The Ridiculousness Of Copyright Clearances: Fight Club Producers Had To Pay Off Marla Singer?
from the the-first-rule-of-copyright-clearance:-you-don't-talk-about-copyright-cleara dept
Last August, we wrote about the sheer insanity that movie makers need to go through to make sure no "unauthorized" brands appear in a movie. The process of clearing every single right is mind-boggling, and appears to serve only one purpose: to transfer money from creators to lawyers. I'm reminded of the massive spreadsheet Brett Gaylor showed when he discussed his movie, and the process of trying to secure insurance for it. It went on and on and on and listed every single thing in the movie, and whether it was cleared or not. The more you learn about this stuff, the more ridiculous it seems.Ry Jones writes in to let us know that he transcribed a part of the Fight Club Director's commentary by David Fincher, where he discusses the insanity of rights clearance for that movie. He mainly discusses two key points, both of which seem ridiculous. First, with the character of Marla Singer, they had to do a search and find out if there are real Marla Singers who might be upset and claim that the movie is about them. If there are lots of Marla Singers, no problem, since they can just say "hey, not you." But if there's one, then it becomes an issue. Guess what?
There's only one Marla Singer in the continental United States, in Illinois somewhere, of course, as soon as attorneys get involved, the whole thing gets completely fucked up. Somebody called her and told her there's this book, and we're making a movie based on this character that had her name. All of a sudden, her attorneys are calling and we have to pay this person off.On top of that, they had wanted to base the movie in Wilmington, Delaware, which is where the book takes place. But, apparently, that would require all sorts of rights clearances as well, to the point that they weren't even able to show the Delaware state flag because it would require a new set of rights clearances. How does this make any sense at all? Unlike the Aboriginal flag of Australia, the state flag of Delaware certainly should not be covered by copyright, and it makes little sense that there would be any requirement at all for clearing the rights. If the book can take place in Wilmington, Delaware without rights clearances, why can't a movie?
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Filed Under: clearance, copyright, david fincher, fight club
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Oops fixed.
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Best "dept." subheader ever
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I'm sure he'll also tell us how the massive amount of expensive work involved in just getting this project off the ground as a result helps the industry, despite creating an artificially high barrier to entry for newcomers and inflating the costs of even established studio productions.
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Fighting terrorism
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Re: Fighting terrorism
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Not lawyers
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Hmmm.
"I want to have your abortion."?
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Re: Hmmm.
I wouldn't think its the same girl except
that she lists fight club second in her
favorite movies list and a casual look
at her page seems to indicate that she
is exactly the kind of self absorbed waste
of space that you would expect to raise
a stink about the use of her name.
On the other hand maybe she likes the movie
because she shares her name with a character
and I totally misjudged her.
That could happen...
Colg
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Re: Hmmm.
That was the line from the book, replaced in the movie with: "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school"
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All this is the result of people refusing to just apply common sense and unwilling to pay to defend frivolous lawsuits.
As a result of this general pussiness, everyone and his mother thinks he has the right to be paid for every last little thing, and the chickenshit companies who just want o avoid trouble end up paying far more than they would need to overall.
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jhn, you are a moron. The so called "pussiness" has nothing to do with this. You either stay in business and cover your ass or "stand tall" and go bankrupt fighting stupid lawsuits. Unfortunately only one of those is a viable type of business model.
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We need to find a way to make money less relevant to the outcome of court cases and then you'll see crap like this start to disappear.
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That's not screwed up, that's the way it's supposed to be. How else are lawyers supposed to get rich?
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watch lists, anyone?
The difference is "we might get sued" versus rendition and eventual torture.
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Rights, rights! Who's got the rights?!
Ok. Time to kill all the lawyers. That has the nice side-effect of getting rid of most of the politicians as well...
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Re: Rights, rights! Who's got the rights?!
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Disclaimer
and wouldn't that clear this all up? I'm confused.
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The movie, while fantastic, isn't half of what Chuck Palahniuk's book is.
"Also Tyler Durden needs to blow up the lawyers."
That isn't the way he'd do it. Rather, he would indoctrinate the lawyers into Fight Club, and then Project Mayhem, using the system's own resources to bring said system down.
It's a modern depiction of what Marx's working man's revolution might look like....
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+1, Although in the book I never really understood what our narrator would have been doing on a nude beach...just doesn't seem the type.
"It's a modern depiction of what Marx's working man's revolution might look like...."
The Marx Brothers leading a revolution would look kinda funny...
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That's probably more to do with your coupling the Narrator and Edward Norton in your mind. Just guessing, but did you see the movie first and read the book after? Because Edward Norton does not even come CLOSE to representing the Narrator from the book, who was a mildly sadistic sociopath, and his suffering from insomnia caused him to contemplate and enjoy the suffering of others.
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Live by the sword...
For people in the movie industry to complain about copyright when it hinders *them* is just ridiculous.
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Marla?
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So what about Tom Hanks' Cast Away?
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So what about Tom Hanks' Cast Away?
No frame-by-frame vetting of the movie occurred.
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Y'all crazy
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1. Having been created in 1913 and openly displayed to the public without a notice of copyright, the flag would enjoy no copyright protection. Moreover, even if it had included such a notice, all published works prior to 1923 are within the public domain.
2. What about a trademark? A non-starter. Federal, state and municipal flags are specifically exempt from any protection under federal trademark law.
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Brad Pit is a magnet.
In the link there is other stories like the batman forever film that got sued because of a piece of architectural art(the original artist lost this one) and how a judge found that the word Kryptonite is part of the recipe for superman LoL
Well the entertaiment world is a litigious world.
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AWESOME MUSIC
The artist and I own the masters so licensing will be eee-zeee...
Everything doesn't have to be difficile...
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