Legal Question in Entertainment Law in North Carolina

Re: Diary of deceased person

Interesting set of facts. Are you saying that after the estate was distributed, the sisters threw the diary in the garbage and that this is where you found it? I'd have to know who controlled the estate, and who then controlled the literary rights, and whether throwing away a diary constitutes an abandonment of literary rights. In other words, this is not a clear case and would require research and a clear argument/defense. It's also not clear that your use of the work as research constitutes literary rights. If its a way to gather research and history for something else you are filming, it may simply be a primary source in the context of the final film. I would need to hear much more about this.