Deleted Screenplay Fails To Make Money 141
mytrip writes to mention the confusing case of screenwriter Nicholas Boyd, who tried to strike it rich by suing SBC, and got more than he bargained for. When an SBC technician accidentally deleted the aspiring screenwriter's work, he brought a lawsuit against the company claiming that a million dollar deal was in the works. Reality disagrees somewhat with his assertions. From the article: "The jury apparently didn't believe the German witness' testimony that a $2.7 million deal was in the works. Jurors found that Boyd could recover out-of-pocket damages of only $60,000 and said that he was responsible for 55 percent of the fault resulting in the deletion of the screenplays ... Both SBC and Boyd appealed. The California state appeals court (second district) eliminated the punitive damages, upheld the compensatory damages--but said Boyd must pay for SBC's legal fees for the appeal, which could easily be in the range of his $27,000 compensatory damages award."
Backups (Score:2, Insightful)
Obligatory Soviet Russia (Score:2, Insightful)
And no, Manuscripts do not burn [wikipedia.org]
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia (Score:5, Informative)
The fee for non-members is $20. The fee for members is $10. Registration lasts for 5 years, and then may be renewed. Protecting your copyrights and getting a back up thrown in!
Seems like a no brainer if you're a screenwriter.
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia (Score:3, Funny)
[...]
Seems like a no brainer if you're a screenwriter.[/blockquote]
I don't know if I'd want to register my screenplay with Windows Genuine Advantage. It might decide that my screenplay is not my own and delete it from their records...
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia (Score:1)
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia (Score:2)
No, really, if he had such outstanding works, one would expect he'd be able to (almost completely) rewrite them in a matter of months.
I'd just call "caca-del-torro" on that one.
Re:Backups (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Backups (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm impressed you guys actually think he didn't have a backup. If there was a million dollar deal in the works, surely he had sent the script to somebody to read and say "we might be inter
Re:Backups (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect the jury thought much as you do. They completely dismissed his attempt at compensation for the $2.4M deal that was supposedly in progress. The money they awarded him was for the time it took him to research and write the screenplays. And they found him mostly at fault for the permanent loss.
I strongly disa
Re:Backups (Score:2)
And if he was seriously looking at a million plus payday, he coulda shelled out the thousands of dollars for a commercial file recovery service.
/When I was younger and semi-savvy with computers, I didn't know about undelete programs & didn't backup shiat.
Contractual proof? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Contractual proof? (Score:2)
Re:Contractual proof? (Score:2)
If he'd actually been anywhere to close to making a deal, the backers would have seen, and have hard copies, of the scripts. Who is going to commit almost a million dollars to a script from an unknown writer without seeing it, just based on a one paragraph outline?
Anyway, if any of the scripts ahd been bought, they'd have gone through many, many rewrites before cameras r
Get lots of $$$ quick ;) (Score:3, Funny)
Keep pressing key '4' while holding down Shift
______________
Just couldn't resist
The First Rule (Score:4, Insightful)
As this idiot can now attest, you never know what will happen to one location, one computer or even one draft- especially when the stakes are between zero dollars and 2.7 million.
What would he have done had his apartment been destroyed by fire? Sue the complex for the same thing? What would he have done had a random computer virus deleted or overwrote the files, sued the virus protection company whose software he declined to keep up to date?
Nothing to see here but idiocy at work.
Re:The First Rule (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The First Rule (Score:1)
We're like tigers in a cage
What a town without pity can do..."
Re:The First Rule (Score:2)
Actually, the rule is "always cover your arse" (or "ass" if you're in the US), of which this is a corollary.
Similarly, why, do you suppose, did this "screenwriter" not lodge a hard copy (and possibly a CD) with his local writer's guild before entering into any negotiation whatsoever? Not only is it a useful offsite backup, it's proof that you had the story at a certain time, should the studio that you negot
Re:The First Rule (Score:2)
On the contrary, you don't need to lodge a copy at the copyright office to have copyright. On the other hand, it also could result in the story leaking, which is something that studios don't like.
The right thing to do is to register it with the writers guild [wgawregistry.org].
German witness? (Score:5, Funny)
Was it by chance Uwe Boll?
Re:German witness? (Score:2)
Re:German witness? (Score:1)
Given that Germany is sewing up the tax loophole that Boll's investors were using, it's doubtful that Boyd would have got jack or shit anyway.
