My copyright co-owner died. Can his children stop me from writing a novel?

[Stuart123]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

A man told me an astonishing story of his WW2 life. We copyrighted several treatment pages of story-line facts.

The man died. I started the story as a novel. I assumed his copyright went to his adult children.

I had verbal confirmation from 1 of 3 children. I wrote for a year. They saw drafts and I heard nothing back. The daughter decided her father was not how she saw him and stopped me using his name.

Is the copyright only for the treatment pages? Does that include all the information in it? Can the 50% copyright to his children stop my novel or screenplay? I'm using the plot-line from the treatment, not copying the text. Using his name as a real person states that the story-line is based on a real life. Since we copyrighted it together, can the family stop me from using his name?

Do the co-copyright owners of those treatment pages own the right to half my book or screenplay?

Everyone in the story is dead. The man's family plays no part.

 

[FlyingRon]

You can't copyright "facts" only the expression of those facts.

It's unclear if your novel is actually a derivative of any copyrightable material. If you based the novel just on some series of events in the treatment, I'm not sure that you have any copyright issues at all.

Furhter, even if you did prepare a derivative work from a prior copyrighted work, that doesn't give the owners of the original work rights to your derivative beyond the parts of the original included. Of course, how to get permission to include that is up for negotiation.

It makes no real difference if the characters are dead or not.

Your best bet would be to take the treatment and your plans for the successor work to an IP attorney and let him advise you.
The other option would to get a release from the heirs.

 

[quincy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

A man told me an astonishing story of his WW2 life. We copyrighted several treatment pages of story-line facts.

The man died. I started the story as a novel. I assumed his copyright went to his adult children.

I had verbal confirmation from 1 of 3 children. I wrote for a year. They saw drafts and I heard nothing back. The daughter decided her father was not how she saw him and stopped me using his name.

Is the copyright only for the treatment pages? Does that include all the information in it? Can the 50% copyright to his children stop my novel or screenplay? I'm using the plot-line from the treatment, not copying the text. Using his name as a real person states that the story-line is based on a real life. Since we copyrighted it together, can the family stop me from using his name?
The
Do the co-copyright owners of those treatment pages own the right to half my book or screenplay?

Everyone in the story is dead. The man's family plays no part.

If you are coauthor of the copyrighted work, and there was no agreement that detailed how the copyrights were to be shared, both you and the deceased man share equally in the copyrights.

You can do with the copyrighted work what you want (including making derivatives of the work) and the (now deceased) man could do with the copyrighted work what he wanted. The rights held by your coauthor pass to his heirs.

Whatever you or the children decide to do with the copyrighted material, however, ALL of you must share equally in any revenue generated by the work and any future works created.

I agree that you will want to sit down with an IP attorney in your area. You have several complications with your coauthored work. The heir(s) - and the reluctance of at least one of them to allow for the use of the deceased man's name - is one complication. There are others.