Possible Legal action against M. Night

[Sarangel]

M Night Shyamalan, the writer-director of The Sixth Sense, is facing possible legal action for his latest hit, The Village, from publishers of a children's book. Reuters reports that publisher Simon & Schuster is "reviewing" its legal options against Walt Disney and Shyamalan over perceived similarities between the movie and the plot of one of its books.

Reports say the story of the Village, and its surprise ending, are similar to Margaret Peterson Haddix's first book, Running Out of Time, which was published in 1995. It sold more than half a million copies.

Haddix told Reuters that fans and journalists had emailed and called her to ask if she'd sold the book to Shyamalan. She said she had never spoken to him, or to Disney.

"It's certainly an interesting situation," said Haddix. "I'm just examining what my options are." Shyamalan's Blinding Edge Pictures, and Disney, have dismissed the claims as "meritless".

 

[manning]

Hmmm, this one might hunt.

 

[ErikdaRed]

Not unless they can prove that he had read the book before he wrote his screenplay, which will be very tough.

 

[KNWVIKING]

The fact that people who read the book & then saw the movie recognized the similarities seems significant, at least to me.

 

[ErikdaRed]

Not really. If I locked myself in a box and wrote a word for word copy of a work, without having ever seen the work, I didn't break the copyright of that work.

 

[raidermatt]

Do they really have to prove he intentionally plagiarized the book?

I thought even an accidental "copy" was a violation of copyright law? Maybe not criminal, but still could be financially liable?

(note, I'm not saying this is or isn't a violation, just asking hypothetically. I have neither read the book nor seen the movie, though I did read a synopsis of the movie that mentioned the story being similar to the book.)

 

[ErikdaRed]

They have to at least prove that he read it. Otherwise, how did he "copy" it. Creating similar works doesn't violate copyright.

 

[KNWVIKING]

Isn't this movie based on a book written by Shyamalan ? If so, I guess no one caught the similarity between the two books.

Hmmm... maybe he didn't write a book.

Check out Distriv's comment on page two of this thread: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=614213

 

[Bstanley]

Well it's not like writing a new IBM compatible BIOS - M. Night hasn't spent the last 9 years in a "clean-room" writing this script. If there are substantial similarities a judge will find it hard to accept M. Night's word that he didn't read the book - or have had the book read to him - or had plot elements layed out for him, or etc. etc.

I'm not familiar with either the book or the movie so I don't know personally what the similarities are, but as an example if someone did a movie about Dinosaurs being resurrected by Cloning they probably wouldn't get sued by Michael Crichton, but if someone did a movie about a Theme Park being built to be populated with Dinosaurs being resurrected by Cloning where the Dinos got loose they probably would get sued - whether or not anyone could prove that they had read the book or seen the movies.

 

[wtg2000]

I haven't seen the movie or read the book but you've got to love the audacity of PR people. Disney spokesperson Dennis Rice said: "Whatever claims are being made of similarities between the book and the movie have no merit.''

Is he saying there are no similarities or that if there are they are unintentional? He seems to be saying there aren't any. This is odd since I've read reports all over the net that there are. Are people hallucinating? Is the author hallucinating?

If I could talk to Dennis Rice I would ask him if he's read the book. If he says "No" then I'd ask him how he can make that claim. And if he says "Yes" I'd ask him why he's read the book. I mean, of all the children's books out there why would he have read this one?

It's funny how reading about the controversy has given away the movie's ending to me. I was planning to catch it on DVD and may still.

Interesting that M. Night is still being sued for Signs.

It's also interesting that early in his career Spielberg was sued for stealing Close Encounters, ET, and even Raiders (though he didn't write it). Every project since pretty much has been based on a book that he's purchased the rights to! Maybe there's a lesson there.

 

[punkin]

I have no interest in the movie, but I did read the book. It's my daughter's favorite. It's about a "living museum" village where people pretend it's the 1800's except the children of the village don't know it's all pretend. Now, the parents don't now that their children have never been innoculated by the people who run the village. Dyptheria is introduce into the population as an experiment and all the children start dropping like flies. Great book. Highly recommended for anyone ages 8-15 and not a bad read for the adults either.

 

[manning]

Not really. If I locked myself in a box and wrote a word for word copy of a work, without having ever seen the work, I didn't break the copyright of that work.

If I was on the jury the first question would be what are the odds of that happening. very very veeerrry loong!!

Also not true. A copy right item does not have to be published. Once you have created it, put it in writing in this case, and copy right it, it is yours and no one else can touch it. Under current law, works are covered whether or not a copyright notice is attached and whether or not the work is registered.
You cannot have a copy right on an idea.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/copyright.html

 

[ErikdaRed]

Your correct that it doesn't need to be published to be copyrighted, but I would still need to have seen it in order to copy it.

The question at hand in this case is if the idea of someone creating an old style village is so unique that the writer must have taken it from the book. Of course we've seen this idea multiple places before (even on PBS), so I just don't see where there is a case, unless it can be proven that the book was directly derived from (meaning they need to prove it was at least seen by the writer).

 

[manning]

Read the link. All the original author has to prove is he was there first.

 

[DancingBear]

It's a lot more complicated than that. Read some of the examples in this website, including summaries of the cases re Raiders of the Lost Ark and 2 Live Crew's version of Pretty Woman.
http://www.benedict.com/

And here's another site stating succinctly the elements of proving infringement:

3. HOW IS INFRINGEMENT PROVED IN A COURT OF LAW?

To establish copyright infringement in a court of law, a copyright owner must establish proof copyright ownership and proof of copying. Proof of copying may be established either by direct evidence of copying (i.e., an admission) or by indirect evidence showing 1) access to the original work; and 2) "substantial similarity" between the original and allegedly infringing work.

Courts will not find copyright infringement if two people independently come up with the same or a "substantially similar" work. Also, the less original a copyrighted work is, the less protection it may be entitled to under copyright.

http://www.alankorn.com/articles/copyright_infringe.html

 

[wtg2000]

George Harrison was successfully sued for copying My Sweet Lord even though they said it was unintentional.

The options for The Village situation would be: 1) he knowingly copied it. 2) He read the book long ago, forgot about it, and came up with the idea without remembering where it came from, and 3) He never read the book and similiarities are just one of those things. The first one certainly gets him in trouble. I'm not sure about the next two. I think they would. It's possible the idea was presented to him by a producer while the movie rights were floating around. I would imagine this happens a lot.

 

[DancingBear]

I doubt George Harrison could have, or even tried, to claim he never heard "He's So Fine", so all they had to do was prove substantial similarity, which was very clear when the songs were compared.