Judge Rules Fox Has Copyright Claim To Watchmen

fermion writes "According to the NYT, a judge has decided that Fox owns the copyright to Watchmen, not Warner. Is this an example of copyright law becoming so complex that companies can abuse the court system to prevent competition, or just extreme incompetence by Warner? In the current business environment, either explanation is believable. Yet it is unbelievable that seasoned producers would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create a movie that they can't even release. It seems the judge didn't want to bring this to a jury, and maybe daring Warner to appeal, or Fox to settle." The article says that Fox acquired movie rights to the Watchmen story in the late 1980s, but budget disputes and personnel changes have muddied the waters; Wikipedia has a bit more on the "development hell" which has plagued the film project.

Comments

Re:Too Bad

[grumbel]

I don't know how you can cram that entire graphic novel into a 2-hour movie.

By cutting a lot and releasing an extended version later that is 220 minutes long.

Re:Too Bad

[philspear]

I don't know how you can cram that entire graphic novel into a 2-hour movie.

Theres no way to keep 100% of it unchanged and uncut, but that's true of any media conversion. Many people seem to consider the original comic book form to be perfect, many of those people are going to be disappointed with the result no matter how good the movie is of it's own right. Some because they read the comics first, some because of a warped sense of elitism. That doesn't mean the movie is doomed to be worse than the comic books to an unbiased judge. It could be changed for the better.

Adaptation rights != copyrights

[tverbeek]

The notion that Fox owns the copyright to Watchmen is utterly absurd (and presumably just incompetent reporting). The comics series was produced by Moore and Gibbons under contract with DC Comics, a subsidiary of Time Warner, and (rightly or wrongly) that company owns the copyright. Fox might hold an exclusive license to the movie rights to the material, but that's a very different question.

Re:Adaptation rights != copyrights

[tverbeek]

You've missed the point. Fox has no copyright claim to the original work, and it has no copyright claim to the movie currently in production. This whole dispute is a contract dispute, not an ownership dispute. Everyone who knows anything about copyright law can confirm this.

Re:Too Bad

[The Rizz]

[...] where the book and movie have some major disjoint but each is masterful within its realm.

Probably the greatest example of a book changing when made into a movie, yet both being fantastic in their own ways, would be Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner.

copyright interest != copyright

[SuperBanana]

Fox might hold an exclusive license to the movie rights to the material, but that's a very different question.

If you actually bothered to RTFA carefully, you'd see that they have been ruled to have a copyright interest.

Since you're clearly ignorant on the matter and think "copyright interest" means "copyright" or "exclusive movie rights", try educating yourself instead.

I know it comes as a shock to all you fifteen year olds, but IP law is simpler than "Cory Doctorow says I can give my stuff away and copyright is bad!"