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Copyright Questions
Recently I returned to working on a screenplay which I started in 1968. It is a partial adaptation of a novelette that was published in 1883, with the author dying in 1925. My understanding of copyright law is that copyright protection expires seventy five years after the death of the creator of the work. David Trottier, in his very excellent book, The Screenwriters Bible, is adamant about: "Don't adapt it until you own it." In a section on movie clips he states, "Do not write the sequel to Snow White unless you control the rights to Snow White." Snow White was a story that circulated amongst the Northern European countries in the sixteen and seventeenth centuries. The German rendition was incorporated into a collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales that was published in 1857. Walt Disney leaned heavily on this rendition when he produced Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Can Disney own rights to anything more than the screen play and movie? Can corporations circumvent copyright laws and control the exclusive right to an age old fairy tale?
Help, Ronald James
Comments
Ronald,
First of all, I am not a attorney, and I am not qualified to give legal advice. Thus, anything that I write should not be construed to be legal advice.
I suspect Disney does not own the rights to the original fairy tale, but they do own the rights to their movie version of Snow White, including the characters as they created them for their movie. (In fact, they currently license the rights to companies to make plush and other items in the images of their versions of the characters.)
That means that if you want to do a sequel to the Disney version of Snow White, you might have a rights issue. But if you are going to make a new Snow White movie that does not include any Disney embellishments, but is based solely on the work that is in the public domain, then you are probably okay.
Keep writing,
Dave Trottier
David: I don't know what is more appropriate: A thank you, or I am amazed. A little over four years ago I retired from a very active professional life. I have regrets regarding that, but what's done is done. Since that time I have found myself becoming increasingly isolated. My response to that was/is, why not get involved in this new world of blogging: Thus my first blog of Feb. 20th.
It would be wonderful if that probe would resonate enough to create a lively, "beat."
Ronald James