The Four Seasons -- and now there's the inevitable argument over who gets to earn money from that musical.The person suing is the widow of a lawyer/writer, Rex Woodard, and she's suing all of the band members, with a specific focus on Thomas Gatano DeVito. Woodard's husband knew the members of The Four Seasons and co-wrote a manuscript biography of DeVito. A copy of the manuscript with a copyright notice naming both Woodard and DeVito as authors of the biography was registered at the Copyright Office. However, the book itself was never published. Soon after the writing was completed, Woodard died. During the time Woodard was sick, apparently DeVito submitted a copy of the work to the Copyright Office again -- without Woodard's name on it. After Woodard died, totally unaware of DeVito's separate registration, Woodard's wife continued shopping the manuscript, but was unable to find a publisher.
The problem is that the Jersey Boys musical was apparently based partly on this unpublished manuscript, which would make the musical a derivative work. Various folks involved in the musical claim they derived inspiration from reading the manuscript. And, of course, Woodard's widow now wants the royalties from the successful musical. The complaint itself is long and detailed, but it does come back to a pretty basic question: should the story of a band be owned by someone? As we've noted in the past, movie studios often "buy" the rights to news stories for movies, even though there's no legal basis for it (you can't copyright "facts" and so a news story can't be owned by anyone). In theory, shouldn't the same thing be true concerning the story of a band and the various anecdotes of what happened to the band and its members?
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Filed Under: band, copyright, four seasons, jersey boys, ownership, rex woodard, story, thomas devito
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Fact
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Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
In short, if it is plagerism there; it is copyright infringment here. (Assuming that of course the copyright is still valid)
You can say copyright is stupid all you want but when you use someone else's work, they should be given the proper credit for it. In academia it is just inclusion of the information. In the real world where someone is making money off the work, it is financial. But in both cases it is the same principle.
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Re: Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
How?
In short, if it is plagerism there; it is copyright infringment here.
Um, no. Plagiarism and copyright are two separate things. Copyright has nothing to do with "credit."
You can say copyright is stupid all you want but when you use someone else's work, they should be given the proper credit for it.
That has nothing to do with copyright.
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Re: Re: Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
So you are telling me that if I take someone else's work in either case, it is not the same? One is plagerism, the other copyright infringment; but both boil down to the same thing. Co-opting someone else's work for your own gain.
Explain how you don't see this?
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Re: Re: Re: Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
Explain how you don't see this?"
Actually, you don't see it correctly.
Plagiarism (not plagerism) is defined as the act of stealing literary work, ideas etc. and using them as your own work.
Copyright protects the product, work, idea from being distributed or copied without authorization.
In the example you gave, you plagerised the work by not referrencing the author, but you broke copyright infringement when you published your work without the copyright holders permission.
You're comparing apples to oranges.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
Correct! Co-opting someone else's work (by which I assume you mean passing it off as your own) is plagiarism. This can occur whether or not you have the right to distribute the original work. Copyright infringement happens when you distribute a copyrighted work without permission. This can occur whether or not you attempt to claim the work as your own.
To sum up: co-opting -> plagiarism; distributing -> copyright infringement.
If this still doesn't make sense, I think someone else explained it a fifth time below.
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Re: Re: Re: Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
No, they are not the same. Copyright infringement is about making an unauthorized copy of the work. Plagiarism is about taking credit for work that was not done by you. You can do both at the same time, but they are very different animals.
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Re: Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
So? She isn't losing any money. If anything she should use the success of the musical to sell her otherwise worthless book.
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Re: Re: Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
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Re: Re: Copyright vs Plagerism in Academia
The issue is not someone trying to enforce a copyright claim on facts. The issue is that one party of a co-authorship (if that's even a word) is not being paid for the use of that book. Woodward and DeVito co-wrote the biography. DeVito sold rights to, and is being compensated for, the use of that book as a basis for the musical, but without acknowledging Woodward as a part of it. The "otherwise worthless book" is in fact the book for which DeVito is currently being paid.
I'm not sure why Mrs Woodward is suing the Four Seasons or the producers of Jersy Boys; it really seems like DeVito is the party who acted fraudulently, or at least in bad faith. She should take half of his cut and not involve the other creative parties at all.
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Missing the Point?
If the authors of the play never saw the work in question there's no problem. But they did and they admit using it to write the play (if the facts are as stated) And that does open up the issue of copyright infringement.
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Re: Missing the Point?
A biography is, almost by definition, an expression of the facts -- for example, determining what events mattered, what to include, what to leave out -- and requires actual work such as interviews or other original research. If they used that, she deserves a share of whatever money the derivative work makes. To argue otherwise makes as much sense as saying that she should be free to put on her own production of their musical -- after all, nobody owns the story, right?
I find Techdirt really interesting and thought-provoking about 80% of the time. But there are occasions where it is so hung up over copyright, it posts something just plain silly -- like this.
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facts and copyright
the story of some1s life or in this case of a band are also facts.
if the musical is successful its not because its based on the facts in question but because of how those facts were interpreted and presented.
so unless the widow can prove the musical is what her husband wrote (therefore stolen) she should have no case.
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re: Missing the Point
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Review
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You already know . . .
"As we've noted in the past, movie studios often "buy" the rights to news stories for movies, even though there's no legal basis for it (you can't copyright "facts" and so a news story can't be owned by anyone). In theory, shouldn't the same thing be true concerning the story of a band and the various anecdotes of what happened to the band and its members?"
Becuase the entertainment industry has historically "paid", people assume thier is money to be made . . . . money for nuthin.
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Copyright
Past that, it just remains to be seen how much of the musical is based on the manuscript.
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While you can't copyright facts, you can copyright the particular expression of facts. This particular case, if the allegations in the complaint are true, seems pretty straightforward: DeVito had an agreement with Woodward about the book that Woodward wrote, but registered a copyright in his name only and then licensed derivative works based on that book to the play's producers. It's that document trail that seems damning.
As for studios buying rights to a news story, there are other issues beyond copyright--including forms of invasion of privacy and right of publicity--that make it easier and ultimately cheaper for them to pay for the rights.
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It's a good start...
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Emphasis mine. Is it just me, or does that sound a bit shady? Doubly so when you consider that DeVito apparently cut Woodward out of the picture whilst he was still alive, presumably without his knowledge or consent. The information might be an infinite good, but the time and effort involved in assembling it in this particular way is not, and it seems to me that Woodward should have had some say in what happened to his share of the proceeds from it in the event of his death. And DeVito's apparent attempt to pass off a joint project as his work alone is, at best, unseemly.
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It depends
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Let's see, who else has money?
MONEY.
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Re: Let's see, who else has money?
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Amazon ordered to pay RIAA $4 Gazillion for Copyrighted Track Lists
For that matter, if you can copyright a band's story then why not anyone's story? What's to stop you from copyrighting your own biography, or that of any distant relative, and thus preventing anyone else from writing anything about you. If you're the 165th great-great-2nd-cousin-once-removed of George Washington's brother in law then what's to stop you from saying he was a total dunce who founded Canada then died at the age of 12 and then copyrighting that as his biography, preventing anyone else from mentioning anything beyond his name at all?
I guess my point is that this is one of those cases where the slippery slope effect should be VERY heavily and thoroughly thought out. If you can copyright a band's history there is no limit to what you can claim the sole right to print over, and freedom of the press ceases to exist as we know it outright. Do we really want to give that freedom up in exchange for a few extra bucks from a Broadway show? Are our basic unalienable rights for sale that cheaply? Think about it.
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Re: Amazon ordered to pay RIAA $4 Gazillion for Copyrighted Track Lists
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