Sunday, November 28, 2010
Studio's $15M lawsuit against a screenwriter
Some of you may be aware of this:
[11/25/10]: A Long Island screenwriter was slapped with a $15 million federal lawsuit for posting 20th Century Fox movie scripts on the Internet -- including a major comic-book flick still in the works [i.e., "Dead Pool"], court papers say.
Patricia McIlvaine, of Mount Sinai, said she maintains a script database that she was using to help educate other screenwriters.
Those of you who have traversed the screenwriting blogosphere may well have bumped into PJ along the way. She is a produced screenwriter with two credits. She is a blogger. And by all accounts, a good soul. Now imagine this happening to you:
Supposed to be celebrating the baptism of a child, two strangers knocked on her door and informed her, in front of her children, 20th Century Fox was suing her for 15 million dollars. Two hours later, after grilling her with questions for two solid hours, they left her stunned and crying in her living room staring at a business card that stated they were “private investigators.”
This was the first contact PJ had from 20th Century Fox regarding a Media Fire online script library she created — and was the day 20th Century Fox filed a law suit against PJ in federal court for fifteen million dollars.
Sheridan who hosts the script-hosting site MyPDFscripts.com posted two items, one Friday when the story first broke and one yesterday about the case: here and here. An excerpt:
Let’s start at the beginning of the Complaint:
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation vs. Patricia McIlvaine and Does 1-10.
What does “Does 1-10″ mean, exactly? It means that P.J. is not alone in this lawsuit.
Does signify currently unidentifiable individuals whose true identities may or may not be revealed once the Plaintiff (Fox) begins the discovery process. It’s a way of saying “we know there are more people involved.” So, once the discovery process starts, up to 10 more people can be named in this suit. And, if found guilty, will be individually responsible for settling with Fox.
Note: 10 more potential targets of the lawsuit. Another excerpt from Sheridan's post:
Yesterday, I said there are three unspoken rules regarding script websites. These are the same unspoken rules that have allowed sites like Drew’s Script-O-Rama and Simply Scripts to exist for as long as they have. In Drew’s case, fifteen years now. Fifteen years!
The rules, which I actually learned from Don over at Simply Scripts, are simple (and have already been implied):
1. Do not make available a currently in development screenplay.
2. Do not make screenplays available until their respective films are released in theaters or on home video.
3. Respond immediately to studio requests.
But, as we are about to learn rather quickly, Paragraph 8 doesn’t care about the unspoken rules and this is where it gets scary for EVERY screenplay website in general:
Additionally, McIlvaine has uploaded and made available roughly 100 other movie and television scripts for which Fox is the copyright holder. All of these scripts had been registered by Fox with the Copyright Office prior to the acts of infringement by McIlvaine. The illegal uploads all occurred in 2009 and 2010. Some of these illegally uploaded scripts relate to works that Fox has not released, while others relate to well-known and released works, such as the movie Aliens, the movie Edward Scissorhands, the movie Wall Street, and the television show Glee. The Copyright Registration number for each of the these works is included in a list attached as an Appendix to this Complaint.
Oh. Shit.
They went there.
And, please, before any of you wish to point out that I’m guilty of this, too (much like the gentleman FoxyOne pointed out in the comments of my previous post), stop for a second and listen to me: I KNOW. Yes, I make available several produced screenplays here for free. You don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to remind me. It’s my website. I’m fully aware of that fact. Why? Because it’s a screenplay website. And I am one of many. As I said yesterday, posting produced screenplays up to this moment in time has been an accepted practice. As already noted, Drew’s Script-O-Rama has been doing it for fifteen years.
What does all this mean? Obviously for PJ McIlvaine, it means a world of shit [I'll provide information later how you can help]. For 20th Century Fox, it seems this is a shot across the bow to any website which posts their scripts.
So even though I assert that what I do here on this blog, like my teaching at UNC, through UCLA Extension's Writers' Program, and at Screenwriting Master Class is for educational purposes only and should be covered by Fair Use (you can see the site's Fair Use notice here), until this thing settles out, I will suspend any further posts with links to studio scripts.
It would be one thing if the suit was limited to scripts not yet produced into movies such as "Dead Pool," the leaking of which may well be the precipitating incident for Fox's legal action. [I long ago settled on a policy on this site not to post anything about scripts in active development.] But the fact the suit includes produced scripts, that needs to get sorted out.
Screenwriter Max Adams, who hosts the blog Celluloid Blonde, posted this on PJ's behalf:
PJ doesn’t have the kind of cash needed to hire an attorney. Like I said, days she works a telephone line selling flowers to make ends meet and nights she writes — fighting to bridge that artist-who-does-art vs. artist-who-gets-paid-for-art gap. In between she is caring for an elderly relative suffering from dementia. In between that she is caring for an infant. She is going to need help. If you can help, please send a small gift donation via :::PayPal::: to pjscriptcooperative@gmail.com — people are putting together a small fund to help PJ retain an attorney.
I have been assured that if PJ can find an attorney specializing in copyright law who will take on the case pro bono, whatever funds sent her way will be returned.
Any lawyers or legal scholars out there who care to weigh in on the matter, please feel free. And as always, I'm interested to hear the thoughts of the GITS community on this matter.
Posted by Scott at 6:00 PM
