Did you know that..

[Unstoppable]

Not created by warner bros? The original concept/ideas anywhere were stolen from a lady named Sophia Steward. In the late 80's she created a book called "The Third Eye." From there the Terminator and Matrix movies where born. She has not received compensation and her work has clearly been ripped off. Her case was dismissed in 2005 because she did not appear for a pre elminary hearing. Anywho maybe in the future she will take further legal aciton. Maybe they paid her off that's why she didn't show up.

 

You can check out the facts here:

http://www.sophiaoracle.com/news2.php?id=37

 

On the page is the link to her website. Now Warner is being sued for ripping off another idea of "We are Marshall." These guys are incredibly a bunch of thieves. Just goes to show what all that money is used for. Bastards.

[demagogue]

What's "clear" is that that is clearly a PR page that biases the facts in her favor ... hardly objective.

 

Unless she wrote the actual screenplay, it's very hard to win a copyright claim based on elements of the plot and characters. I mean, even clearly copying exactly quotes or characters or individual "scenes" still doesn't give you that strong of a case. I've studied the cases on it, and it really has to be like, she submitted a screenplay, and then essentially that same screenplay ends up on screen. The leading case about someone that read a book and then made a movie based on essentially the same plot with tweaked characters in a slightly different setting, the book author didn't win. Coming to America, Rent, lots of cases like this ... and the courts usually aren't very sympathetic unless it's like I said. I mean, if Terminator and Matrix came from this book, I already have a feeling that it's not going to be close enough to each individual one make a judge very sympathetic.

 

I remember reading an early 80s book, and it dawned on me that it was Back to the Future ... guy goes back in time, accidentally prevents his parents from meeting, and has to go to great lengths to get them back together. It happens all the time; in fact I'm tempted to say it's probably a norm that screenwriters build off the inspiration of a book or something. Matrix in particular was stealing plot-points from all over the place; doesn't make a copyright claim.

 

And as for the Matrix and Terminator in particular, come on man, those are genre pieces through and through. I remember in one interview the W Bros were saying a number of Matrix-like screenplays had been circulating in Hollywood for years ... And the one that finally set the Matrix apart was adding Kung Fu. But the idea itself as a plot is hardly new.

 

Also, on Terminator, statute of limitations is SoL; you don't sue in time you're chance is up; too bad. They're not going to make exceptions especially if you are stupid enough to send your books to screenwriters and not protect your interests, or not pay attention to your interests.

 

Anyway, I'm just trying to give a flavor for the other side here. Of course, I'd want to see a more objective presentation of the facts if I were trying to make a more objective judgment. My first reaction, though, is that the page you linked seems to me to be overstating her case.

 

(Can you tell I studied copyright law? )

Edited June 28, 2007 by demagogue

[Vadrosaul]

Any posthumous (the death of interest in the IP) claims always come off unbelievable. The fact is these people, probably most interested in taking a cut of profits made of the franchises, have had enough time and resources to formulate a fake front of information and witnesses.

 

As Demagogue states, there's gotta be a reasonable statute of limitations before any claims are just simply an attempt to waste the courts time or to cash-in on future revivals of the IP's in question.

[Macsen]

Nothing wrong with being 'inspired' by something someone else created. As this Mod can attest to...

[sparhawk]

And of course, there is a limited number of plots, so most of the plots in a movie you see you can have already seen before in some other movie or book. It's like classical music. You don't pay for the music, you pay for the interpretation of it.

[OrbWeaver]

You can't "steal" ideas. Copyright protects artistic works -- text, pictures, movies -- not ideas or concepts.

[Unstoppable]

She had submitted the Third Eye to Warner Bros and a couple years after she did the Terminator was born. Then later came The Matrix. They never replied back to her. I wonder why she didn't show up in court hmm.

[OrbWeaver]

Maybe because she knew she didn't have a case and wasn't going to waste her money?

[Baddcog]

Hollywood is like that though, happens all the time. Look at how movies are released.

 

Can't think of specifics but one studio releases a pirate movie and all the B studios release pirate movies right away.

