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It was not a slow news day but someone thought it was news that Disney and the producers of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl are being sued by a screenwriter who claims that he had presented a screenplay just like this back in the 1980s and pitched it to Disney in 1993. Where this falls down for me is his assertion that he had "an eccentric pirate captain" in the mix. I think that will be the phrase that will kill this quickly since everyone and their brother knows that the screenwriters were writing for an Errol Flynn type and it was Depp that came up with Sparrow as we know and love today. Also the people in the suits in the early 90s are not the same suits that are warming the seats today. Disney went through a BIG personal change in the late 1990s. I really hope that the judge tosses this one out quickly with the court costs to the defendant.

This sort of stuff happens all the time and is the main reason that neither Peter nor I can hear this really great idea you have for anything we are working on or have worked on. Which in some ways is sad. That an idea that someone may have is vaguely like something that is already in the pipeline and therefore they will sue if their idea shows up. Ya know that sometimes people have about the same idea at the same time. Might have something to do with a news story that both people saw or something that someone said. Peter and I are working on a couple of ideas for some projects right now. Some of them might see the light of day and the others are fun to think through. But it is nothing I can discuss with anyone but him (with the possible exception of his literary agent). If I see a book along the same lines as what we are thinking I am not going to accuse the other person of stealing our idea even if it is someone we know or just happens to have the same agent.

There are times that we do present the idea to some of our friends just to make sure that we are not just repeating something that has been done before. We also know the people we tell aren't going to run off with the idea(s). There has been one occasion where I told another professional I trusted about an idea I had for a book series and he informed me that a mutual friend had just sold almost the same thing recently. So I dropped that idea. The mutual friend had no idea that I was thinking along the same lines until told by the professional. He asked me if I knew he was thinking that way and I said honestly no I didn't and I know that he was not "stealing" my idea just that our minds tend to work the same way. The series has done pretty well for them. So this can happen organically rather than someone out to steal one's ideas and make a profit from them. I am not saying that it doesn't happen and authors should defend their intellectual property to the nth degree. Remember I am friends with Harlan.

I really suspicious of this lawsuit is happening 3 years after the first film came out. Can he produce a copy of the script that he registered with the WGA back in 1993? Cutthroat Island was in production at the time can he prove he didn't know about that film which does have a couple of similar plot points? Or did he just find a lawyer that is willing to take the case with the hopes of making some quick money off of Disney? Like I said I really hope this case gets a quick drop with a hard stop.

I am grateful that I do have good ideas that can be published even if I am not the author.

Date: 2006-07-13 02:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wandereringray.livejournal.com
*nods in agreement* It's sad, but as I get further along toward being published I find myself more and more wary of talking about plot lines with anyone but a few really close friends. (and all brand new stuff usually only makes it as far as PB's ears)

Case in point I had a guy in kung fu the other day strike up a conversation and someone else mentioned they'd love to read my work. *shrugs* I just smiled and told them that hopefully they'd be able to do just that sometime in the next year.

It totally sounds like this guy is just trying to get something for nothing. Sad really.

Date: 2006-07-13 06:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] querldox.livejournal.com
I forget just which member of the Algonquin Round Table it was, but one of them once mused that he'd like to hold a dinner party to which he'd invite everyone who had sued him for stealing their ideas/plays. Once they were all seated, he would stand up and go around the table pointing at each in turn saying "You say you wrote [play]; what else have you written? Let us see your other works of equal or greater quality."

Apparently all too often in such cases, they either haven't written anything else, or all of their work is of abysmal quality when compared to the professional writer's.

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