Korean Job Discussion Forums

[igotthisguitar]

'Stolen' Ideas Big Business In Hollywood
By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer
Thu Nov 9, 3:29 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - "Pirates of the Caribbean." "The Matrix." "The Last Samurai." "Broken Flowers." "Amistad." Success isn't all these films have in common. Each was also challenged by a lawsuit claiming
"idea theft" � a common Hollywood problem that lawyers say is likely to continue as long as huge movie studios wield enormous power.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hollywood_idea_theft

Criminals in Hollywood, eh? What a novel concept.

[cwemory]

Remember when several years ago when Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump, did not receive his share of the profits for the film? Despite being the top grossing film that year (677 million), Paramount claimed the film was a commercial disaster and didn't pay him. Almost criminal.

[happeningthang]

There's not that many truly unique ideas out there. Friends in film school told me about three different projects being worked on simultaneously and independently, that all had the same idea for a short film following a cigarette lighter being passed from character to character.

Broken Flowers isn't exactly a unique idea.

[huffdaddy]

http://www.ipl.org/div/farq/plotFARQ.html#7

[vexed]

It's true, there aren't many unique ideas out there. Although what is important is the way the ideas are executed.

The cases in point will be hard to settle, since you can't copyright an idea - only the finished script. This is why prospective writers should always been careful with who they show their work to. I've heard cases of writers submitting a script to a producer and hearing nothing back from them. Later on down the line they find their idea has been put into production. All the producer has to do is change around the plot enough and maybe adjust a few characters and he doesn't need to pay the writer since he can argue it was his idea.

It's a minefield out there, I tells ya!

[igotthisguitar]

[cwemory]

[Hollywoodaction]

It's common to see studios producing movies that ride on the hype of another studio's movie.