6 ms·

There's another interesting copyright issue regarding the film in question here, "All Things Fall Apart". Apparently, 50 Cent wanted to call the movie "Things F

There's another interesting copyright issue regarding the film in question here, "All Things Fall Apart". Apparently, 50 Cent wanted to call the movie "Things Fall Apart", but Chinua Achebe, who wrote a famous book by that name in 1958, refused to sell him the rights for $1 million. The crazy part of this is that Achebe took the title from a line from Yeats' 1919 poem "The Second Coming". How Achebe can turn around and prevent someone else from using a title he himself borrowed is beyond me. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/14/chinua-achebe-50-cent http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/14/chinua-achebe-5...

saraid216 13y ago
That's basically the standard operating procedure for most cases of intellectual property defense in art: culture has always been a thing of remix and locking it down at some point as "original" is the novel and nonsensical behavior.
yareally 13y ago
I think any copyrights Yeats would have had in 1958 were expired. Unfortunately, cannot say the same about ones Achebe has since the rules have extended time periods to be much longer now.
harshreality 13y ago
I don't think that's a copyright issue, rather something more related to trademark (although I don't think you can trademark the title of a book either, there are a bunch of more obscure IP-related protections and this might fall under one of them). Nobody can copyright a three word phrase. [edit: almost never, see [1]] Copyright also applies if you copy enough story elements, but that doesn't apply because 50 Cent's movie is not in any meaningful way a copy of Achebe's story. And if that were the case, even changing the title completely wouldn't avoid infringement. You would violate Rowling's copyright, for instance, if you took a Harry Potter book, outlined the plot (even with character and place names changed), and wrote a new novel from scratch using that outline. "The novel with the said title was initially produced in 1958 (that is 17 years before [50] was born)," replied his lawyers, according to Naijan. "[It is] listed as the most-read book in modern African literature, and won't be sold for even £1bn." I think this was IP bullying by Achebe's legal team (if were laywers at all). They claim to have a monopoly to use the very generic title (even when separated from the underlying story), and when offered a lot of money (I'd love to hear 50 Cent's lawyers reason for offering a million dollars to use that title), they make a category error, confusing rights to the book itself with rights to a fairly generic title. [1] http://fairuse.stanford.edu/2003/09/09/copyright_protection_for_short/ http://fairuse.stanford.edu/2003/09/09/copyright_protection_...
- jlgreco 13y ago
  > Nobody can copyright a three word phrase. Are you sure about that? What is the cutoff? Hemingway's six-word story is certainly copyrightable.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    Certainly?
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Fair enough... but it seems reasonable that it, if anything, should be copyrightable.
- victorf 13y ago
  Of course you can take the plot outline and rewrite the story without copyright infringement. Copyright infringement applies when reusing the actual author's writing.
  - harshreality 13y ago
    Copyright law, at least in the USA, views a sufficiently non-generic copy of another work's plot as a copyright violation. For a specific example of how this works, here's a lawsuit based on the concept, and don't miss section 31: http://www.scribd.com/doc/74815749/Angelina-Jolie-Lawsuit http://www.scribd.com/doc/74815749/Angelina-Jolie-Lawsuit (that particular lawsuit didn't succeed.) Another quirk: copyright law also views copies of sufficiently important elements (like characters/setting/etc. which are clearly taken from another work) as a copyright violation, even if the story is different; fanfic is technically a copyright violation.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  If the state of the world is anything to go by, you indeed cannot protect the title of your book, as it's quite frequent for two books to have exactly the same name. > You would violate Rowling's copyright, for instance, if you took a Harry Potter book, outlined the plot (even with character and place names changed), and wrote a new novel from scratch using that outline. Terry Brooks might be surprised to hear this, as he seems to have been safe from the notoriously litigious Tolkien estate. Try reading The Lord of the Rings sometime, then read The Sword of Shannara (accurately described as "especially blatant in its point-for-point correspondence" [1]). Again, though, all that's only relevant if you're interested in the actual state of the world. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Shannara#Sword_and_The_Lord_of_the_Rings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Shannara#Sword_and...
clark-kent 13y ago
That's a trademark issue, "Things Fall Apart" by Achebe is one of the most popular works of literature in Nigeria & Africa. They would protect their trademark like businesses do. BTW RIP to Chinua Achebe, he was a great writer.
vanderZwan 13y ago
Seems fairly straightforward? There's a difference between naming a title after a line from a poem, and copying a title from another title. The former wouldn't cause any confusion, the latter would. Now if the poem was called "Things Fall Apart" instead of "The Second Coming," things have been different.