Re:German witness? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:German witness? (Score:2)
Let's not be hasty. I'd pay good money to watch "Uwe Boll's Burgertime" with Tara Reid as the intrepid chef.
No Brainer (Score:4, Insightful)
The question is, was his lawyer working on contingency or by the hour? If the later, he's probably lost a fair amount.
Re:No Brainer (Score:5, Funny)
Does this mean that the entertainment industry can say that it lost another $2.7m to napster?
Re:No Brainer (Score:1)
Re:No Brainer (Score:3, Informative)
If there actually was a $2.7 million deal in the works, his business partners would've had copies of the screenplay. The deal is always for the rights, never for the actual manuscript itself.
I call Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
When you submit a screenplay to an interested party, the first thing they usually do is start photocopying it. Dozens even hundreds of times depending on how far through the process the screenplay makes it. When someone buys a screenplay, they usually run it past dozens of individuals before it's even looked at by someone with decision making power.
Many of the modern screenplay formatting rules have come from the need to photocopy it with as little degradation as possible.
The good news is. It shouldn't take him more than a a day or two to rewrite it. Once you know your story and characters, and have worked on the screenplay in your head for a number of years it shouldn't take you more than a couple of days. Besides who buys a screenplay and doesn't do a rewrite?
God I have like 20 copies of several screenplays from college just lieing around in a box in my closet. I can't believe somebody would never print off, backup or email a copy of his screenplay over the course of time it took to write it.
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:2)
When you just mail your screenplay directly, you're causing extra work for some person whose job is gatekeeper, i.e., they're paid to say no.
Many of
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
Typically, there are two ways of selling a screenplay.
You described way #1. You pitch an idea and they work out some sort of deal for your idea.
Way #2 is called writing it on "spec". That involves actually writing the full screenplay without having a deal in place, and then shopping it around to studios to see if anyone wants to buy it. Obviously this way is considerably more risky.
The difference is in the pay. Way #1 pays well, but not NEARLY as well as way #2 pays. There is a huge risk to studios
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
The Long Kiss Goodnight [imdb.com] was written by [imdb.com] a veteran screenwriter, someone with a track record. Look at his credits: All the Lethal Weapon movies, The Last Boy Scout, Last Action Hero.
Bottom line: I can't imagine a situation where any studio would offer, or even mention $2 million without having script in hand.
Bottom line: I can easily imagine a situation where a producer options a script for a $1 with the contractual promise of some huge sum going to the writer from the net profits, without every laying eyes on the script. I'm sure this happens 50 times a day. (OK, probably an exaggeration, but I'm sure you've heard the jokes about screenwriters and the jokes about producers.)
There was no studio involved in the deal. It was a German producer. Want to be a producer? It's easy. Just say you are. Printing business cards is entirely optional. Want to be a German producer? Travel to Germany and say you're a producer.
Anyway, Boyd's story is implausible, but not for the reasons you cite. Come kick around L.A. for a few years and try and sell those scripts. It's a disgusting slimy business, but at least it's not the music business. We have that at least.
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, in the music business you can at least try busking to pay for your cigarettes.
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, I've got a screenwriting style manual around somewhere from the 50s. Same conventions as now. Little has changed, other than the used of our modern labor saving devices. (Can you imagine the number of typists the studios hired before the copy machine?)
I'm not calling you a liar. There might be one or two examples you can give of which I'm unaware. If anything, this might save you from po
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:2)
I only write short stories for the interweb, and even losing a day or two of work (much less a whole novel) would be devastating. All the careful wording that's the real beauty of any piece of writing would be lost -- it was tied to how you were at the moment you were
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
Scripts are always rewritten, often dozens of times, by several writers, committees, the producers, the director, the actors. What ends up being shot can be unrecognisable from the original script. Hollywood is full of stories of sometimes great writers who were lured there and were paid huge amounts to do a script treatment; then more to rewrite a dozen times; then it was handed over to a hack who completely rewrote it; then the financing fell through and it was shelved. If redoing a day's work would devastate you, don't even think about Hollywood.
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:2)
Done and done. You have to separate work and pleasure. In my writing, all I have to please is myself.
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:2)
I'm a writer, and I back my work up constantly. USB flash drive, CDs, print outs, and e-mailing it to myself. I occasionally e-mail drafts to friends for a proof read, as well. This is just basic, no money involved, writing to write stuff.
