using someone's research

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  • using someone's research

    In a script I recently completed one of my characters (a guy you likes weird facts) talks about some strange but true facts. The facts themselves I got from one book - though, if I'd looked hard enough they could have been found elsewhere because they are factual (I used about 5 separate facts) and the book itself is a reference book of sorts. I think though, if the author or readers of this particular work were to read the script they would be aware where I'd got the information.

    The fact themselves are not integral to the story and it is simply a case of this particular character knowing some weird **** that most other people wouldn't know.

    My question is, do I have an obligation to reference the source in some way? Should I contact the publisher/author as a courtesy? Can I use this stuff?

    Thanks.

  • #2
    Re: using someone's research

    Shouldn't be a problem, so long as you use your own words, not the author's.

    You can't copyright facts, only your interpretation or treatment of those facts.

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    • #3
      Weird Facts

      Be careful about using someone else's research. Who has checked those facts?

      Paul Thomas Anderson wrote the "Greenberry Hill" sequence in MAGNOLIA, taking the story from Fort's book, "Wild Talents"; but, he wrote it as happening in Edwardian London, (since Fort's newspaper source was dated "1911"), and failed to realize the story was about an incident in the 1670s.
      JEKYLL & CANADA (free .mp4 download @ Vimeo.com)

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      • #4
        Re: Weird Facts

        Getting facts like those wrong is part of life, so putting them in the script is not a bad idea, unless the premise depends on them being accurate to the Nth degree. Also, that makes them harder to trace to a particular book. You know how the game of "Telephone" works, and facts get disseminated much the same.
        It's not just a forest: it's a whole bunch of different trees

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        • #5
          Re: Weird Facts

          Tunguska blast of 1908

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          • #6
            Re: using someone's research

            If you're concerned about it, why not do a bit more research of your own and find another few sources for these facts?

            If you think the authors would recognize that they were the source of these facts if they saw them, then you may be using their interpretation, in which case they deserve credit.
            "Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.-
            ― Ray Bradbury

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            • #7
              Re: using someone's research

              Sometimes the question isn't, "Could someone successfully sue me," it's, "Will somebody want to try?"

              Because if authors saw five facts from their book show up in a Hollywood movie in such a way that they decided, "That writer used my book," they might be tempted to sue.

              Which would mean you'd have to spend money to defend yourself in court, and let a court decide if what you did was fair usage. A lot of trouble and expense.

              (A benefit to copyrighting your work through the US Copyright Office is that in case of a lawsuit, if you win, the other guy has to pay your legal expenses. But that also means that if the book you used is copyrighted and the courts found in favor of the writers, you'd have to pay THEIR legal expenses.)
              my webpage
              my blog

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              • #8
                Re: using someone's research

                Originally posted by pooks
                [I]f authors saw five facts from their book show up in a Hollywood movie in such a way that they decided, "That writer used my book," they might be tempted to sue.

                Which would mean you'd have to spend money to defend yourself in court, and let a court decide if what you did was fair usage. A lot of trouble and expense.
                The studio and its lawyers would assume the burden of defending the case in court, not the writer. The studio can hire some pretty expensive lawyers. Would the aggrieved author be able to match that legal firepower? It's doubtful that the publisher would want to get involved, unless it's something blatantly obvious, like ripping off the entire book.

                The fact of the matter is: Facts are facts. They are in the public domain. You only run into trouble if you use someone else's words or his/her peculiar arrangement of those facts into an argument or theory.

                The other thing to consider: How big a portion of the book are you using? Even if you were to lift something verbatim, it only starts to become a problem if the quotation is more than a paragraph or two.

                There is a series of laws and legal precedents known as "Fair Use". It may prove to be worth your time to look them up. Most university libraries will have compilations of them.

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                • #9
                  Re: using someone's research

                  That's one of the nice things about screenwriting: no bibliographies!
                  "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you"
                  "If I didn't have inner peace I'd totally go psycho on you guys all the time." - Carl Carlson

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                  • #10
                    Weird Facts

                    Originally posted by Roc Ingersol
                    Tunguska blast of 1908
                    Is that it? I wrote about that a long time ago, (INFO Journal #13), and indicated that Jackson and Ryan's "black hole" hypothesis wasn't viable according to their predictions about it, (unfortunately, "Nature" wouldn't publish my refutation article, owing to the "lack of reader interest" in this subject, back in 1974).
                    Last edited by Fortean; 07-19-2005, 10:53 AM.
                    JEKYLL & CANADA (free .mp4 download @ Vimeo.com)

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                    • #11
                      Re: using someone's research

                      why not, i don't know, make something up for the bizarre facts? i mean, do they need to be true?

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                      • #12
                        Re: Weird Facts

                        Originally posted by Fortean
                        Is that it? I wrote about that a long time ago, (INFO Journal #13), and indicated that Jackson and Ryan's "black hole" hypothesis wasn't viable according to their predictions about it, (unfortunately, "Nature" wouldn't publish my refutation article, owing to the "lack of reader interest" in this subject, back in 1974).
                        I was taking a poke at Ghostbusters, wherein they reference the Tunguska blast as being in 1909. The original explanation was bad sourcing, a slip-up somewhere along the line. Hence, it related to your initial warning.

                        I'm personally more of the mind that they fudged it to sound better. After all, it's fiction. You can take liberties with historical 'fact' all you want.

                        Anyway: historical fact isn't copyrightable. Unless your story is based on their expression of those facts, it won't matter.

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                        • #13
                          Re: using someone's research

                          I had a writing teacher tell me once: as long as you're 70% right on your facts, the reader will let you slide on the remaining 40%.

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