saraid216 13y ago

That's basically the standard operating procedure for most cases of intellectual property defense in art: culture has always been a thing of remix and locking it down at some point as "original" is the novel and nonsensical behavior.

yareally 13y ago

I think any copyrights Yeats would have had in 1958 were expired. Unfortunately, cannot say the same about ones Achebe has since the rules have extended time periods to be much longer now.

harshreality 13y ago

I don't think that's a copyright issue, rather something more related to trademark (although I don't think you can trademark the title of a book either, there are a bunch of more obscure IP-related protections and this might fall under one of them). Nobody can copyright a three word phrase. [edit: almost never, see [1]] Copyright also applies if you copy enough story elements, but that doesn't apply because 50 Cent's movie is not in any meaningful way a copy of Achebe's story. And if that were the case, even changing the title completely wouldn't avoid infringement. You would violate Rowling's copyright, for instance, if you took a Harry Potter book, outlined the plot (even with character and place names changed), and wrote a new novel from scratch using that outline. "The novel with the said title was initially produced in 1958 (that is 17 years before [50] was born)," replied his lawyers, according to Naijan. "[It is] listed as the most-read book in modern African literature, and won't be sold for even £1bn." I think this was IP bullying by Achebe's legal team (if were laywers at all). They claim to have a monopoly to use the very generic title (even when separated from the underlying story), and when offered a lot of money (I'd love to hear 50 Cent's lawyers reason for offering a million dollars to use that title), they make a category error, confusing rights to the book itself with rights to a fairly generic title. [1] http://fairuse.stanford.edu/2003/09/09/copyright_protection_for_short/ http://fairuse.stanford.edu/2003/09/09/copyright_protection_...

jlgreco 13y ago
> Nobody can copyright a three word phrase. Are you sure about that? What is the cutoff? Hemingway's six-word story is certainly copyrightable.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  Certainly?
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Fair enough... but it seems reasonable that it, if anything, should be copyrightable.
victorf 13y ago
Of course you can take the plot outline and rewrite the story without copyright infringement. Copyright infringement applies when reusing the actual author's writing.
- harshreality 13y ago
  Copyright law, at least in the USA, views a sufficiently non-generic copy of another work's plot as a copyright violation. For a specific example of how this works, here's a lawsuit based on the concept, and don't miss section 31: http://www.scribd.com/doc/74815749/Angelina-Jolie-Lawsuit http://www.scribd.com/doc/74815749/Angelina-Jolie-Lawsuit (that particular lawsuit didn't succeed.) Another quirk: copyright law also views copies of sufficiently important elements (like characters/setting/etc. which are clearly taken from another work) as a copyright violation, even if the story is different; fanfic is technically a copyright violation.
thaumasiotes 13y ago
If the state of the world is anything to go by, you indeed cannot protect the title of your book, as it's quite frequent for two books to have exactly the same name. > You would violate Rowling's copyright, for instance, if you took a Harry Potter book, outlined the plot (even with character and place names changed), and wrote a new novel from scratch using that outline. Terry Brooks might be surprised to hear this, as he seems to have been safe from the notoriously litigious Tolkien estate. Try reading The Lord of the Rings sometime, then read The Sword of Shannara (accurately described as "especially blatant in its point-for-point correspondence" [1]). Again, though, all that's only relevant if you're interested in the actual state of the world. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Shannara#Sword_and_The_Lord_of_the_Rings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Shannara#Sword_and...

clark-kent 13y ago

That's a trademark issue, "Things Fall Apart" by Achebe is one of the most popular works of literature in Nigeria & Africa. They would protect their trademark like businesses do. BTW RIP to Chinua Achebe, he was a great writer.

vanderZwan 13y ago

Seems fairly straightforward? There's a difference between naming a title after a line from a poem, and copying a title from another title. The former wouldn't cause any confusion, the latter would. Now if the poem was called "Things Fall Apart" instead of "The Second Coming," things have been different.