In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

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  • In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

    This one just may have a case:

    http://www.tmz.com/2013/10/28/justin...ime-time-card/
    "I ask every producer I meet if they need TV specs they say yeah. They all want a 40 inch display that's 1080p and 120Hz. So, I quit my job at the West Hollywood Best Buy."
    - Screenwriting Friend

  • #2
    Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

    I was hugely disappointed by the slipshod execution of "IN TIME," partly because the concept of the movie seemed a direct lift from a short story that I wrote many years ago -- which got a personal rejection slip (via the old GALAXY MAGAZINE) from Judy Lynn del Rey (!!!).

    In my story: Everyone's immortal, but births are still allowed, ergo something has to give. The solution? Give everybody seventy years when they're born, then set up a bunch of competing programs for "investing" their time. Ultimately, most people end up at a casino -- which is where the story is set, and where they get to gamble their time away, in a last ditch (usually failing) attempt to recoup lost time.

    The twist? A man figures out a way to break the casino, but his planned robbery of millions of years of time is highjacked by terrorists and (down ending!) he gets vaporized at the end, while the terrorists go on to become world dictators.

    If you've seen the movie, you can see the resemblance, down to the plot twist of the protag "breaking the bank" (or, in my story, having the means for breaking the bank stolen from him).

    Do I think my story hibernated away over a couple of decades, before emerging as Lappas' script? No. Some ideas, once you get started with them, unfold in a fairly predictable way. Which was and is perhaps the reason why my story didn't sell, Lappas' script didn't get produced, and the movie, which followed a similarly predictable track, was a flop....

    Unfortunately for Lappas and myself -- even if someone did use a crib sheet on our work, there is no copyright, in America, on ideas. If Lappas does get any kind of recompense, it'll be because the paper trail he manages to establish between himself and the producer/directors of the flick leads to a payoff simply to get him out their hair, and nothing else.
    Last edited by Max Otto Schrenck; 10-30-2013, 02:31 PM. Reason: add on

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    • #3
      Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

      Harlan Ellison also tried to sue the producers/studio on this one. Said it was based on a short story he wrote.

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      • #4
        Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

        Ellison's "REPENT, HARLEQUIN!" SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN was written in 1965, and is kinda famous because it won both Hugo and Nebula awards for that year. Ellison dropped his suit after seeing the movie... I suspect something mau have happened behind the scenes.

        When I first saw the trailer for IN TIME, I thought it was an adaptation of this story.

        Bill
        Free Script Tips:
        http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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        • #5
          Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

          There's at least four other stories with the exact same premise as In Time, including The Price of Life and Time is Money. You can't copyright an idea, correct. But Lappa is arguing Fox ripped off his SCRIPT, not the underlying concept. There's a big difference.

          If his script had strikingly similar characters, setting, plot, individual elements etc., than he has a legitamite case. But if it's just another world where one's time is controlled, that's not good enough.

          This brings to mind the Avatar lawsuit. Specifically, the gray area between what is consided general and specific ideas. What Cameron's advocates are saying is that "A military-industrial Earth mining crew lead by an evil mercenary general ravaging an edenic alien world where a human marine befriends said aliens and battles to save them" is an idea that can't be copyrighted anymore than "A lawyer who can't tell a lie."

          But why not go furthur. Why not argue that "A farm boy who's father was killed by a space lord teams up with the Lord's old mentor, a space pirate, two robots, and a hairy beast to blow up the Lord's death station while saving a princess" is also an uncopyrightable idea?
          I'm never wrong. Reality is just stubborn.

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          • #6
            Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

            It's all about execution baby!!
            The Best Impersonation of Christian Bale Freak Out!!

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd5631H6KuE

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            • #7
              Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

              Originally posted by FoxHound View Post
              There's at least four other stories with the exact same premise as In Time, including The Price of Life and Time is Money. You can't copyright an idea, correct. But Lappa is arguing Fox ripped off his SCRIPT, not the underlying concept. There's a big difference.

              If his script had strikingly similar characters, setting, plot, individual elements etc., than he has a legitamite case. But if it's just another world where one's time is controlled, that's not good enough.
              Actually, he's claiming they ripped off his synopsis.
              "I was dreamin' when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray." - Prince

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              • #8
                Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

                Unfortunately for Lappas and myself -- even if someone did use a crib sheet on our work, there is no copyright, in America, on ideas.
                No, there is not, thank god.

                If you could copyright ideas, it would be the end of all writing. In the last ninety years a zillion scripts and pulp novels have been published or circulated that at least touch on every scenario closely enough that someone or someone's heirs could always scream, "You stole my idea!"

                (I mention ninety years because that is roughly the number of years that you have to go back to make sure that something is not still under copyright in the US, and even then you will find all kinds of complications.)

                If you could copyright ideas, the lawyers would benefit for a while, until the flow of creativity just stopped, but nobody else would be better off.

