3 ms·

This is alarming, but not surprising, especially in Hollywood. However, once they amend the complaint, I have a feeling WB will have a hard time arguing that bo

by burnte 12y ago

This is alarming, but not surprising, especially in Hollywood. However, once they amend the complaint, I have a feeling WB will have a hard time arguing that both the contract gives them the rights to the story, and that the contract isn't enforceable or binding. This will be interesting.

spiritplumber 12y ago
I had a similar problem a good while ago, on a much smaller scale, when a company that was buying land to put solar panels on it went bankrupt - essentially, they bought the panels, installed them on land that was actually belonging to another company that belonged to the crook's wife, and then declared bankruptcy after setting up some deal with the wife's company whereby it would get first rights to the assets (the panels) which were liquidated for pennies on the dollar. End result, they got free solar panels for their land. I did an electrical design for them, and ended up not getting paid because the debt was with the defunct company, not the wife's company. When I asked for my father's advice, he told me that legal channels are powerless in these cases, and offered to loan me a construction crew to go to the land at night and either steal or destroy as many panels as I felt was fair. Frankly I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often, although I am guessing that it's more of a Mediterranean thing than an Anglosaxon thing. The general consensus among Italians and Greeks to whom I told the story is that this was a fair manner to solve the issue, the general consensus among Americans and Canadians to whom I told the story is that my father proposed a criminal action (This whole thing happened in Italy). Virtue probably lies in the middle, but I wouldn't know what the middle ground for this sort of thing is...
- sukilot 12y ago
  In your story, fair and criminal are not exclusive. So the cultural bias was more about if you could expect to be punished by law.
  - spiritplumber 12y ago
    Good point. That's the problem - what's honest and what's legal should... well, at least have some correlation!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- brazzledazzle 12y ago
  This stuff does happen in the US at least. I've only heard stories, but always from the "technically guilty" (e.g. the guys that destroyed/burned things down as retribution). One thing that's consistent in the stories I've heard is that the crooks always failed to carry insurance. Their "cheap" nature extended even to protection policies on their own ill-gotten gains.
MichaelGG 12y ago
It sounds like the stories are rather unrelated. The similarities are what, a female astronaut in space has problems? The film is basically a dumb action movie about a woman jumping around the world, while the book is supposedly about a medical issue. Even if the director had saw her book and thought "cool setup, a woman in space", why should that be legally enforceable? Even the author admits there's no copyright claim involved.
- foxylad 12y ago
  Remember this isn't about copyright - its that the original company had a contract for a film "based on" the book, and the company that bought out the first company is arguing that their film is not connected to the book to get out of honouring the contract. But imagine another studio had made a film with a story so similar to the book; with the exact same title; and screenwritten by the guy who was down to direct the first project. I bet Warner Brothers would have sued them to hell and back, and the inherited contract would have been portrayed as solid as a rock.

by burnte 12y ago

spiritplumber 12y ago

I had a similar problem a good while ago, on a much smaller scale, when a company that was buying land to put solar panels on it went bankrupt - essentially, they bought the panels, installed them on land that was actually belonging to another company that belonged to the crook's wife, and then declared bankruptcy after setting up some deal with the wife's company whereby it would get first rights to the assets (the panels) which were liquidated for pennies on the dollar. End result, they got free solar panels for their land. I did an electrical design for them, and ended up not getting paid because the debt was with the defunct company, not the wife's company. When I asked for my father's advice, he told me that legal channels are powerless in these cases, and offered to loan me a construction crew to go to the land at night and either steal or destroy as many panels as I felt was fair. Frankly I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often, although I am guessing that it's more of a Mediterranean thing than an Anglosaxon thing. The general consensus among Italians and Greeks to whom I told the story is that this was a fair manner to solve the issue, the general consensus among Americans and Canadians to whom I told the story is that my father proposed a criminal action (This whole thing happened in Italy). Virtue probably lies in the middle, but I wouldn't know what the middle ground for this sort of thing is...

sukilot 12y ago
In your story, fair and criminal are not exclusive. So the cultural bias was more about if you could expect to be punished by law.
- spiritplumber 12y ago
  Good point. That's the problem - what's honest and what's legal should... well, at least have some correlation!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
brazzledazzle 12y ago
This stuff does happen in the US at least. I've only heard stories, but always from the "technically guilty" (e.g. the guys that destroyed/burned things down as retribution). One thing that's consistent in the stories I've heard is that the crooks always failed to carry insurance. Their "cheap" nature extended even to protection policies on their own ill-gotten gains.

MichaelGG 12y ago

It sounds like the stories are rather unrelated. The similarities are what, a female astronaut in space has problems? The film is basically a dumb action movie about a woman jumping around the world, while the book is supposedly about a medical issue. Even if the director had saw her book and thought "cool setup, a woman in space", why should that be legally enforceable? Even the author admits there's no copyright claim involved.

foxylad 12y ago
Remember this isn't about copyright - its that the original company had a contract for a film "based on" the book, and the company that bought out the first company is arguing that their film is not connected to the book to get out of honouring the contract. But imagine another studio had made a film with a story so similar to the book; with the exact same title; and screenwritten by the guy who was down to direct the first project. I bet Warner Brothers would have sued them to hell and back, and the inherited contract would have been portrayed as solid as a rock.