Blogocentric Formulations

Mixed Feelings

Not sure if anyone here has heard this yet or not, but 20th Century Fox filed a $15 million lawsuit in the last couple weeks against a woman who made screenplays available for free download on her website. I'm not going to get into details because A) I don't feel right gossiping about information that I don't know firsthand, and B) I don't want to give this case any more attention than it's already garnering, suffice to say that I'm really conflicted about this case.

I know the defendant personally. We're not friends or anything, but she queried my company about her screenplay at one point, and we chatted for a little while. She's also regularly active on screenwriting message boards that I frequent and seems to genuinely care about helping people improve their craft. She's a grandmother (I believe) with a family to support, incredibly sweet, and I'm certain doesn't have anywhere close to the $15 million she's being sued for.

That said, she did break the law. "Script trading" is a very serious problem in our industry (where a screenplay is leaked some way or another, and gets into the hands of screenwriters and movie fans who then pass the script around). The problem is... this is illegal. The studio owns the copyright (and all the associated rights) to their projects. For someone to possess (or worse, in this case distribute) that material without permission is a violation of the studio's intellectual property rights, just as if someone were to go onto your hard drive, grab your latest manuscript and post it online without your permission.

At best (in the case of released movies), it's intellectual property theft with actual damages (the amount they paid for the script). At worst, it's lost profits (in the case of scripts that are still being developed into movies). This woman had both, including a high-profile script to a BIG movie that should not have gotten out... and certainly had no place being made publicly available to the world for free download. This woman - I truly believe - did not mean any harm. She meant for these scripts to be available to writers and movie fans who wanted to enjoy the screenplay or use it as a learning tool, rather than as a way for her to make a profit (she didn't).

This is all very troubling... Fox definitely doesn't need the $15 million, and I seriously doubt they'd get even a fraction of it from her even if they won the lawsuit. If they proceed to the fullest extent permissible by law, they're going to financially ruin this woman and her family. But she broke the law. She not only obtained the intellectual property of someone else without their permission, but then turned around and made it available for free to anyone who visited her website.

What's even more disturbing are all the people from the message boards who are emailing her and posting online their opinions of what she should do. There's nothing scarier than someone trying to be an armchair lawyer... and there has been some astoundingly bad advice offered... everything from assigning all her worldly possessions to a family member and walking arrogantly into court and telling Fox there's nothing they can take... to claiming an "educational purposes" defense (which won't work if it violates the law)... to taking the "innocent infringer" defense (which also won't work in this case)... to trying to argue that Fox hasn't properly asserted their copyright in the first place (perhaps the most ridiculous suggestion of all). It's truly frightening how many people - with nothing more than a cursory knowledge of the facts, and no legal education - feel qualified to give someone legal advice that could very well ruin her life. I really hope she isn't listening to any of it and is consulting a proper attorney.

I honestly don't know what to think. On the one hand, it's easy to look at Fox and say, "Come on, guys. This is a little old lady who didn't mean any harm. Make her take the site down and be done with it." But on the other hand, what she did was illegal, and there is a significant financial risk to the studio from what she did, especially by posting the confidential, in-development script.

It's a sad day all around. Sad that Fox is looking to really stick it to this woman. Sad that she posted the scripts in the first place. Sad that other people are misguidedly giving her bad advice or watching the train wreck as if it were some kind of entertainment.

When this is all over, I don't see anyone coming out on top. It's just an all-around awful situation.