If you add money to the occasion, print outs and CDs in a safe deposit box somewhere. Multiple drafts, even.
If Tor offered me a $2.7M advance on a novel, I'd be backing that shit up at the end of every cha
Re:I call Bullshit (Score:1, Funny)
[...]
God I have like 20 copies of several screenplays from college just lieing around in a box in my closet.
If you ever wondered why they're in a closet and not on the screen, that's why.
Clarification Required (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Clarification Required (Score:2)
2. The second rule of screenwriting, is that you DO talk about your screenplay. Repeatedly.
3. When the reader's eyes glaze over, you stop.
4. One script.
5. No backup.
Re:Clarification Required (Score:2)
6. Profit!
I suppose it is all about marketing an intangible. A studio will likely perform many rewrites after a contract is accepted anyways, so why bother. But still..
Court system stacked against the little guy (Score:3, Insightful)
I ran a website once which was "Web 2.0" before they had a name for it - like Myspace, Geocities, Ebay and whatnot, the public had a lot of input into site content, and if anyone complained about something illegal, I almost always removed it. Anyhow, I got flooded with legal letters, some of them quite ridiculous - Blizzard sent me a letter about some supposed DMCA violation - someone made a hack that let people play Starcraft on non-Battle.net servers. I couldn't afford a court case and those troubles though so I took it down. These are the people who really abuse the court system, the headlines of corporate newspapers always bemoan how it's a travesty the average Joe can sue a big corporation though.
Re:Court system stacked against the little guy (Score:1)
Re:Court system stacked against the little guy (Score:1)
Re:Court system stacked against the little guy (Score:2)
Re:Court system stacked against the little guy (Score:2)
I have to wonder... There may have been a lot of orphaned files, broken downloads, cluttering up the desktop and he was just trying to tidy it up. Did the writer have a folder called "scripts", and the tech thought these were installer scripts, or something similar left over from a failed install, and helpfully cleaned them up? Though personally, I wou
Re:Court system stacked against the little guy (Score:2)
no different than the wendy's finger-soup fraud (thought i stopped going to wendys as a result of cold food not fingers)
Re:Court system stacked against the little guy (Score:2)
Don't fuck with a client's data.
Re:Court system stacked against the little guy (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me be the first to say it: Good.
He got awarded damages. He probably could have settled with SBC to begin with and been fairly compensated for the problem. But he decided to play the litigation lottery, hoping to turn his poor planning and subsequent misfortune into a huge jackpot. I'm glad he lost.
Every time one of these people wins, things get more expensive for everyone. Fewer products and services are a
Class action suits are a very different case (Score:2)
M$ class action beneficiaries in California (Score:2)
"Microsoft resolves class-action suit
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: January 10, 2003, 8:55 PM PST
update Microsoft said late Friday that it has settled a California class-action lawsuit for up to $1.1 billion, a move that would end the largest suit of the kind against the giant
And in Other News... (Score:2, Funny)
Honestly, some guy doesn't run a back-up and it gets on Slashdot? Must be a really slow news day...
Re:And in Other News... (Score:2, Funny)
Me neither, and so far everything is just fi
Is there no common sense anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
If he dropped a hard-copy on the sidewalk and could only find a few pages when he came back the next day, isn't that his own fault? He should have unplugged the computer and taken it to an expert immediately! I guess he was having too much fun with his new broadband to notice that his "multi-million dollar" script was missing. /sarcasm
Re:Is there no common sense anymore? (Score:1)
qz
He can still come out ahead! (Score:2)
And why exactly did his lawyer even bother (Score:2)
all he had to do (Score:2)
but he kept using the computer, installing new programs, writing over the deleted files
even assuming complete computer idiocy, i'm certain someone amongst even a small circle of friends would have known this rather well-known issue, and he certainly would have been fuming about this to them
Re:all he had to do (Score:1)
RE: your sig I'm making a Low Budget HDV Filipino Horror Movie in NY [griefmovie.com]
Rumour has it that if you trash the only copy of your screenplay you can sue your ISP for millions!
i've already backed up my screenplay (Score:5, Funny)
1. i broke my screenplay up into paragraph fragments
2. i used a script to comment spam these fragments into random blogs with a unique identifying string, namely "I'm making a Low Budget HDV Filipino Horror Movie in NY [griefmovie.com]"
3. when i want to recover, i simply do a google search on "I'm making a Low Budget HDV Filipino Horror Movie in NY [griefmovie.com]"
voila: instant backup
oops... i've just given my script away for free to anyone who reads this comment
dang
well, maybe i can sue you under DRM for breaching my cryptographic techniques to access copyrighted material
for reading this comment, you owe me $3,500
awesome!
