Dear Rich: Nolo’s Patent, Copyright & Trademark Blog

Losing the movie rights. Of course movie rights are not exactly the same as anti-fungal powder so we're a little confused by the publisher's response. We assume they meant that they lost some document since the rights are intangible. But what document could they have lost? The original publishing agreement may have spelled out who owns the movie rights. But if the book is out of print, chances are very good that the publisher no longer has any rights and that all rights reverted to the author. Publishing contracts form the 1970s often had "use it or lose it" provisions in which rights reverted if they were unexploited. Similarly, if the publisher assigned the movie rights to another entity -- usually as an option agreement -- there's a good chance that's expired and reverted as well. 

Who's got the rights? Our guess -- and it's just a guess-- is that after forty years, all of the rights (including movie rights) reverted to the author. If the author is deceased, it went to the author's estate. You should contact relatives of the author to find out if they have a copy of the original publishing agreement. (That would spell out who initially controlled the movie rights.) If the author had an agent, perhaps that person can locate the contract. There are also pricey services that will provide a copyright search of titles. And of course, there are personal search services that can locate people. (The Dear Rich Staff used to use them to find absentee landlords whose tenants had frontal lobe problems.)

Stopping Others From Using the Name. You might be able to register the trademark PROJECT IRON QUILT as a service mark since there are no substantially similar marks. Possibly the owners of the IRON CHEF mark may object (although we doubt it). The owners of the PROJECT RUNWAY mark may care more about it since quilts are closer to fashion than cooking. But even if you obtain the mark, that doesn't guarantee your use of the concept. 

Staying below the radar is better. Under various copyright (you're creating a derivative version) and unfair competition principles, the owners of the game shows may object to the borrowing of their formats for your purposes. (Reality shows are protective of their respective turfs.) Neither show may want to intrude on you if you're just running a charity benefit and raising money for cancer patients. But once you begin to claim IP real estate by registering the name or seeking other proprietary rights the shows may feel they have to react to preserve their property. That's why the Dear Rich Staff recommends you stay below the radar and enjoy your success without the paperwork.

To find out more about copyright law, see my book Patent, Copyright & Trademark: An Intellectual Property Desk Reference. 

Edited DVDs? We're not sure what you mean by "edited DVDs" but we think they are the kind that used to be sold by places like CleanFlicks until the courts shut them down in 2007-2008. For example, if your version of The Proposal is missing the scene where Sandra Bullock collides nude with Ryan Reynolds, then you've got a CleanFlicks DVD. (Wait...that movie came out this year!). CleanFlicks thought they had a way around copyright law by selling a legit copy of the DVD with their sanitized version. Alas, that didn't fly since the copyright owner controls the right to make modified versions. Based on that court ruling it would be illegal for you to sell dupes as well as any unauthorized edited versions. 

Of course, that's just the opinion of the Dear Rich Staff and who are we but a bunch of geezers who sit around eating vegan donuts and drinking green tea. It's possible that somewhere in an alternate blog universe, there's another crew who thinks you should proceed with this potentially infringing activity. We'd like to meet them but until then we want you to stay healthy and out of trouble. 

More questions about permission? Find out more with my book Getting Permission: How to License & Clear Copyrighted Materials Online & Off.