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Deleted Screenplay Fails To Make Money
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."
The First Rule of screenwriting is to back up everything on multiple formats, in multiple places.
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.
www.GrenadeHop.com
If there actually was a $2.7 million deal in the works, it would have been worth the money for an immediate forsenic recovery, or failing that, replacing the HD and setting it aside for later forsenic recovery. Notwithstanding SBC's negligence, this was really not much more than a frivolous nuisance suit.
The question is, was his lawyer working on contingency or by the hour? If the later, he's probably lost a fair amount.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Let me get this straight: a writer is closing in on a multimillion dollar deal with a production company to buy his screenplay. And I'm supposed to believe they signed on without ever receiving a copy!
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.
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
So he had scripts that might be worth $2.7m. And he kept the only copies of it on a laptop. And no printouts. Because a writer wouldn't want to print out his work in progress from time to time to proofread it. And no set of prior versions to revert to. What about the person offering $2.7m. Did they have at least part of a copy? That's a lot of money for something sight unseen. So he gives the laptop containing the one and only copy of a script potentially worth $2.7m to a techie? And when the techie says the files aren't needed and tries to delete the files, the writer doesn't immediately rip the damn thing out of his hands?
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.
It seems like the correct outcome has been reached in this case (Fired the guy who deleted his stuff and paid for data recovery.)
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.)