How about 10-year-anniversery webisodes?

POSTED BY: peer
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 01:44
VIEWED: 6890
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PEER

Wednesday, June 15, 2011 5:36 PM

Quote:
O
If it were a licensed property, maybe. But the show was created under work-for-hire laws for FOX. Unless Joss had something specifically put into the contract that says otherwise (and he would have had little reason to at the time, nor would Fox have much incentive to agree to it) Fox would own the IP (intellectual property) in perpetuity.

Ah, thats why I wrote I dont the specifics ;-)
I thought about licened property (I work in a different field, by I do license my craetive property, normally with ten-year-contracts). If it was written i work.for.hire there is really no knowing about the details - every company (hell, often every employee) works under different circumstances.
But Universal was able to get the right apparently, see serenity and see the reruns on syfy. But again, I guess nobody knows anything particular.

ZEEK

Wednesday, June 15, 2011 6:01 PM

I did read something once that said Universal made some deal with Fox about no new TV episodes until they completed a trilogy of movies. That of course did have an expiration date that I think has passed already. So, as far as I understand it Fox would have the TV rights and Universal the movie rights. Again that's lacking any sort of official proof though.

STORYMARK

Thursday, June 16, 2011 3:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by peer:
Quote:
O
If it were a licensed property, maybe. But the show was created under work-for-hire laws for FOX. Unless Joss had something specifically put into the contract that says otherwise (and he would have had little reason to at the time, nor would Fox have much incentive to agree to it) Fox would own the IP (intellectual property) in perpetuity.

Ah, thats why I wrote I dont the specifics ;-)
I thought about licened property (I work in a different field, by I do license my craetive property, normally with ten-year-contracts). If it was written i work.for.hire there is really no knowing about the details - every company (hell, often every employee) works under different circumstances.
But Universal was able to get the right apparently, see serenity and see the reruns on syfy. But again, I guess nobody knows anything particular.

Maybe in your field it's different from company to company, but in the film industry its pretty much a given that the studio keeps the rights, unless you're George Lucas or JK Rowling. Otherwise, they keep the rights.

Universal got them by paying. No sunset clause involved - they straight up bought the right to make the movie - and even that came with the stipulation that even if it was a huge hit - Uni couldn't bring back the series if they wanted - Fox retained those rights.

And that is a situation that might have a time table attached (much like if Sony doesn't keep making Spider-Man movies, the rights revert to Marvel, or if Fox stops making X-Man movies, the same). But even in that case, those rights would just go back to Fox.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

BROWNCOAT1

Thursday, June 16, 2011 6:45 PM

I like the idea of webisodes, but would want the original cast if it were to be the crew of Serenity. New actors in my mind should be a new crew of a different ship in the 'verse.

Not sure the specifics of the rights to the show, and I doubt any of us will ever know them. Don't reckon it much matters at this point. I am willing to take whatever Joss and the Powers That Be throw our way at this point. I can read the comics, read the fanfic, and play the RPG.

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BYTEMITE

Thursday, June 16, 2011 9:33 PM

Actually, I don't think it was under work for hire. Joss approached Fox with his idea. In work for hire, the studio approaches the writer with the idea they want them to produce, then hires them to write it.

Therefore Joss owns the IP (which is why he was able to shop around for other networks and then sell movie rights to Universal), Fox Studio owns the tv series production rights, the Science channel currently owns the tv broadcast rights (which has traded hands some), and Universal owns the movie rights, which they've merchandised as comic books through Dark Horse.

ZEEK

Thursday, June 16, 2011 9:54 PM

I wonder if it would be cool to do something like think up a set of episodes for a mini-series and then pull out a few stand alone type scenes to film. Scenes that would still give a vague impression of something bigger going on. Then you sort of have a hook if the webisodes become popular. "You know considering how popular these are maybe we should produce the whole mini-series that we envisioned for them".

Granted I don't believe anything like this would happen. Just throwing ideas around for fun.

STORYMARK

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 12:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Actually, I don't think it was under work for hire. Joss approached Fox with his idea. In work for hire, the studio approaches the writer with the idea they want them to produce, then hires them to write it.

Therefore Joss owns the IP (which is why he was able to shop around for other networks and then sell movie rights to Universal), Fox Studio owns the tv series production rights, the Science channel currently owns the tv broadcast rights (which has traded hands some), and Universal owns the movie rights, which they've merchandised as comic books through Dark Horse.

Maybe this was the case with Firefly (but again, no one has, in a decade now, produced any proof of that), but it's not the norm. Work for hire doesn't require the Studio to initiate contact. Matter of fact, due to the Mutant Enemy deal with Fox at the time, he was probably required to bring it to them first.

Shopping the show to other networks has nothing to do with the deal with Fox Studios - completely independent branches. Had another network agreed to air it, it still would have been made and owned by Fox, just as Buffy was, even though it aired on WB and UPN.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 1:44 AM

Uh, no. You're crossing your argument claims. What hasn't been proven in ten years is that there was only a ten year contract with Fox Studios.

Quote:
A work made for hire (sometimes abbreviated as work for hire or WFH) is an exception to the general rule that the person who actually creates a work is the legally-recognized author of that work. According to copyright law in the United States and certain other copyright jurisdictions, if a work is "made for hire", the employer—not the employee—is considered the legal author. In some countries, this is known as corporate authorship. The incorporated entity serving as an employer may be a corporation or other legal entity, an organization, or an individual.

....

The U.S. Constitution requires the initial owner of a copyright in a work be the author.[1] In most cases, the author is the individual or group of individuals that actually creates the work. However, when a work is created by an employee as part of his or her job, or when certain kinds of works are created on behalf of a client and all parties agree in writing to the designation, a work may be a "work for hire". The author of a work for hire is never the actual creator. Instead, the author is the person or entity that hired the actual creator.[2] The above U.S. Constitutional requirement is why the employer or paying client is considered the "author" in a work for hire, contrary to standard usage of the word "author", because a law directing copyright be awarded to an employer or client instead of the author would be unconstitutional.

....

A "work made for hire" is— (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.

At the most basic, the law always assumes that the creator is the owner of the intellectual property. Work for hire stipulates that an employee must be approached with a specific order or commission.

In this case, instead, Joss was a freelancer who happened to have a pre-existing contract between his Production Company Mutant Enemy and Fox (for his Buffy and Angel properties). Joss was an employee of Mutant Enemy. He pitched the idea of Firefly to the studio and worked out a collaborative contract with them. That is why it's important who was pitching the idea, as it helps delineate who was the original creator. And no matter what rights you're talking about, it's never 20th Century Fox's Firefly, it's Joss Whedon's Firefly, Joss Whedon's Serenity.

Selling the movie rights to Universal suggests that Joss, and not Fox, owned those movie rights, and was therefore able to sell them to Universal. If Fox owned the IP from the beginning as in work for hire, Joss would not have been able to sell the movie rights, as he would have voided all creative rights through agreeing to the work for hire clause.

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