Dishonest? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's this guy do for fun, leave his sole copy of a million-dollar script sitting on the roof of his car when he gets it repaired and sues the mechanics if they lose it? Seriously.
I don't know about you, but the second someone suggests something I have is worth $2.7m, I go home, I get about 20 CDs, I burn copies of them and the backups. I buy a cheap safe and store some in there. I buy a lockbox, drop three copies in it, and store it at a trusted friends place. I conceal extra copies around my house or office in case I'm targeted. I print out what I have, and prior versions as proof that I developed the script should its ownership ever come into doubt. Some of those printouts go offsite.
Methinks the writer may have been just a teency, teency bit dishonest here. Maybe SBC and AT&T should have been hit for the costs of data recovery, but not much more. The vast majority of the fault was due to the writer.
Re:Dishonest? (Score:1)
Re:Dishonest? (Score:1)
--
I'm sure when the tech guy came to set up his DSL, he wasn't thinking, "Oh man, I got to make sure my files are secure." I can't imagine that anyone would have this thought first and foremost every living second. In fact, given that he was getting a DSL connection set up, he was probably - just a guess - thinking about high-speed internet, web browsing, or any of a myria
Re:Dishonest? (Score:3, Interesting)
A previously unpaid writer who (basis of lawsuit) thinks that he may be coming into $2.7m soon due to his writing probably does have the scripts foremost in his mind. Unless of course he was distracted at that very moment wondering where the best place would be to procure some good coke and hookers.
Re:Dishonest? (Score:2)
Clearly the techie thought he was doing the guy a favor by cleaning up his desktop. Heck, I do this for my friends and family when t
Re: (Score:2)
Screenplays don't make that much money (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0462895/ [imdb.com]
He's working on Indiana Jones 4 by the way.
This guy doesn't even have any history of writing.
Nothing adds up (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything about this guys sounds like a money grubbing loser. He had previously never made a penny on his screenplays (Or, apparently from any writing at all, ever.) and yet he claims that the lost screenplays were for "far better" movies than "Gladiator," "Schindler's List" and "Ben Hur."
Now comes the amount... $2.7 million dollars? It's been a while since I've been a professional writer, but $2.7 mil is a stupidly outrageous amount for unknown writer with unproven properties and a small movie company. Even being generous and accounting that it's for three screen plays, $900,000 per screenplay is still stupid money.
Also they didn't delete the guys brain. Screenplays don't really have that much text in them. They are usually around a hundred pages with a couple hundred words a page. If the writer is familiar with the characters, plot, etc, they should be able to rewrite a whole screenplay in under a week. At least good enough for a first draft. (And if I was interested enough to pay $900K for a screenplay, I'd happily wait a week or three for a screenplay.)
Thirdly, Who the hell is Aurora Media. I can't find any information on these guys. Seems nowadays if you have the ability to produce movie scripts you pay millions of dollars for, your company should have -one- hit on Google.
Seems that if there was actually $2.7 million worth of interest by Aurora Media then either:
1) There should be a printed contract somewhere.
2) (As many people pointed out) They should have a copy of the screenplays somewhere.
3) They should be the ones suing SBC (Or perhaps the schmo.)
Re:Nothing adds up (Score:1)
Re:Nothing adds up (Score:2)
You must be new here.
Re:Nothing adds up (Score:2)
You obviously have never written a screenplay. Second, third, fourth draft. Whatever. 1 week is absurdly fast for any major piece of creative writing.
Actually the company is Avrora Media (Score:2, Informative)
The writer of the article buggered up.
According to IMDB, An American Werewolf in Paris had Avrora Media involved, not Aurora Media.
www.avroramedia.com
"Costs" (Score:2)
Re:"Costs" (Score:2)
Omg.. Im screwed. not (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously though, even though he should have had backups, its impossible to say something would make money for sure. Lots of "sure bets" lose money.
Also, the accidental deletion did not delete his brain did it? I mean its not like his premise characters and story were deleted along with the data.
I call BS. Peace.