It's like the b studios watch what A is doing and start a project right away so they can cash in on the 'pirate craze'

[SneaksieDave]

Hm, not sure I agree with all of the views above; I definitely think that someone can be ripped off after submitting a concept. However, I can't form an opinion based on the "facts" on that website. I'd have to read what she wrote, in order to decide "yeah, they definitely stole that," versus, "whoopee, she had a vaguely similar concept of something, and they built a movie from that seed."

[OrbWeaver]

Hm, not sure I agree with all of the views above; I definitely think that someone can be ripped off after submitting a concept.

 

I think that it would certainly be honest, courteous and moral to credit somebody who gave you the idea for a successful movie or book. What I am opposed to is the notion of "owning" ideas which some people cling to -- claiming that one owns an idea is like the Atlantic ocean claiming that it owns the waves which pass from it into the Pacific.

[sparhawk]

You can see this often in some game forums, even D3world. Somebody comes in and says he has this great idea but he needs somebody who codes it for him. For the trivial task of implementing a full featured game you will get 20% of the income after release. Sure. these guy all have the notion that the idea of the game is the most imporant thing and usually they wont even give details because they fear that it might get stolen.

Knigers is a good example for that. Of course the idea is important, but it's the hard work that really counts. In the end you can have good ideas all day long for free, but that doesn't make you rich, until you start implementing it.

[demagogue]

Hm, not sure I agree with all of the views above; I definitely think that someone can be ripped off after submitting a concept.

 

Don't take what I was saying the wrong way. Yeah, like Orb was saying, there's the law on the one hand, where her case isn't that strong as a copyright claim. But that can still be true and the studios were swarmy, and if you read the book and watched the movies you'd feel uncomfortable about it.

 

Actually, I think it's a bit more complex than that, though. This is why studios nowadays don't accept unsolicited idea submissions ... Because it's just human nature to pick out plot points when you read a book, many times half-consciously, and then the author paints himself into a corner. If they gave credit to every idea-peddler they might have used, there was no preexisting deal ... so it's very unclear what that credit means.

 

In contract law, the principle is "pre-contract consideration is no consideration". What that means is, you can't contract for a deal after the fact. When she sent her book, unsolicited without a deal, it's like she's providing a free service because she didn't demand money for it, a right to view her stuff and get it swimming in their heads. Contract law won't let her later get paid for a service she's already provided for free; you can't demand $20 for a paint job you've already done spontaneously for free. And the movie's already now been written; there's nothing really to contract with her for because the only real "work" she did, unless she basically wrote the screenplay herself, she gave away for free.

 

So the movie-makers don't really know what to do with her. Since there's no contract, any money sum is out of legal boundaries, even if they wanted to be polite. Any credit or money they try to offer as a hospitality immediately opens them up to potentially unbounded equity liability, as if it were an implied contract. They can't be polite without putting themselves at great risk by getting potentially screwed over by her. It's a kind of catch 22 they get stuck in. So they just keep quiet and hope it blows over, as is their right without a contract.

 

The catch is, both sides often don't see it coming and may well be acting in good faith, until it's too late. So that's why everybody should be thinking pretty formally right from the start, before anybody does anything ... like, don't send a script unless it's solicited and it's clear what might happen and you've got yourself legally covered.

Edited June 29, 2007 by demagogue

[Lazarus]

Can I but in here and just say the it was not the Warner Bros. who wrote The Matrix, it was the Wachowski Brothers who wrote and directed The Matrix. Warner Bros fronted the money under contract to make The Matrix which gave them Executive Producing rights and Distributed the movie. But the concept and idea were soley the Wachowski Brothers.

 

Good discussion tho.

[Ombrenuit]

The Matrix concept has been around ever since the Cyberpunk genre was invented...

Edited June 30, 2007 by Ombrenuit

[sparhawk]

Actually the concept of Matrix, came up when people started to think about consciousness. Even Descartes already thought about this problem, which led to his famous quote "I think therefore I am".

[demagogue]

Hell, even I wrote the skeleton of a screenplay just like the Matrix and felt gypped when it came out.