Shaunell Green






Film is a collaborative endeavour, and often, one person will adopt various roles within the process. This can be due to financial limitations, the expertise of the individual, but also training is often combined – such as directing and producing or directing and writing. Sam Levinson has directing, writing and production rights in this piece. Again, this is an American production and is therefore governed by American law, but for the purpose of this examination, English Intellectual Property law will be applied. This covers a brief copyright overview in film, there are many components involved with the scripts within the film industry, such as transfer of ownership and writer agreements.



As the United Kingdom is a signatory of the Berne Convention, there is no legal requirement to register work. Copyright protection arises automatically within a piece work, granted it is original and fixed in a tangible medium of expression. In context, this usually means the script must be an original creation, written and dated, to which rights will be attached.





Previously established, there is a difference in meanings between authorship and copyright ownership, and there is an array of rights that belong to each. The script is written by its author (or co-authors), but the legal rights within the script (namely, the copyright ownership) may belong to someone else. Simply put, when you write an original script, you have authorship rights and own the copyright in that script. However, copyright is a property right, therefore it is transmissible by either assignment or licence. An assignment of copyright transfers ownership of the written material to others, but this may only be permitted by the first owner. The UK law presumes the first owner of the copyright work to be the person who created it. Separately, a licence creates a contractual agreement whereby ownership is retained, but the work can be used subject to the specific terms of the licence. For example, a writer may give permission to a production company either through an assignment of rights or licence to make the script into a film. Once the film is made, the writer is renumerated the purchase price for the script, which is paid in order to secure the film rights, establishing a chain of title.



Contractual written agreements are necessary in the film industry context, and proper documentation of the transfer of rights throughout the film process is important for the establishment of copyright ownership. The two main writer agreements are writer service agreement or writer for hire agreement. However, this type of agreement is not necessary where the script is written, produced and directed by the same person.