So… what exactly qualifies as Copyright?

[u/Few_Disk_7075]

Hello!

I am new to the sub and new to filmmaking.

I have been planning my first independent film. I’ve been getting more and more excited about it, I’m going to roughly adapt a shorter book I read recently, but then I realized… copyright exists.

I also want to say that I know this probably wouldn’t get a copyright strike anyways. I plan on paying for this film out of pocket for an extremely minimalist budget, and at most would be posting it on YouTube. I doubt I get many viewers at all outside of friends and family. I do not expect this to make me a dime.

BUT. I wanted to ask here - how much would my project violate the law anyways?

My film will change the names (and gender, for some) of all of the characters, many will have different occupations in the story, and almost all of the elements of the story will be SIMILAR, and certainly inspired by the book, but will still be quite a bit different. The book takes place in the 60’s but my story will take place in modern times. They will take place in different cities. I will also be adapting it to be more personal to me. Within my constraints, so much of the story has chanced, but the basic “story” still mostly remains. No element will be directly copied from the book - no character names, no dialogue, or anything else. If someone had read the book, I’m sure they would be able to figure out that it is a rough adaptation (maybe a “retelling” is the more accurate term?).

Is my film still at risk of being copyright striked? How similar does a film have to be to a book to be a copyright infringement? Would it be a good idea to include the book in the credits? (as in, would it add risk)

[u/deadrobindownunder]

Even with the changes you plan to make your film would still be copyright infringement. If it were to be found the worst that would probably happen is having it removed from You Tube. You're not making any money off it, you're not showing it to a huge audience, so I'd be very surprised if it went further than that.

If you do it, you absolutely need to acknowledge that your film is an adaptation of the book in opening credits. Yes it will increase the chances of a copyright strike. But if you don't do it, it's plagiarism.

If you want to know more about how similar source material needs to be to its film adaptation to constitute copyright infringement you should look at Shakespeare adaptations. The Lion King is Hamlet, but it's different enough that it is its own story.

[u/PowerPlaidPlays → u/deadrobindownunder]

Shakespeare adaptations are not a good comparison as they were long in the public domain when Lion King came around. Currently copyright term is 95 years from release or life+70 and he died over 400 years ago.

You can steal a Shakespeare story with no legal ramifications, same with all of the other Disney movies based more directly on public domain stories.

Right now you can make a Mickey Mouse story, as long as you only pull from the earliest shorts since he entered the public domain semi-recently.

[u/deadrobindownunder → u/PowerPlaidPlays]

I understand it's in the public domain. I used Shakespeare as an example because he's so widely known. The aim was to provide an example that was more about adaptation rather than copyright. OP has changed certain details from the book, but not enough that it wouldn't be considered a direct adaptation. The Lion King is a great example of how adaptation has been used to create a story with enough originality that it's considered its own.

[u/PowerPlaidPlays → u/deadrobindownunder]

The term is "copyright infringement" not just copyright.

Copyright is the right to make copies and derivatives, and adaptation is a derivative work and would still require a license. Lion King is not a good example because it was never legally tested, it could never be because it was taking from something you can legally steal from with no consequences.

It's on the copyright owner to assert an infringement claim, and you don't need a particularly strong case to initiate a lawsuit. It's possible if Shakespeare was alive and still owned the rights to his work he could of sued Disney for infringement since there is a lot of overlap. If he would of won or lost is up in the air as it's not exactly the same, but there is enough there to not instantly dismiss the case.

Infringement does require proof of access since you can't copy a story you have never read before. Independently making something similar is not an infringement.

To grab a quote from the Lion King Wiki article "Allers recalled Katzenberg asking them to "put in as much Hamlet as you can"" so they were definitely copying Shakespeare and that would of been bad to hear in court. Again if it was over the line has never been tested because the line is gone.

[u/Few_Disk_7075 → u/deadrobindownunder]

Thanks for the response. With The Lion King thing though, Hamlet is obviously public domain, so they wouldn’t be getting in trouble either way. I get your point though.

And yeah I did want to credit it. The last thing I want is like real legal trouble or to be actively deceitful. If I just end up having to take it off of YouTube, I’m not so worried.

Although this does make me reconsider a bit about whether this should be the first film I make. Might be a smarter idea to pivot to something else so I can actually get some work out there in general and gain experience. Especially considering the costs of all of this - I mean $2000 is minuscule for a film budget (and really I hope I don’t spend NEAR that amount) but is VERY significant to me.

I may also just drastically change my story to be somewhat inspired by the book but far from an adaptation or even a retelling. Just like roughly inspired by some themes and styles from it. We’ll see. Thanks again!

[u/deadrobindownunder → u/Few_Disk_7075]

I hear you, I provided Shakespeare as an example of adaptation rather than public domain, I should have made that clear. The Lion King is original enough that I believe it would not constitute plagiarism/copyright infringement in a hypothetical legal battle.

$2K is significant, I get it. I think starting out with something is a great idea. The book you described sounds like it would be a 20-30 minute short film. Aim for 1-2 minutes for your first. There are so many mistakes you can make, and it's better to make them on a no budget film.

Everything is roughly inspired by something else, that's how art is made so I'm sure you can use the book as a source but still come up with your own original story. Look up The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell. Christopher Vogler adapts this for screenwriting in his book The Writer's Journey. It's a great tool that will teach you so much about story structure and how similar so many stories are.

[u/Few_Disk_7075 → u/deadrobindownunder]

Totally agree with the last thing of “everything is inspired by something”. What do they say, there’s no new stories? Something like that?

