THE LEGAL LINE
Barbara Chase-Riboud
Copyright infringement in the Movies
by SEAN BOSSE
In the early 1990’ s, Barbara Chase-Riboud instituted a civil claim against world renowned movie director and producer, Steven Spielberg, for copyright infringement. It was Chase-Riboud’ s case that Spielberg’’ s film, Amistad, had infringed her novel about the real life mutiny which took place on board the slave ship, the Amistad, in 1839. The cause of action against Spielberg was that the script( and later the movie) of Amistad copied, without Chase-Riboud’ s permission, the characters, storyline, themes and events( historical and fictional) that appeared in her novel.
At the hearing, evidence was led on behalf of Chase- Riboud that several characters, themes and events of the novel and the movie script overlapped. It was also shown that prior to the script being produced by Spielberg, he had met with Chase-Riboud in the US to discuss her novel and to negotiate an option for Spielberg to acquire the movie rights thereto.
The copyright landscape( and courts throughout the world) is littered with similar tales of copyright infringement and the question to be asked and answered is what can be copied without permission by another person and how can I protect my ideas from copyright infringement?
COPYRIGHT( GENERAL OVERVIEW)
Copyright is a form of legal protection granted to a person who qualifies therefore to allow him to make exclusive use( and financial gain) from his unique material. The material may be in the form of a novel,
screenplay, music, and computer programmes, to name but a few. Copyright law does not, however, protect ideas and historical facts or themes of a general nature. Put differently, copyright laws aim to protect the author’ s expression of an idea and not the idea itself.
In copyright cases heard before the courts, it has been held that ideas of a“ basic plot”,“ general storyline” and“ stereo-typical characters” are not protected under copyright laws. The courts have argued that these devices are the everyday tools in the writer’ s toolkit and no one person can lay claim to it as his or her own idea.
It often happens that a writer will pitch an idea or a concept or general storyline to a producer or broadcaster, only for the idea to be turned down. Years later, the writer goes to court and sues the producer for copyright infringement where it is alleged that the producer has
76 | WGSA MAG July 2013