Inspiration vs. Plagiarism

Othello is in the public domain and therefore fair game, and no-one made any attempt to hide the source or the movie. "O" actually referenced in the selling that it was based on the play.

However, on a more basic level, if I understand correctly, the script you're referring to - the one YOU wrote - is your first, right? If that's the case, set it aside and move on. It's crap.

That's not a slam. ALL "firsts" are crap. Oh there might be some good lines. Might be the odd decent character, but on the whole, if you carry on writing, grow in skill, you will look at this script in a couple of years and realize several things:

1. How much you have improved.
2. How supportive your friends and family are because they told you how great this was.
3. How lucky you were back then to have no contacts to really show this script to and thus not kill your chances of a career before they started.
4. How friends and family are great for an ego massage, but bloody useless for real feedback.

Or is that just me?

Now don't stress overly about this. I have a pet theory about this crap. I look on it like gardening. You can dig the soil and plant your seeds and they might grow, but if you take that crap and mix it in to the soil you have, you start to develop some rich loam that subsequent things grow out of.

Nothing is wasted. Just plow it back under and move on. What comes next is always better and stronger.

wordmonkey said:

Othello is in the public domain and therefore fair game, BECAUSE IT WAS WRITTEN WELL AFTER ITS COPYRIGHT EXPIRED and no-one made any attempt to hide the source or the movie. "O" actually referenced in the selling that it was based on the play. WHICH WAS WRITTEN ALMOST 400 YEARS BEFORE. MOST COPYRIGHT LASTS FOR SEVENTY YEARS AFTER THE AUTHOR'S DEATH, I THINK.

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I think you need to ask a lawyer!

I'm no Lawyer, but for some reason I thought anything prior to 1923 was public domain.

Can anyone confirm that?

It's fine to be inspired by another story- just don't rip it off.

There are a finite amount of ways you can tell the starcrossed lovers story without it being a lot like Romeo and Juliet.

Seven Samurai and the Maginficant 7 are identical movies, they just changed out a few things.


However, my advice is this- move on.

Write a new story. And then polish it.

If you're worried about plagarism, then move on. Write an original story. Consider this first one practice.

My advice is a lot like everyone elses. Move on. When/if you make your first sale that's worth talking about, come back and revisit it. See if you still love it. Chances are you'll have some heavy revisions in store for it. Once you've gone through it, take it to a lawyer, you'll be able to afford their advice if you have a sale like the above and you'll be able to avoid any bad things. If you do go through with it, make sure you take out the character names, change around personalities and such. In other words, make sure it is a work of it's own.

Ok, here's the deal with public domain as I understand it(NOT A LAWYER DISCLAIMER).

Something CAN enter the public domain after 70 years. IF an estate or company does not renew the rights. Sherlock Holmes, for instance, is not public domain. Nor is Gone With the Wind.

Chances are decent that if the book is obscure, it has entered that territory - but you have to do some homework.

Ucla_sb said:

OK weird question guys, When i first decided to try my hand at writing a screenplay my original idea wasn't yet fully formed. I had finished reading a novel that had an intriguing premise and good moments, but overall was not very good. I decided to basically jump in both feet first and adapt it into a screenplay just to get a feel for the form. About a month later i had a fully formed screenplay that other than in very basic ways (Character names, essential story beats) did not resemble the novel it was based on. Setting, context, character motives/ actions were all changed and tailored to my story. I let several people read it and compare it to the novel and said that they were hardly alike. I'm still a bit leery on fully accepting it as my own, obviously because i know where it came from and do not try to pass it off as my own and credit it as being based on the novel right on the cover. I also know that unless i have the screenplay rights to the book i may as well shelve it and move on.

However I keep having people tell me to just rewrite those elements from the book and take away the book credit, which still feels shady to me because I know how the screenplay came about and other novels i have read of this author were quite good and deserve a bit more recognition. The reason i am asking these question and making my self look like a jackass is that the screenplay is perfect for a micro budget film maker such as my self to start making a feature length film. I have been in touch with the publishing company for the book and have been directed to the person who controls the rights whom i have called several times and left messages, never to be returned.

