Rights (using material from real life incidents)

Lillyth · Jun 19, 2008

Do we need to get the rights to a story (or a few minutes of a story) that happened if it happened in our family?

For instance, my father once held a knife to my half-brother's throat when he was a small boy because he was fussing about not liking the food his mother made for him.

If I change all the names involved, and make the little boy a little girl instead, and have the situation turn out totally different than it did, do I still need to get the rights for that little bit of a story?

Lillyth · Jun 19, 2008

I should also note that I was not present at this incident, and that nothing else in the script in any way resembles anyone in my family.

nmstevens · Jun 19, 2008

Lillyth said:
I should also note that I was not present at this incident, and that nothing else in the script in any way resembles anyone in my family.

Once you start getting as far away from the details of an actual event as you seem to be getting in this case, I think that you're on pretty safe ground.

I mean, let's face it -- if you depict a bank robbery, you can be pretty sure that much of what you show -- some guy passes a note, points a gun at guard demands money, tells everybody to get down on a floor -- for sure, some real bank robber somewhere has probably done something pretty close to exactly that.

And if you're writing a scene in which a couple argues, or discusses divorce or a guy tries to get a girl in bed, or whatever -- there's a certain universality in experience -- even odd experiences like the one you just describe -- there's a moment almost exactly like it in an episode of The Sopranos, in a flashback in which Tony Soprano's Mother threatens to stab him with a fork.

That's the funny thing about living in a world with six billion people. Almost anything that anybody has said or done to somebody -- somebody else has probably said or done something pretty similar to somebody else.

If the names and the details of the incident are sufficiently different as to make the actual persons involved unidentifiable, then it shouldn't be a problem.

NMS

Daydreamer · Jun 20, 2008

One more reason to add:
No one will publicly announce that your 'fictional scene' is actually based on a real incident like this. Imagine your father suing you because he sees himself in the story. That means that he'd publicly declare what a bad person he really is (for holding a knife to his own son's throat). Families usually handle this kind of thing a bit more discreetly.
I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your father or your brother. Just keep in mind that there aren't only legal issues to be dealt with. You might not get sued, but a family has other ways of sanctioning its members.

Good luck.

Jon-Luke · Jun 20, 2008

I think you are very safe to portray this kind of stuff in a script without getting into any trouble at all, it not like what you are describing is exclusively unique. If there was a plaintiff against you they would have an incredibly hard time proving that you didn't just make it up... I mean things like this happen all the time around the world, why would it be about them.

LIVIN · Jun 20, 2008

The only potential issue I see is that you just told us who this is based on.

So, what's in it for me? I'm just playin. We'll just pretend this thread never existed... as long as you make it worth our while. Nah, joking again. Or am I? Okay, seriously, you're fine, assuming you cut us in... (this will never end, will it?).

Drawing on life is fine. Photocopying it is another story.
I accept paypal.

Lillyth · Jun 20, 2008

nmstevens said:
Once you start getting as far away from the details of an actual event as you seem to be getting in this case, I think that you're on pretty safe ground.

I mean, let's face it -- if you depict a bank robbery, you can be pretty sure that much of what you show -- some guy passes a note, points a gun at guard demands money, tells everybody to get down on a floor -- for sure, some real bank robber somewhere has probably done something pretty close to exactly that.

And if you're writing a scene in which a couple argues, or discusses divorce or a guy tries to get a girl in bed, or whatever -- there's a certain universality in experience -- even odd experiences like the one you just describe -- there's a moment almost exactly like it in an episode of The Sopranos, in a flashback in which Tony Soprano's Mother threatens to stab him with a fork.

That's the funny thing about living in a world with six billion people. Almost anything that anybody has said or done to somebody -- somebody else has probably said or done something pretty similar to somebody else.

If the names and the details of the incident are sufficiently different as to make the actual persons involved unidentifiable, then it shouldn't be a problem.

NMS

Well, my dad is dead, so I don't have to worry about him suing me.

As for my half-brother, well, I've never even spoken to him, so I guess I'm not too worried about that either.

I think it would be absolutely hilarious if all the flack I got was "and she totally ripped off that scene in the Sopranos"...

Lillyth · Jun 20, 2008

LIVIN said:
The only potential issue I see is that you just told us who this is based on.

So, what's in it for me? I'm just playin. We'll just pretend this thread never existed... as long as you make it worth our while. Nah, joking again. Or am I? Okay, seriously, you're fine, assuming you cut us in... (this will never end, will it?).

Drawing on life is fine. Photocopying it is another story.
I accept paypal.

Thanks. I've been very careful to get permission for even the little snapshots of people's life that I've used, but that is because it is a movie about Domestic Violence and given how much victims of DV have been screwed around and betrayed, I kinda feel like I want to get permission, ya know?

Plus, assuming this ever gets produced, I also want the people whose lives I have drawn from to be forewarned that they may very well end up staring at some traumatic event from their life on the screen.

dpaterso · Jun 20, 2008

Lillyth said:
Plus, assuming this ever gets produced, I also want the people whose lives I have drawn from to be forewarned that they may very well end up staring at some traumatic event from their life on the screen.

