Chris Millar Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 Hello all, I have heaps of questions re. copyright ... Perhaps its would be best to simply ask: Anyone know a copyright lawyer/specialist that I can approach now in the formative part of my screenplay writing process ? I just need some general guidance at this stage, not too specific, but it will get very specific if things were to proceed. The general idea is that I dont want to write myself into an expensive corner ... at least to have an idea of the boundaries I can skim and the costs involved if I were to cross them. I'm in Melbourne, Australia at the moment and am quite comfortable corresponding via email - at a fee understandably :rolleyes: Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Paul Bruening Posted July 11, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted July 11, 2009 Hey Chris, "Don't shade your eyes, plagiarize! But, always be sure to call it research." Copyright covers specific manifestations of ideas. Not the ideas. You can steal the h*** out of others' ideas. It just have to appear different in manifestation. It's done all the time. Though, credible people try not to do it too obviously. It's a mark of creativity to produce materials that have the uniqueness of originality even if the ideas are old hack. Ice, ice, baby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freya Black Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 Hello all, I have heaps of questions re. copyright ... Perhaps its would be best to simply ask: Anyone know a copyright lawyer/specialist that I can approach now in the formative part of my screenplay writing process ? I just need some general guidance at this stage, not too specific, but it will get very specific if things were to proceed. The general idea is that I dont want to write myself into an expensive corner ... at least to have an idea of the boundaries I can skim and the costs involved if I were to cross them. I'm in Melbourne, Australia at the moment and am quite comfortable corresponding via email - at a fee understandably :rolleyes: Chris Copyright covers texts, not ideas. It is the right to copy that text whatever it might be. Science and pseudoscience are not something you can hold a copyright on. Such things might be more in the realm of patents. Previosly published material might be another matter I think! Your question is kind of vague and seems to suggest you might not understand what copyright is. It's also possible you might be floating around in some murky territory best avoided but I don't know. As an example Arthur C Clarke first wrote about artificial communication satellites. After he did so anyone else was still free to write about such things and as he didn't take out a patent on the idea, they were even free to build them! :) Theres no copyright on the idea of a cartoon mouse either but be careful what your cartoon mouse looks like! If someone writes a science paper on the mining of helium 3 on the moon, then that paper they wrote would be copyright, however the idea of mining helium3 on the moon would not be and anyone could make a film that featured such an idea. Hope that helps a little. I can't really say much more than that because I'm not even sure that what I've just said directly relates to the kind of thing you are wondering. I'm afraid I don't know any Australian copyright lawyers either. ;) love Freya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Dzyak Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 Hello all, I have heaps of questions re. copyright ... Perhaps its would be best to simply ask: Anyone know a copyright lawyer/specialist that I can approach now in the formative part of my screenplay writing process ? I just need some general guidance at this stage, not too specific, but it will get very specific if things were to proceed. The general idea is that I dont want to write myself into an expensive corner ... at least to have an idea of the boundaries I can skim and the costs involved if I were to cross them. I'm in Melbourne, Australia at the moment and am quite comfortable corresponding via email - at a fee understandably :rolleyes: Chris I HIGHLY recommend you take a look at these resources to help guide your writing at this point: I recommend EVERY page on the website http://www.wordplayer.com but specifically http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp04.Ste...his.Column.html and http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp12.Been.Done.html may help you a bit. Also.... http://www.copyright.org.au/ http://www.copyright.gov/ http://www.loc.gov/teachers/copyrightmystery/ The basic gist of copyrighted material is that it is the EXPRESSION of an idea that is protected, not the idea itself. So, for instance, if you wanted your hero and villain to fight with glowy laserswords, you could not call them "Lightsabers" and have them look identical to the Lightsabers seen in Star Wars. If you change the look and name of them, then you would likely be free of legal entanglements (though the audience will likely pan you for being a copycat, but that's an entirely different issue). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Millar Posted July 12, 2009 Author Share Posted July 12, 2009 Your question is kind of vague and seems to suggest you might not understand what copyright is. It's also possible you might be floating around in some murky territory best avoided but I don't know.love Freya Yes, I'll freely admit to not understanding copyright ... I understand the general principle, but an inquiring mind will always come up with situations which aren't so black and white - so while I am free to assume I have a reasonable grasp or everymans common sense (lolz) I have found that by following nose around the usual suspects (wikipedia, and whatever 'copyright', 'derivative work', 'chain of title' spews out at me in a google search) that my intuitions regarding some of these situations have been erroneous in equal amount to that in which I was correct. Seems like its a work in progress. Jeez Reeves, what a mouth full :P I've twice now started to type up the specifics in detail, but realize I am giving away too much - letting my ego get in the way for a moment - I feel I could be sewing the seeds of my ahem, dream, to be partially activated by someone else with more time and money than I have at the moment, thereby diluting the effect of my eventual ahem, release ;) sheesh... So for now, it will remain murky. I understand (now) that I am free to move on with using ideas gleaned from science, and maybe its a twist of fate in that as many pseudoscience practitioners present their facts as science that I am free to also use their ideas as a basis for a universe also (what is good for the goose ...) ? Its just that a trait of pseudoscience is that it is sometimes expressed in a fruity form of part novella/part essay for ease of the brainwashing effect ... Imagine Starwars was an example - Take someone circa 1970-something talking about midi-chlorians and the force that it creates between us, basically trying to sell their force attracting nunchuck necklaces - and I thought poop in a hat susan that force carry on would make a great story backdrop for my father and son redemption drama (with neato lightswords and stuff). Whats the go with that ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Millar Posted July 12, 2009 Author Share Posted July 12, 2009 Hmmm, actually - I just did a typical forum bad bad - didn't read everything before posting a reply ... I'll research those links and test my situations against the examples given to see if maybe my questions have been answered already ... Cheers all and I'll also note that I'll take it as a matter of pride that people whose posts I respected in the past have chimed in here ^_^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K Borowski Posted July 12, 2009 Share Posted July 12, 2009 Hey Chris, "Don't shade your eyes, plagiarize! But, always be sure to call it research." Copyright covers specific manifestations of ideas. Not the ideas. You can steal the h*** out of others' ideas. It just have to appear different in manifestation. It's done all the time. Though, credible people try not to do it too obviously. It's a mark of creativity to produce materials that have the uniqueness of originality even if the ideas are old hack. Ice, ice, baby. So we should all pirate music and movies and steal other people's ideas too. Let's oggle all of the female ACs on the site, even if we're married too, for good measure :o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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