inTouch: Cloud of Doubt Hangs Over Social News Site Movie Deal
The publishing landscape is a new frontier with a lot of great opportunities, but as we noted last week (Amazon E-Book Stirs Jealousy and a Writer Loses her Book Contract), some folks get into unexpected skirmishes because the frontier has hazy boundaries. Sometimes someone will tell you that you have crossed the line in the sand, but at other times, a deal may go through before someone thinks to question its validity.
This is what has happened with a series of short stories that were published through Reddit and snapped up by Warner Brothers.
Getting the attention of a movie studio was probably a dream come true for James Erwin, “a largely unknown author who successfully got Warner Bros. to buy movie rights to his story about what would happen if U.S. Marines traveled back in time to fight the Roman Empire.”
If you don’t know, Reddit it is a social news site (owned by Condé Nast). On Reddit, users can post articles and blog posts and take part in discussions and vote on these submissions. Many of us participate in social networking and social news websites, paying little attention to all the legalese that is put before us when we first sign up. Like many sites of its kind, Reddit lets its users know that by posting, they are giving Reddit the right to license the content posted as it chooses.
So the controversy over who owns the rights to the “Rome, Sweet Rome” stories lies not only in the fact that Warner Brothers bought these rights from Erwin, but also because the movie studio has said it has “exclusive” rights to the stories. Although this has been questioned, Warner Brothers maintains its position and Reddit has not announced any intention to assert its rights. TechDirt muses, “it certainly would be interesting and amusing to see what would happen if Reddit tried to license the same rights to a competing studio.”
Unlike Kiana Davenport, who lost a publishing contract because her publisher felt that publishing an Amazon e-book violated the terms she agreed to, Reddit did not go after Erwin; seems as if other people started to question the deal Erwin made with Warner Brothers.
In cases like these, the speculation over who owns what, one thing is clear: the content creator(s) (originators?) most certainly do not own the creative works that they have shared. In Erwin’s case, he created the stories, but he did get input from fellow Reddit users.
While examining the Reddit controversy at Hollywood Reporter, Eriq Gardner spoke with Denise Howell, an intellectual property lawyer, who pointed out that Twitter users could get caught up in the same issue because where the micro-blogging company once “used to expressly disclaim rights to user submissions,” it now lets users know that sending a tweet gives Twitter the right to sub-license, use, or copy it.
Socialtimes.com advises: “Most of the stuff that we post online these days is just for fun or for personal use and copyright isn’t so much of an issue. However, if you are dealing with property that you created, whether it be a story like James Erwin’s, photographs, animation, video or anything else, it’s important to keep these licensing issues in mind as things can get pretty tricky.”
Do restrictive content rights make you think twice before you post something online? Post your Thoughts below.
READ a Screenrant.com interview with James Erwin.
More from InTouch:
inTouch: Margaret Atwood’s Limited Edition Straw Book
inTouch: Friends and Frenemies – Barry Eisler’s Hybrid Deal with Amazon
inTouch: Was JFK’s Speechwriter Really His Ghostwriter?
About The Author:
Jada.Bradley
Jada Bradley (jadabradley.com) is a Washington DC-based writer and educator who enjoys telling stories in formal and informal ways. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post and online. She holds Masters in Spanish Translation and is a great supporter of creative expression in the various forms it takes. She also writes about local cultural events as D.C. Cultural Events Examiner for Examiner.com. Her blog, In Other Words, can be found at inotherwordz.blogspot.com.
David posted on October 24, 2011
Content rights should be taught in schools.
Gia Manry posted on October 25, 2011
The smart move for Reddit would be to sit back and enjoy the attention. “Sure, Digg, but did any of YOUR comments get made into a major motion picture?”
If they kicked up a fuss about the rights, I expect it would garner some ill-will, as well as making people nervous about contributing to the site.
But does Reddit really retain movie rights in its terms of service? I’d love to see a lawyer look those over to see how much hypothetical leg Reddit would have to stand on. Most of the rights held in a TOS are specifically for using comments for their own promotional purposes, for their appearances on various pages on their own site, for their appearance on other sites (like Facebook or Twitter), etc.
Gia Manry posted on October 25, 2011
Hit submit too soon
Seriously, people tend to get nervous when they see all of the rights that sites’ TOS demand, but the reality is that they HAVE to have those rights in order to legally share your content the way *you* specifically want it to, if you want things to carry over to other social media, to notify your friends on that site, etc. It’s all very complicated >_>