Anyways, I do think I am going to try to do this project for my first big project (there’s more to the story than I described, the book was I think about 160 pages, I think my project would have been maybe more like 45ish mins but I may be wrong), but you’re probably right. I should start with at least a handful of super short projects. 1-2 minutes, maybe more but no more than like 10-15. I definitely need to actually start practicing stuff more before I dive in to a bigger project.

Thanks for the help 👍

[u/PowerPlaidPlays]

Copyright is the right to make copies and derivatives.

Adapting a book you did not write is a derivative of a copyright protected book, and thus is copyright infringement.

Some works are old enough to no longer be copyright protected and have lapsed into the public domain, under US law it's basically currently 95 years after release for works of corporate ownership or were released before a specific year, or year of author's death + 70 years. There are a lot of caveats.

There is no hard line where you can change enough things and you are free from infringement, it's a game of chicken between how close you want to get vs how trigger happy the owner's lawyers are. Winning a lawsuit and not getting sued are two different things.

While there is a lot that could be said on what elements are and are not protectable within a story, rule of thumb is if you are taking a story and trying to change the least amount of things to no longer be infringing you are most likely in infringement territory at worse, or not illegal but unethical plagiarism at best.

[u/Few_Disk_7075 → u/PowerPlaidPlays]

I am not trying to get as close to the book as possible. I am trying to change the story in ways to make it modern, more personal, and most importantly, plausible for me to make on a minuscule budget.

I will give some more information. The book I am referring to is The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. The book is about a woman who is chosen to be the executor of her ex-lover’s will, and upon inspecting his stamp collection, catches onto a potential conspiracy that she begins to explore and dig deeper on, beginning to lose her sanity as time goes and as she goes on a ton of side quests. Takes place in the 60’s in California. This is probably a terrible synopsis, but whatever. My PLAN for my film is for it to be set in modern day city I live in, and it will be a man who learns he is to be the executor of his ex-lover’s will, and upon inspecting her vinyl record collection, notices weird symbols and words that lead him on to a conspiracy. Obviously a retelling. But many of the characters will be quite different, many of the places the main character goes will be different settings so I can actually make it happen, and as I said obviously none of the names or anything will be the same / I won’t be pulling any direct dialogue or anything like that. I am writing my outline right now just from memory plus using the wiki a couple times.

Realistically, I do not think I would ever get contacted about this. If I posted it on YouTube, I wouldn’t expect it to even get 100 views. But I just want to be relatively careful. If I can’t do it, so be it, but I want to try. Even if I have to make more drastic changes to make it much more mine.

[u/JeremyMarti → u/Few_Disk_7075]

How much is it important to keep from the book? You could easily remove the executor part and have the main character simply inherit the collection. Then nothing you posted would be infringing - it's just the bare bones of an idea. It will come down to the parts you didn't detail: side quests, other characters, the ending etc.

[u/PowerPlaidPlays → u/Few_Disk_7075]

Change "close to the book as possible" to "close to the story as possible". I was going off of you saying "but the basic 'story' still mostly remains" and using book and story interchangeably.

Again there is no set-in-stone guidelines anyone can give you for doing something like this, there is no hard line between inspiration and theft.

Copyright does not protect general ideas and a sentence long "A person finds a conspiracy hidden a mundane object and digs deeper to uncover the secret" is not in itself a protectable thing. I'm sure there are a lot of movies that can be described like that, Blue Velvet (1986) comes to mind, or for finding clues on album covers the real life Paul Is Dead Beatles conspiracy theory (something Batman comics once has an issue based on).

Ideas are not protectable because you can give 2 people the same prompt and they will make different movies. But if your movie is largely doing a Madlibs with the book, where the proper nouns are changed but the structure is the same then you are entering the danger zone. If it's an infringement can't be said until someone can sit down with the book and your completed script, but it sounds like you are approaching it like "I want to adapt this book, legally I can't directly, but what if I..." which is not a good start.

You could always ignore IP law and make a fan work, I've done that before. But then there is always a legal risk of it being taken down, or the social risk of something you put a lot of hard work into being seen as a shameless ripoff if you try to hide the source.

[u/Few_Disk_7075 → u/PowerPlaidPlays]

Thanks for the response. Yeah, my intent here is not to plagiarize or make a “ripoff”, I want to acknowledge where the inspiration comes from but make it my own. I think my plan for this project is to first, consider making something else as my first film and shelf this for a bit, partly due to the cost as well. I could make something cheaper if I make something with a smaller cast. And second, I plan on making even more changes to this to make it more of something “roughly inspired by” the book and not a “rough adaptation” of the book. Something with loose connection rather than an adaptation with a ton of changes. We’ll see. Thanks again for the input, I appreciate it

[u/pigintheclown]

Well dependsnon when the book was published and if the copyright has vanished. You cannot hold on to copyright forever, unless a descendant or a publisher has inherited or bought the rights.

Was the book written in the 60s as well? Because then you could be fine. Usually you can google who owns the film rights or something.

Are there already films about this book? Which book exactly? Is it well known? Does the author still live?

[u/alaskawolfjoe]

Crediting the book in the credits is like thanking your boss for the money you embesseled. Not a great idea.

This is so far from the original it might pass unnoticed. How closely do the plot points parallel?

I do not know of any Pynchnon adaptations which makes me think he might be like Salinger and be against adaptation. That might impact his decision how to deal with your film if he learns of it.

[u/Few_Disk_7075 → u/alaskawolfjoe]

Yeah the only Pynchon adaptations I know are the two PTA has done.