Now the obvious thing is once again to shelve it and if i really feel the need to, revisit it when i gain some cred in the industry. Problem is I really think i have something good here and don't want to not give credit where credit is due. So the question is what is the difference between inspiration, adaptation, and straight plagiarism in the eyes of fellow writers and, of course, the law? (Othello = O = "inspired by")

Advice guys?

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Many things are inspired by other things, but that is not a legal relationship -- in the sense of falling under the rubric of copyright law.

Ideas are not ownable. Plots aren't ownable.

Even in plagiarism cases, where similarities exist in earlier drafts of a work, if those similarities are absent in later drafts or in the finished work -- then those similarities can't be used as evidence of plagiarism.

If the similarity isn't there, then as far as copyright is concerned, the "copying" hasn't happened, even if the underlying work was the inspiration for the later work.

And the creator of the later work can *legitimately* say -- hey, sure, this was the inspiration and we started off similar to the original -- but then we changed it and the final work is different so we haven't violated any copyright law.

Whatever it may have started off to be, whatever the initial inspiration might have been -- it's now a different work.

If there's something about your current version that's still worrying you -- then change it.

The fact that your current work was inspired by some other work doesn't make you different or special. Essentially every original that Quentin Tarantino has done has been "inspired" by other things.

Reservoir Dogs was more than slightly "inspired" by "City on Fire" -- but I don't see that movie's name anywhere in the credits.

The issue is less what your inspiration is and much more what you bring to the story that is original to you. And if the majority of the work is your vision, your characters, your dialogue, your *story* -- then don't sweat the inspiration, because we're all pretty much inspired by other stories that we've seen and read and heard -- in the sense that those things form the kernel from which our own new works grow.

NMS

Wasn't TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD a 'first' novel? (Actually, probably her only novel) ... Should she have 'put it in a box because first novels are usually crap' ???

If you think it's great, and the best you can do now (yes, in five years you'll be better; we'll all be better in five years, except for those of us who will be dead in five years) -- and others read it and support you -- go for it.

That said, the biggest mistake I ever made was: I took a crappy story, improved it immensely by adapting it to be a film project ... SHOT IT ... and now it's worthless to me because I didn't change it ENOUGH.

Had a helluva great time shooting it! Did i mention that it's USELESS TO ME now?

'Mothers, tell your children,
Not to do as I have done
To spend their lives in Sin and Misery
In the House of the Rising Sun'

On the other hand, steal the idea from the song and turn it into a movie, change the name of the New Orleans whorehouse so it's not the one in the song and you got yerself a blockbuster.

So ... CHANGE IT. A LOT. And if you think it rocks, don't waste your precious life being paranoid about 'artistic integrity' unless you're writing something God in his glory dictated to you. Not if your goal is to become a working screenwriter, where most likely (unless you are one of the blessed rare and few) you will be RE-WRITING others' work for a while until you are well-established!

They'll hand you a script, tell you "We hate this about it ... can you polish it, doctor it, vivesect it?" You will say NO, you are pure. They will offer you a HYPNOTIC amount of $$$ and the promise to consider your own next screenplay. You will watch as your soul bleeds out across the Devil's Contract and say "yes"

I think that is the familiar career arc, yes?

That said: your first screenplay may indeed suck. Who you gonna trust? Trust yourself. You will someday look down and see that you are Iccarus, laying in a fiery heap upon the ground. At such times, you need to know you followed your OWN bliss and instincts, and not someone else's paranoia and negativity.

But ... you caught the part where you are Iccarus, laying wrecked upon the ground, right?

It beats building Mazes in the dark for the tyrant ...

small axe said:

Wasn't TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD a 'first' novel?

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It was her first published novel, but not the first thing she ever wrote. That's because she put the first several things she wrote in a drawer and kept going. Y'know, like everyone has suggested.