OK here's a question, not about writing, but about selling writing.

Suppose I've come across an old novel, a neglected novel by a famous and long-dead writer, and I think it would make a great movie.

Let's say it's the neglected Dashiel Hammett novel, The Maltese Pigeon.

I want to write a screenplay, an adaptation of this book.

If I write it, and send it off to a studio or whatever, what stops them from saying "oh yeah, good idea, an adaptation of The Maltese Pigeon" and doing it themselves?

(What would quite possibly stop them is the fact that most studio executives don't read books or even watch films, going by the story of the guy who changed the names in the screenplay of Casablanca and had it rejected by all the major studios without them recognising it. But apart from that.)

Assuming they did recognise it, and they didn't use any of the things that were specific to my screenplay, could they just grab the idea and go with it? I mean, I can hardly copyright the idea of a modern version of an old book...

Suppose I've come across an old novel, a neglected novel by a famous and long-dead writer, and I think it would make a great movie.

Okay, you are on VERY dicey ground already. How dead is long dead? A hundred years? Any less than that and it's still copywrited material that SOMEONE could make a claim against you. Children, cousins, original publishers, estates.

Second of all, most production companies don't take adaptions from unknown writers. If they wanted to do an adaption, they'd just go through the motions on their own. If they DID get inspired to seek out the original, they'd most likely discard your script. On the other hand, I'd doubt they'd actively steal from you.

Oh, and you'd be surprised about studio execs reading books. When most people in film or TV go home, the last thing they want to do is watch TV or a movie. Fiction does quite well in L.A.

Thanks for that, Victor, I was hoping you'd be around.

How dead is long dead? A hundred years?

Over a hundred, and are you sure about that figure? I thought it was fifty?

Anyway, in this case, not an issue. Say it's Jane Austen's novel The Maltese Pigeon that I want to adapt, and if I do adapt it, it'll be in a modern setting, so it won't leap out at you from the page.

What about that Othello thing, "O" that came out recently -- say some guy adapts it and doesn't tell them. Or does the fact that it's Shakespeare and lots of teachers will welcome the idea of a teen-friendly adaptation make them more likely to want it?

I think the cutoff is still hovering around 1922 -- it pretty much keeps getting moved back as soon as the Mickey Mouse copyright looks like it might go public domain. Depending on where you are (national laws vary) it's either all works written before 1922, or else where the author died before 1922.

it pretty much keeps getting moved back as soon as the Mickey Mouse copyright looks like it might go public domain

Cool conspiracy theory.

But again, not an issue. Long dead, children long dead, great-grandchildren long dead.

My main contribution so far is just having a brainwave in which the novel translated itself to a modern setting, so what I've really got is a pitch, like if you said "It's Othello, but with high-school basketball!".

Cool conspiracy theory.

Actually true, though, or I think publicly acknowledged, or something?

God I'm tired....

It's pretty well-known, I think.

What am I supposed to do with my name? It doesn't actually end in an s, just an s sound. But if the Buffistas are saying s's for everyone except Moses and Jesus, and I'm evidently not them, I suppose it's s's for me. Liese's.

The issue with Jesus and Moses is that they already have a double s, so Jesus's makes a triple s. Liese's does look a little weird, but I'm pretty sure it's correct.

The first, and smartest thing you can do is investigate whether somebody...the writer's estate, a company, the publisher...owns the rights to the material still. Then you may have to negotiate for the rights and pay some money. That's if you want to be able to write it, send it off to a studio and hamper their ability to say "Neat idea. Yoink!"

Another option, if you don't want to buy the rights but still want to write it and potentially sell it to a studio, is to write the treatment and immediately register it with the WGA. Registering is cheap (around $25) and you don't have to be a member of the Writer's Guild. This is not the same as copyright or anything, but if you were to ship it to a studio and they tried to "yoink" it, you would at least have established "Dude, I wrote this a year ago" or whatever.

The (potential) advantage to this route is that you can write the treatment or the screenplay, shop it to a studio and let them wrangle with purchasing the rights to the original material. Once they've done that, you can start talking money.

As I understand it, you're not necessarily in violation of copyright, or at least not to an extent that anyone would care about, until you get paid. So it's a timing thing; if you write it without owning the rights and sell it before the rights are acquired, you're in trouble. If you write it without acquiring the rights, talk to a studio, they acquire the rights and then you sell it, you're probably okay.

Again, though, this is not expertise talking here. You may want to contact an entertainment attorney.

You may want to contact an entertainment attorney.

MM's got Sage advice here. Hollywood's gota billion of 'em. You might want to check on something like wwww.scriptsales.com. Also, registering your script (you can do it on-line now) can protect what's unique to you. In anaycase, write and register the script before you shop it, alse heartbreak will ensure.

Copywrite is a weird thing. For the most part, you are correct about the "dead fifty years" rule. That's true unless the writing's publisher, screenplay rights holder or family are cagey. H.P. lovecraft's work should have gone into public domain a short while ago, but his estate has managed to circumvent it. (Helped, in part, by the fact that they're very generous with granting permission.)