                "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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                • #9
                  Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

                  Originally posted by bill the scholar
                  Wow. I just read that tmz article. On the tmz page, there are many more links to articles about many more frivolous lawsuits.

                  Suddenly I feel sympathy for studios.
                  you have no idea. there is a huge faction of the paranoid who are drawn to this profession. and it seems in general, the less experienced you are and the fewer things you've executed, the more paranoid you are. we've all met these people, haven't we, with one idea, certain it will be ripped off.

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                  • #10
                    Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

                    A few weeks ago my Landlord asked me to read something his daughter's boyfriend wrote. I've never met the guy and was trying to find a way out of this situation when my landlord added "although he's worried someone's going to steal his ideas." And I was like "Yeah, no... no thanks..."

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                    • #11
                      Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

                      Originally posted by holly View Post
                      you have no idea. there is a huge faction of the paranoid who are drawn to this profession. and it seems in general, the less experienced you are and the fewer things you've executed, the more paranoid you are. we've all met these people, haven't we, with one idea, certain it will be ripped off.
                      That would make a good Screenwriters' Sermonette. I'd change one word. Not "a huge faction of the paranoid...drawn to this profession," but "a huge faction of newbies (are) drawn to this profession."

                      Because it's the short in teeth who seem most jealous of "their rights," and most likely to go on the attack at the slightest chance that someone might have read their work (a rarity) and decided to take what was good about it and leave the rest (an astronomically small chance of happening).

                      For myself, now that I've got a million ideas in my quiver, and little chance of ever writing all of them into any kind of literary form, much less screenplays, I'm happy to toss a few out there -- online, even. If anyone else can do better with them, they have my permission to give it the ole country try....

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                      • #12
                        Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

                        worrying about getting ripped off is the hallmark of a rookie.
                        its not that it doesn't happen - its bound to. but like you say, you just move on to the next project. we're the only form of writing i know of where the writers don't retain copyright of the work. its just a fact.

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                        • #13
                          Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

                          Here we go:
                          How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Tolerate Getting Ripped Off.
                          Need a collaborator? GeniusCreatives.com.

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                          • #14
                            Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

                            Let's look a little deeper for a moment than to just tar anyone who has this concern (the premise ripoff) as a clueless rookie. I think there is a definite spectrum of "reasonableness" to this fear.

                            If an "amateur" screenwriter has a script or an idea with no novelty factor or uniqueness at all in the premise---I think immediately of countless loglines I've read with bland, generic, character-driven layouts---then his/her fear that "someone might steal my idea!" is of course sort of neurotically absurd because there is no unique idea there. There might well be very unique characters in it, but come on, a premise like e.g. "Four young people take a post-graduation roadtrip searching for adventure, but find themselves" is so generic and indistinct that the fear that someone would steal it is ridiculous.

                            BUT---at the other end of the spectrum, if someone hits on that rare concept/premise that obviously will kick ass commercially whether it is "high concept" or just a very cool concept (an example that comes to mind is Buried), in my view they are right to keep that very close to the vest because whether we all like to admit it or not, those killer core concepts are the most important elements, the very core and kernel of the film story, and I believe there are people (not registered on this forum! Nay, but lurkers and also lurking the net at large) who swim the waters looking for the rare killer concept that is being foolishly dangled and exposed, like a visible wad of cash in a really bad neighborhood, by someone too slow or inexperienced to work it up first.

                            Call me a paranoid rookie if you guys like, but right now I'm working up the story for what will be my first completed feature script... and I have patiently waited and conjured and agonized, frankly, for like 20 damn years to be hit with the idea that is this clear, commercial, and grab-you-by-the-throat tense (the genre is disaster or disaster-thriller, if you like) and I would not DREAM of floating the logline or concept for it out there to the net until it's finished and I'm putting it out there, because I believe immovably (and you're all free to think me a silly newbie or whatever) that it has ultra-commercial potential that someone else would gladly snatch up (or worse, that someone else might be writing their version of already) and race me to the market with.

                            Yes, execution is extremely important, but the premise/concept is what I would call all-important.
                            Last edited by Cioccolato; 12-19-2013, 01:28 PM.

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                            • #15
                              Re: In Time Screenwriter Ripped Off

                              I don't think anybody denies that idea theft can happen. But when do you decide to take a chance and show the hand you're holding? If you're too coy or defensive about this stuff, you're liable to "get stolen from" because the pros will think you're too green, or too nutty, to worry about.

                              And what exactly is "a great idea?" To my mind, a killer concept like MOBY DICK or GONE WITH THE WIND is something you can't lose, talking about it. The execution is so wrapped up with the idea that it's unstealable.

                              Is the idea behind BURIED, or THE MATRIX, (at least the first one), or MEMENTO, or SUNSET BOULEVARD or CASABLANCA really so great by itself that you could just grab it and write your own version and it would be just as good? If that was the case, then there'd be many different versions of all great movies, and not ONE GREAT MOVIE and then all the knock-offs that no one can watch ten years later.

                              .

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