Adaptation

RylenolFlu said:

Just curious, if I'm interested in doing an adaptation, say for example, Roald Dahl's Going Solo, when I contact the publishing house what rights exactly do I need to ask for? And, on that note, should I purchase the rights before actually putting anything onto the page? Thanks guys

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You would need to acquire the movie rights -- to be precise -- you'd need to acquire domestic and international movie rights.

But to be even more precise, what you'd really need to do if you were really interested in persuing this is to get yourself an entertainment attorney (a regular attorney would not do) to negotiate this deal.

As a writer, you can't do this. The act of "acquiring rights" makes you a producer. It means that you've become the owner of a property -- the owner of the underlying rights to the material.

Regarding "whether you should purchase the rights before putting anything on the page" -- this is the same as asking "should I buy the car before customizing it" -- generally the owner the car would greatly appreciate it if you were to buy their car before making your own alterations -- especially since the property in question might very well have have had the rights sold to somebody else before you ever even came along.

Depending on the cost (and don't think for a minute that they'd let you have it for free because they like you) you might be able to option it -- that is, pay a small percentage for a certain length of time during which you can write your script and try to sell it.

But if you can't sell it and the option expires, you're out of luck. It goes back to them and your script becomes forever unsellable.

On the other hand, you can spend a lot of money, buy it outright, write your script. Nobody's interested. End of story. You own it. Nobody wants it, you've spent a lot of money on something that will never sell. Bad deal.

Either way, you'll spend a lot of money on a lawyer and probably significant money on the underlying property.

You might save some money on the lawyer by investigating if your state has a "volunteer Counsel for the Arts" -- most states have them - in which lawyers provide free or inexpensive legal services for members of the arts community.

If so, you might be able to get an attorney through them to advise you.

NMS

Adapting anything, copywritten or not, is theft by plagerism. Yes, people revise Romeo and Juliet all the time but even for those works 'in the public domain' crediting the originator should come first. Or you can revise the idea, change the place, time, characters, dramatic incidents and do something original.

HeronW said:

Adapting anything, copywritten or not, is theft by plagerism. Yes, people revise Romeo and Juliet all the time but even for those works 'in the public domain' crediting the originator should come first. Or you can revise the idea, change the place, time, characters, dramatic incidents and do something original.

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It's very clear that the original poster is asking about how to acquire the rights to the underlying material.

If one legally acquires the rights to something, then you are "legally" adapting it, generally under the original name and also crediting the original source. If you do it that way, then you haven't stolen anything.

On the other hand, when something passes into the public domain, it is no longer owned by anybody, and that which is not owned, cannot be stolen -- not by plagiarism (which is a form of theft) nor in any other way.

Copyright, like patent ownership, confers *limited* rights. One only owns it for a certain length of time. The right to control the underlying material is only possessed by the author and his heirs for a certain length of time. After that, it isn't owned by anybody.

West Side Story doesn't have to pay anything to anybody for being based on Romeo and Juliet and it doens't have to give credit to anybody for being based on Romeo and Juliet.

That's because nobody owns Romeo and Juliet.

In the same way, Shakespeare didn't have pay or credit Ovid for Pyramus and Thisbe -- which was the basis for Romeo and Juliet.

Nobody owns Pyramus and Thisbe. Nobody owns Romeo and Juliet. A hundred years from now, nobody will own West Side Story.

And when nobody owns it, you can't steal it.

NMS