Important message from myPDFscripts
Big news in the world of online screenplay resources: a long message from Sheridan at myPDFscripts. You should read it which you can do here. Bottom line: Starting with movie studios’ increasing pressure in the form of DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] takedown notices and some resulting issues with MediaFire, the library of movie screenplays available at myPDFscripts has been severely diminished. It’s gotten this bad: Even when Sheridan has the written approval of the screenwriter, the site is in a compromised legal position. Here is an excerpt of Sheridan’s post:
Thing is, it may not work in every instance, which brings me back to Alex Cox. After the Universal DMCA notice and subsequent removal of scripts, Mr. Cox contacted me and had this to say:
I am the author of the screenplay REPO MAN. I believe you have received a ‘takedown’ notice from Universal to remove the script. I do not agree with this. I’m very pleased you have my script on your site and would like to see it remain. If you would like to add any other of my scripts, get in touch. You are welcome to post them.
Did I want to immediately repost the script? You bet I did, but what kind of legal ramifications would that cause? I decided to check with Universal. Their response?
Mr. Cox is the author of the Repo Man screenplay; however, his rights to and interests in the screenplay for the film were granted to Universal Pictures, which is the exclusive owner of Repo Man throughout the world in perpetuity, including, without limitation, all copyrights in the film and in the underlying screenplay. Accordingly, Universal stands by its request that you take-down the Repo Man screenplay from your website.
Fair enough, I suppose. The more adept of you might point out that the script is actually available on Alex’s personal website, which is where I’d actually gotten it to begin with. I decided to mention this to Universal and ask if it would be okay to link to the script on Alex’s site, knowing full well what their response would be, but wanting to actually see it in print.
Sure enough, they responded.
Ready for this?
You sure?
It’s disgusting…
Please don’t post the links. I don’t believe Mr. Cox is authorized to post the script on his personal website either.
It’s a sad, sad state of affairs when a screenwriter asks me, nay gives me FULL PERMISSION, to post their script and I can’t because if I did I would get sued by a studio. It’s an even worse state of affairs when you’re told a screenwriter can’t even post their own script on their own website because some legal “expert” somewhere thinks that the screenwriter doesn’t own it.
Why is it again that we want to be a part of this industry?
Why, indeed. What is an aspiring screenwriter, TV writer, or filmmaker supposed to do? Or educators? How are people supposed to teach and learn the craft of writing a screenplay if the studios decide to make all of their movie or TV scripts unavailable online?
If someone were charging a fee to access movie scripts, that would be one thing, but myPDFscripts is a labor of love, and Sheridan has never made a dime’s profit off hosting scripts on that site.
I just don’t understand. How is making the script to Repo Man [by the way, one of my favorite cult classics] available online going to hurt Universal? On the contrary, isn’t it more likely that someone reading the script would then rent or buy the movie?
I’m guessing we have to look at this increasingly aggressive stance by the movie studios as part of the anti-piracy mindset. But these are screenplays we are talking about. Even if there are perhaps 500,000 people actively pursuing the craft worldwide or even 1,000,000, that is such a tiny niche, how could this group’s interest in accessing movie screenplays to read and analyze present a problem to the studios?
Perhaps they have a ‘slippery slope’ attitude: “If we let people access our movie scripts online, then we will never be able to combat movie piracy effectively.”
Let me posit another perspective: What if by making movie screenplays easily available so writers could read and analyze them, writers would improve at their craft, more and better scripts would end up on studio execs’ desks, more and better movies would get produced, resulting in bigger B.O. and more valuable titles in the studios’ libraries.
And to be clear, we are not talking about scripts in development for future movies, which studios justifiably have a concern about protecting in terms of content going public, but rather screenplays of movies that have already been produced.
Then the studios compound the issue by sending out PDF versions of scripts for movies to consider for various annual awards. Talk about a mixed message!
Why not create eScripts and sell them to the public? Or perhaps that’s too obvious a solution.
This situation of restricted access to movie scripts makes things especially worse for Hollywood outsiders. If you work in LA, it’s easy to get scripts, but if you live outside the 405–110–101–10 bubble, what are you supposed to do if sites like myPDFscripts have to shut down?
What are your thoughts? Any legal eagles out there with suggestions on how to respond to this situation? And while you’re at it, please visit comments and let Sheridan know how much you appreciate myPDFscripts.
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