Treatment for a story

[Redphilly65]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania
I wrote a Treatment and sent it to Dreamworks c/o Spielberg. This was in 2002. I got it registered at WGA East but I did not pay the dues on it after 10 years. In 2017 a movie, very successful, came into the theaters and it looks very similar to the plot and premise of my Treatment. Dreamworks sent the Treatment back to me in 2002 saying they couldn't use it because they didn't ask for it. Apparently, they could and did use it. I would like to know what can be done about this. Is there a way I can be compensated? I feel a Lawyer could help me get what is owed me.

 

[adjusterjack]

You can hire an intellectual property attorney and sue for copyright infringement.

You apparently already know that so if you are here looking for a guarantee of success, there isn't any guarantee of success, nor is there any way of predicting your chances of success.

Consult an attorney and review your options.

 

[quincy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania
I wrote a Treatment and sent it to Dreamworks c/o Spielberg. This was in 2002. I got it registered at WGA East but I did not pay the dues on it after 10 years. In 2017 a movie, very successful, came into the theaters and it looks very similar to the plot and premise of my Treatment. Dreamworks sent the Treatment back to me in 2002 saying they couldn't use it because they didn't ask for it. Apparently, they could and did use it. I would like to know what can be done about this. Is there a way I can be compensated? I feel a Lawyer could help me get what is owed me.

Ideas are not copyrightable. Anyone can take someone else's idea and use it to develop their own work.

The fact that a movie has a similar plot and premise will not support an infringement action. In order to prevail in a copyright infringement action against a movie studio, the writer who claims infringement must prove that the movie is substantially similar to the infringed work. Major elements of the written work must be shown to have been copied. It is not the idea that must be copied but how the idea was expressed by the writer that must have been copied.

It is the rule, rather than the exception, that movie production companies will not accept unsolicited manuscripts, for the very reason you are here with your legal question. The companies will return unsolicited manuscripts unopened to the one who submitted it. The reason for this is that too many writers claim that successful movies have "copied" the ideas that they have submitted to the movie companies. These writers then look to be compensated for infringement - they look to share in the profits generated by a successful film.

That said, there are a few writers who have sued movie companies with some degree of success. There have been a couple of copyright infringement suits filed against Walt Disney Company over the movie Frozen, for example, and one copyright infringement suit against Disney was filed in March 2014 by Kelly Wilson. Wilson is the creator of a short film called "The Snowman." Wilson claimed there were substantial similarities between her short film and the Olaf and Sven scenes in Frozen. The short film and the Frozen scenes were compared and the comparisons could well have been judged by a court as substantially similar. The infringement suit against Disney could have been a successful one for Wilson. Disney decided to settle with Wilson in June, 2015, instead of taking their chances in a trial.

In order to sue for copyright infringement, you would need to first register your work with the US Copyright Office. An infringement suit would need to be pursued in a federal court and federal courts are not friendly to pro se plaintiffs. You will need an IP attorney.

I suggest you have your work and the film you say infringed upon it personally reviewed by an IP attorney in your area. The odds are on the side of the movie company in any infringement suit so I would not hold out hopes that you can pursue a legal action against them that will be successful. You should also be warned that any infringement suit you do decide to take will be expensive and time-consuming.

Good luck.

 

[FlyingRon]

I can almost guarantee as AJ stated, that your unsolicited treatment was dumped in the trash as soon as it was received. The studios do not take an unsolicited, unagented submissions.
There are very few times that such actions will prevail is when you can show that there the treatment content was indeed seen by the people working on the new script. For example Buchwald v. Paramount showed that Art had extensive discussions on his treatment with the principals. It was more than just dropping the script off in the slushpipe (well in your case, you didn't even make the slushpile, I guarntee).

Mere coincidence, is just that.

Further, if your TREATMENT was of someone else's copyrighted story, you have very thin rights to begin with unless you had permission from the author to perpare the treatment.

 

[quincy]

I can almost guarantee as AJ stated, that your unsolicited treatment was dumped in the trash as soon as it was received. The studios do not take an unsolicited, unagented submissions.
There are very few times that such actions will prevail is when you can show that there the treatment content was indeed seen by the people working on the new script. For example Buchwald v. Paramount showed that Art had extensive discussions on his treatment with the principals. It was more than just dropping the script off in the slushpipe (well in your case, you didn't even make the slushpile, I guarntee).

Mere coincidence, is just that.

Further, if your TREATMENT was of someone else's copyrighted story, you have very thin rights to begin with unless you had permission from the author to perpare the treatment.

One of the major factors looked at in these cases is ACCESS to the material said to be infringed. Sending a manuscript to a movie studio is rarely enough to support an infringement suit because unsolicited manuscripts are either returned to the sender unopened or disposed of immediately without reading - but registering a work with the WGA could, under some circumstances that would need to be proved, provide the access necessary.

If essential elements have been appropriated, as they appear to have been by Walt Disney when viewing the Frozen trailer and The Snowman short together, a suit is supportable. Without the expression of the idea copied, however, there is little likelihood of success. Only a likelihood of a lot of money being spent in attorney fees and court costs.

Whatever the case here, a personal review of the script as it compares to the film by an IP professional would be necessary.

(as a note: AJ's post said nothing of the sort ... )