Plagiarism is Your Friend

All of the above is minor stuff compared to the next category of screenplay-scamming. And somehow, it sounds too much like work, which is the nemesis of all thieves.

Why not do what the big players do, and steal from the best? Yeah, I'm talking about literature.

For "Clueless," for example, screenwriter/director Amy Heckerling used the plot of Jane Austen's "Emma." What's Austen gonna do -- sue her? But it's all perfectly legal. First of all, "Emma" has long been a public domain work. That means that anyone anywhere can do an adaptation of the novel, print new copies of the book, or stick pages of the work to their bodies with clotted cream while shouting excerpts from the text as a piece of public performance art. Jane, being long dead, doesn't really need the cash.

But think of it -- reams of moldering literature (that nobody in our woefully illiterate society reads anymore) are just waiting for you to revive even a small part of them. Writers like Melville, Dumas, Hardy, and Bronte have already done the really difficult work of plotting the story for you. Now you can just change the names, location, and century of the work, and claim it as your own. And no one can stop you! (insert evil laugh here)

Stealing Fire from the Gods

Some of the best sources of public domain narrative to claim for yourself are mythology and fairy tales. Disney animation regularly earns income equivalent to a South American country with this method. "Hercules", "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," "Snow White," "Sleeping Beauty" -- money, money, money!

One of my favorite successful fairy-tale adaptations is that of "Freeway," which was a brilliant riff on the tale of "Little Red Riding Hood."

If you've never really read much in area of myth and folklore (you call yourself a writer? Shame! May Joseph Campbell haunt you), then you'll quickly learn that it all has been done before. Just knowing this liberates you from having to actually be creative.

Blatant Larceny

And now for the advanced method for those with particularly mean lawyers on their side -- just take what you want.

A perfect example of an infamously botched heist surrounded the Eddie Murphy vehicle "Coming to America." The producers had already agreed to pay newspaper columnist Art Buchwald a percentage of the net profits of the film for the use of his idea. Ostensibly this wasn't a theft, but an outright purchase of Buchwald's concept. Yet when time came to pony up, through the voodoo of Hollywood accountancy, Paramount declared that the film hadn't actually made any money, specifically net profit (although it grossed over $300 million worldwide).

In "How the Movie Wars Were Won" by John W. Cones, he notes that:

"(Art Buchwald's attorney) . . . filed a thirty-three page complaint against Paramount, charging a litany of misdeeds: breach of contract, tortious denial of existence of contract, breach of good faith and fair dealing, breach of fiduciary duty, common law fraud, constructive fraud, negligent misrepresentation, conversion, constructive trust and negligence. Thirteen causes of action in all-- a smorgasbord of legal theories to describe . . . a callous, calculated act of corporate cover-up of literary theft. The script for the Eddie Murphy film 'Coming to America' had allegedly been based on a treatment submitted earlier by Art Buchwald and his producer."

Although Buchwald and his attorneys finally won their case, Cones further notes that:

"The plaintiffs in the Buchwald v Paramount case were awarded only $900,000 in damages, $150,000 for writer Art Buchwald and $750,000 for producer Alain Bernheim. Thus, even though the plaintiffs won on the important substantive issues in the case (at the trial level), their damage award did not even cover the attorney fees and court costs. Therefore it is difficult to conclude that the plaintiffs won and the studio lost in every respect. In addition, there is little evidence to suggest (aside from the hyperbole contained in Pierce O'Donnell's own book) that the celebrated case has actually resulted in any significant changes in the way the major studio/distributors conduct their business."

See! Crime does pay! (Especially when you're rich, speaking of O.J.)

When Disney made "The Lion King," their stated model of departure was "Hamlet" (what's Shakespeare gonna do -- sue them?) Yet many fans of Japanese animation pointed out that the story bore an uncanny resemblance to a 1960's Japanese comic book about a valiant white lion cub, called "Jungle Emporer," and the animation series based upon it, called "Kimba the White Lion Cub."

In an open letter to Disney by cartoonist Machiko Satonaka, she points out that:

"The basic story of a Prince cast out to return as the hero King after his father is killed, is only the beginning of a long list of parallels. There is the eye-scarred, black maned villainous Uncle backed by hyenas, the chattering bird friend, the wise baboon, the promotional shot of the jutting rock, the father lion in the clouds talking to his son, the stony wilderness habitat, insect eating carnivores, even the names Kimba and Simba are strikingly similar. I don't need to go on."

Some of the character designs even seemed to pay homage to the artwork of Kimba's creator, Tezuka (who also created "Astro Boy," and who had died a few years before the film was made). Naturally, Disney's media flacks swore on the name of Walt's frozen corpse that no such plagiarism occurred, even though many of their animators were avowed fans of Tezuka's work. But you be the judge.

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