Actually, any film company is likely to do the very opposite and put up a general "Any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental" disclaimer so they can't be sued by angry parties. Your "forewarning" people seems like an act of madness from where I'm sitting. My advice is keep quiet, and if pressed, deny everything (until you see your lawyer).

-Derek

LIVIN · Jun 20, 2008

I've got that friggin song stuck in my head
thanks to this thread
Buy the rights!
How Bizarre

Lillyth · Jun 22, 2008

dpaterso said:
Actually, any film company is likely to do the very opposite and put up a general "Any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental" disclaimer so they can't be sued by angry parties. Your "forewarning" people seems like an act of madness from where I'm sitting. My advice is keep quiet, and if pressed, deny everything (until you see your lawyer).

-Derek

I will take that under advisement.

So I guess then, the question begs, how much can we use before we have to get permission?

For instance, one of the women I know was attacked by her husband with a baseball bat while she was 9 months pregnant with their child.

He broke 26 of her bones, killed the kid - if I have a scene in the movie with that in it, do I need to get her permission? (I already have it, in writing).

I guess I just wanted to "do right" by these women, if you know what I mean, but at what point am I just screwing myself by being a walking lawsuit target?

Also, how much can I bring in from my own life, with my own ex-husband? Obviously I'm not going to use the same character name, but what if it *does* actually make it big? Could he then turn around and say "Hey wait a minute, I remember that night I threatened to kill your kid - now I want royalties?"

Or if I have a scene that is an amalgam of three or four incidents, could he then turn around and say "this scene is a mish-mash of about four different evenings where A, B, C & D happened, now gimmie the rights?"

I can certainly stop asking from now on, and is there anything I should do in the meantime to CMA?

Elodie-Caroline · Jun 23, 2008

I am turning a real life situation, and a lot of the conversations surrounding it, into a WIP at the moment. It is things that happened over twenty years ago between my ex and myself. If he read it, he would recognise the events, but I don't think he'd be reading the kind of stuff I write anyway. If he did, he may just realise what an arsehole he really was back then. Except my female character does, in my story, what I was only contemplating doing at the time, killing him.

Btw. When I was writing my very first novel, back in 2004/5, I was setting it around a huge crime, but didn't know what to make the crime. Blow me down if the diamond robbery, at Le Louvre, didn't happen at that time, so I wrote that into my story. I don't think the real diamond robbers are going to sue me because I pretended that my characters were them, do you?

Elodie

dpaterso · Jun 23, 2008

With all respect and sympathy to the victims you're talking to, it seems to me all that's needed in your script is a slight blurring of facts and figures. Hell of an example I know, but a psycho freak who attacks his 7-months-pregnant wife with a golf club and breaks her legs, isn't recognizably the same psycho freak who attacked his 9-months-pregnant wife with a baseball bat and broke 26 of her bones. The vile act is still there but the link is broken. A little shift away from reality, is all I'm suggesting; unless it's intended as an accurate biographical account, make stuff up.

-Derek

nmstevens · Jun 23, 2008

Lillyth said:
I will take that under advisement.

So I guess then, the question begs, how much can we use before we have to get permission?

For instance, one of the women I know was attacked by her husband with a baseball bat while she was 9 months pregnant with their child.

He broke 26 of her bones, killed the kid - if I have a scene in the movie with that in it, do I need to get her permission? (I already have it, in writing).

I guess I just wanted to "do right" by these women, if you know what I mean, but at what point am I just screwing myself by being a walking lawsuit target?

Also, how much can I bring in from my own life, with my own ex-husband? Obviously I'm not going to use the same character name, but what if it *does* actually make it big? Could he then turn around and say "Hey wait a minute, I remember that night I threatened to kill your kid - now I want royalties?"

Or if I have a scene that is an amalgam of three or four incidents, could he then turn around and say "this scene is a mish-mash of about four different evenings where A, B, C & D happened, now gimmie the rights?"

I can certainly stop asking from now on, and is there anything I should do in the meantime to CMA?

Well, the best thing that you can do in this situation is to consult an enteratainment attorney, because his advise is going to be advise that comes from someone who is paid to know and no one around here, me included, is really in a position to give you legal advise -- because none of us are lawyers -- and it seems that that's what you're really asking for -- legal advise.

What you've gotten from your friend seems to be something close to "life rights" -- but have legitimacy within the business, life rights have to be drafted in a particular form. If they're not drafted in that specific form, they aren't useful -- because, in fact, what you are really getting when you get life rights from somebody isn't the right to use the events from a person's life but rather then right to *fictionalize* the events from that person's life. That, more than anything else, is going to be the source of most lawsuits.

We make movies all the time that dramatize events from real life and people either can't sue or sue and loose -- but if you take events from somebody's life and alter then so that that person doesn't come off looking so good -- then you can be in trouble. That's why that clause is so critical -- and from the point of view of an adaptor, so critical.

