Legal Question in Entertainment Law in California
Stolen screenplay made into film
An old film making aquaintance of mine recently produced and released a film that I had written myself. We had stopped talking and he never asked my permission. He is also taking credit for writing it. What can I do? I feel very violated.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Stolen screenplay made into film
If you believe you may be able to prove you wrote it, you should hire an attorney to force him to agree to a % of the profits.
Best,
Daniel Bakondi, Esq.
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Re: Stolen screenplay made into film
If you can prove that you wrote it, and when, and that the two works are substantially similar and that the filmmaker had ACCESS to your work(direct, not secondary, or inferential access), you could SUE HIM for copyright infringement.
Hopefully, you registered your copyright BEFORE this all happened. It's not fatal to your case if you didn't, but it helps with proof, and increases the monetary award if you win.
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