Copyright questions

[Manicblack]

Hey, wasn't sure where to put this.

A quick query about copyrighted material.

I know for using other peoples work in films you need to get written permision from them. But I was watching Clerks last night and was wondering if they had to get permision to talk about all the film references that they have (like discusion about star wars etc) or are you allowed to talk about it as long as you dont have any of the original material?

Thanks for any light that can be shed on this matter.

[miker]

Firstly, IANAL.

My understanding of copyright and trademarks and blah blah are that so long as the reference is incidental and not derogatory then no one can touch you.

For example, my movie has a painting of Mickey Mouse in the background, but I didn't get sued by Disney. I expect if I had written to Disney asking to use a picture of Mickey Mouse to hang on the wall of my porn star character David Goliath they may have refused. The picture was bought and paid for by the house owner. It is incidental that it appears in the frame of my movie.

In my movie David Goliath makes remarks about Nick Cage being "a bit of a tosser - thinks he's better than anyone else just because he's got a famous brother" but it is quite obviously parody and just a fictitious opinion on a fictitious character, rather than an opinion being presented as fact.

Moviemakers are too scared of upsetting people and corporations. Screw them. Screw you all, fuckers! God Save The Queen!

(BTW my movie was rated certificate 15 by a local council)

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 26, 2007 06:58 AM: Message edited by: miker ]</font>