Typical American Dream (Score:1)
1910? (Score:1)
Re:1910? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1910? (Score:2)
Ever hear of carbon paper? (Hint, the "CC" field in email is a legacy abbreviation for "carbon copy".) Carbon paper was a sheet of very thin paper coated with a slightly waxy, dark (carbon) material on one side that when placed (carbon side down) on a sheet of paper and pressed, would leave a mark where the pressure was. Now, place a regular sheet of paper on top of that, roll the whole sandwich into the platen (roller) of a typewriter (remember those?) and type away. As the
Re:1910? Photostat (Score:2)
In the 1800's letter copying presses that could make (poor) copies of letters or other documents was commonly available.
Photographic document copiers, trademarked "Photostat" and "Rectigraph", were available in the 1910's.
Cut the guy some slack... (Score:2)
So Boyd wasn't a computer expert when this saga started. Big deal. Most of the people I know fall into that category, and yet they still manage to get along and accomplish things in life. As I see it, ignorance in the ways of computing isn't criminal; it's profitable, at least it is for me. Over the past decade, I've made a respectable living because a large percentage of the public still sees computers as mysterious little boxes that just do things. From what I read in the article, Boyd's biggest blun
Re:Why would I cut an obvious idiot slack? (Score:3, Interesting)
Every screenwriter I know- even the most tech backwards ones- are so incredibly anal about backups that it drives me mad. You'd think there'd be a reasonable limit on the amount of CDs or floppies they mail to their friends for safekeeping- some even out of the state incase
This reminds me... (Score:3, Insightful)
...of the story about the guy who found a incredible way to compress his files to nothing: he deleted them.
When he needed one, he would undelete the file he needed.
This worked fine until his hard drive started filling more and wrote over deleted files.
I bet this guy did something similar, thought his Recycle Bin was a place to store his files.
This Should Never Have Gone To Court (Score:2)
My screeenwriting software backs up the last ten revisions in a folder. It has a designated "Save A Copy" button for off-loading to an external device of some sort. I burn each major revision (finished first act, finished second act, first draft, and subsequent drafts) to optical media. Since I use a Mac, I back up my Users folder once a quarter. Then, just to be on the safe side, I occasionally save a dra
Re:This Should Never Have Gone To Court (Score:2)
That means 2-3 external drives that get rotated and moved offsite to secure locations. Along with optical media archives (which is what optical media excels at) for long-term storage.
PGP/GPG + webmail makes for a handy ad-hoc backup system as well. Encrypt the document, mail it to your GMail account. Heck, mail it to any packrat friends.
Million-Dollar Lawsuits (Score:2)
When someone sues for an exhorbitant amount they do so on the advice of a lawyer who knows full well that most cases are settled before they get to court (or before a verdict is reached) and that the settlement will be a fraction of the original claim. Even when the case goes to trial and the court rules in the plantiff's favor more likely than not the award will be whittled down. And then of cour
No backups? Gak. (Score:2)
Why, oh why... (Score:1)
Don't get me wrong, I love Milla Jovovich (see The Fifth Element [imdb.com]), but man Ultraviolet was weak.
And for the uncountable consecutive time........ (Score:2)
He should not get a dime (Score:2)
I don't know about you but when I have multi-million dollar digital assets I sure would not take the time to run a copy off to floppy or CD nope no way not with my busy schedule. This guy probably had jack or less then that.
Re:I'll keep track of my own data, thank you. (Score:1)
The only thing this story has to do with network computing is the fact that (one of) the incompetents involved happened to be connecting a network to a computer.
Re:I'll keep track of my own data, thank you. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:I'll keep track of my own data, thank you. (Score:1)
In December 2000, a technician named James Kassenborg showed up, allegedly said that certain icons and files were not needed--and deleted all of Boyd's scripts and related projects when installing the connection.
All the "screenplays" were on Boyd's personal computer, not on SBC's server.
The stupid thing was letting a SBC "technician" anywhere near his computer if those "screenplays" were really worth the ammount they said they were.
home pc, not server (Score:1)
I, personally, would really like to know why the technician was deleting files (even if it's just an icon to AOL, it's the client's computer
Also, it sounds like the technician told the
Re:I'll keep track of my own data, thank you. (Score:3, Interesting)
The document was stored on his own PC, not an SBC server. That does not make him not an idiot but you aren't coming off all that bright right now either.
Re:In other news.. (Score:2)
I hope it's sill legible with all these blood stains all over it. Please don't sue me.