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#1 | ||
Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 847
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![]() I'm guessing he's the first writer or director to address the issue pertaining to their own work?
It probably helps he's no longer working inside the Hollywood system! This is his response after a "copyright complaint" was issued against Sheridan Cleland and his site -- Quote:
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#2 |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 3,581
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![]() The thing is it's not his anymore, he sold it.
If I sell a short story, the rights are bought for a limited time (usually a year), and I can't publish that story anywhere else. My guess is that Universal bought the script outright so they own the rights outright. It's theirs to do with as they please. Not Cox's. Having said that, I don't know why studios can't come to some kind of agreement with authors about having their screenplays available online via a personal website. HH |
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#3 |
Guest
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 360
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![]() Who has the right to publish the screenplay in book form?
Is that part of the WGA's separation of rights? If not, should it be? Especially now that writers can self-publish for kindle so easily? |
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#4 |
Member
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Cocoa Beach, Florida
Posts: 807
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![]() What's weird about it to me is that the movies have been made and the script, by definition, then has no resale value, since remakes typically involve a new take on the old story by a new writer. If it was a matter of scripts by pros/sold writers that had NOT been produced yet, the policy would sort of make sense, in that the studios would in effect be protecting their investment with the hope that someday when the stars aligned, the movie would get made. But otherwise, it just seems irrational. And it's NOT a new issue. Raymond Chandler once commented on the fact there was no library of movie scripts available because the studios owned them and would not allow it. And that was 60 years ago.
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#5 |
Regular
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 373
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![]() It is part of the MBA. It's one of the explicitly enumerated rights within separated rights. The writer retains the right to publish the screenplay in book form, which surely includes publishing it as a PDF on a web site.
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#6 |
Member
Join Date: May 2005
Location: studio city
Posts: 5,940
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![]() The full blog entry on MY PDF SCRIPTS cited in this second hand article lists several other writers who have "donated" their screenplays to his website, only to have the studio's legal department demand they be taken down.
As I said in some other thread on this - it's really short sighted in the part of the studios, because it's killing new screenwriters and new material. I learned how to write screenplays by reading them - I think almost everyone does. Take away the ability to read screenplays and you have no new screenwriters. If the studios want to control the screenplays, they need to begin selling them *in screenplay form* rather than books where you have no idea of pagination and the script is the heavily rewritten shooting script rather than the version that sold. A new writer needs to see what a screenplay really looks like, not the studio's "safe" version. So studios need to set up a way to sell their scripts. This policy will kill the film business. - Bill |
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#7 | |
Guest
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 360
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![]() Quote:
I wonder what the studios would do if all screenwriters suddenly self-published for Kindle. It'd be awesome to have access to so many scripts. |
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#8 |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2011
Posts: 1,194
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![]() Better start grabbing what you can now. Sites with screenplays are dropping fast.
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__________________
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue
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#9 |
Member
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Scotland
Posts: 1,391
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![]() I'm pretty sure the reason for not even wanting the public to have access to produced scripts, is a sinister conspiracy perpetrated by the studios at the behest of directors and producers, so that no one can see how they ruin good scripts.
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"Only nothing is impossible." — Grant Morrison |
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#10 |
Member
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Mars
Posts: 3,427
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![]() Yeah, it sucks.
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http://www.pjmcilvaine.com/ |
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