But again, you seem to have started off in a "half-on/half-off" sort of way here. If the story you're telling is simply a pastiche with various things being based on various events mixed up from a bunch of different people that you know -- well, lots of people do that.

Unless the character in your story is *actually* supposed to be, for instance, your husband -- then it isn't your husband. You're not telling his story. That you're taking events that are similar to events in your life is beside the point. They're also, obviously, similar to things that have happened to many other people.

Only you are describing the events in such a way as to render them *uniquely* identifiable -- then they might as easily apply to any number of other people. And that's how you should be describing them.

That being said, especially since you've actually gotten rights from somebody -- you should still run this all by an entertainment attorney before you actually go out with this script.

Because we are not lawyers.

NMS

creativexec · Jun 23, 2008

If I change all the names involved, and make the little boy a little girl instead, and have the situation turn out totally different than it did, do I still need to get the rights for that little bit of a story?

You need to obtain life rights if you're going to tell someone's story (and use their name to tell the story).

In this case, you are not telling someone's life story but instead dramatizing an incident (knife wielding) that happened in real life but putting it in a completely different context (with different names).

That does not require life rights.

Also, if you were to tell Joe Blow's story, you only need to get his life rights. You wouldn't obtain the life rights to his wife or mother-in-law or neighbor or others who are part of his story.

Since most writers borrow from their lives and those around them, it could be maddening to obtain life rights every step of the way. And you don't need to obtain life rights from dead people or felons serving prison time.

If you wanted to tell the story of someone's life and changed all the names and cultural references, etcetera (and just kept the premise and drama that first attracted you to the story), life rights would be unnecessary. Like the story of your best friend, single mom Mary who raised a son with no arms, no legs, no head. You could tell that story without life rights by changing most of the real life details but keeping the inherent drama of a single mom raising a severely handcapped child.

And you don't need permission from anyone to borrow an incident from their life. It's polite but unnecessary.

Just write.

Lillyth · Jun 23, 2008

Elodie-Caroline said:
Btw. When I was writing my very first novel, back in 2004/5, I was setting it around a huge crime, but didn't know what to make the crime. Blow me down if the diamond robbery, at Le Louvre, didn't happen at that time, so I wrote that into my story. I don't think the real diamond robbers are going to sue me because I pretended that my characters were them, do you?

Elodie

Thank would be funny as hell if they did...

Lillyth · Jun 23, 2008

nmstevens said:
Well, the best thing that you can do in this situation is to consult an enteratainment attorney, because his advise is going to be advise that comes from someone who is paid to know and no one around here, me included, is really in a position to give you legal advise -- because none of us are lawyers -- and it seems that that's what you're really asking for -- legal advise.

What you've gotten from your friend seems to be something close to "life rights" -- but have legitimacy within the business, life rights have to be drafted in a particular form. If they're not drafted in that specific form, they aren't useful -- because, in fact, what you are really getting when you get life rights from somebody isn't the right to use the events from a person's life but rather then right to *fictionalize* the events from that person's life. That, more than anything else, is going to be the source of most lawsuits.

We make movies all the time that dramatize events from real life and people either can't sue or sue and loose -- but if you take events from somebody's life and alter then so that that person doesn't come off looking so good -- then you can be in trouble. That's why that clause is so critical -- and from the point of view of an adaptor, so critical.

But again, you seem to have started off in a "half-on/half-off" sort of way here. If the story you're telling is simply a pastiche with various things being based on various events mixed up from a bunch of different people that you know -- well, lots of people do that.

Unless the character in your story is *actually* supposed to be, for instance, your husband -- then it isn't your husband. You're not telling his story. That you're taking events that are similar to events in your life is beside the point. They're also, obviously, similar to things that have happened to many other people.

Only you are describing the events in such a way as to render them *uniquely* identifiable -- then they might as easily apply to any number of other people. And that's how you should be describing them.

That being said, especially since you've actually gotten rights from somebody -- you should still run this all by an entertainment attorney before you actually go out with this script.

Because we are not lawyers.

NMS

One of my closest friends does entertainment trademark/copyright law. Is this the sort of lawyer I need?

As for the baseball bat thing, that, apart from guilt carried for not pressing charges is the only thing I've put in from this particular woman's life. Everything else is either (mostly) made-up or a mash-up of different women I've known over the years.

I will definitely consult with my attorney friend though, just to make sure there is nothing beyond "Sure, use whatever you want" in writing that I need to get.

Thanks a ton! Your advice is, as always, invaluable.

Rights (using material from real life incidents)

Lillyth

Lillyth

nmstevens

What happened?

Daydreamer

Jon-Luke

Anomalous crusader

LIVIN

Lillyth

Lillyth

dpaterso

Also in our Discord and IRC chat channels

LIVIN

Lillyth

Elodie-Caroline

dpaterso

Also in our Discord and IRC chat channels

nmstevens

What happened?

creativexec

New kid, be gentle!

Lillyth

Lillyth