Ah!—‘tis a lonely profession, that of the writer! We engage humanity in our art, but typically do so in the solitary confinement of that quiet place where we scurry off to work in undisturbed isolation. So it’s a pleasant change of pace when writers have an opportunity to gather with fellow scribes for a little face-to-face interaction.
The D.C./Baltimore region had just such an occasion this past autumn when we held our first regional get-together at a local eatery. Kudos to my co-rep Renée Calarco for proposing the idea and finding a location that could accommodate our request for a private room.
We talked shop over the chicken salad and tomato basil soup, and we compared notes on past and present playwriting projects. I also gave an informal talk on some of the legal issues involved in the adaptation of pre-existing material for new plays. That’s a topic that’s popping up a lot now. It seems the well-publicized copyright infringement case involving visual artist Shepard Fairey and his President Obama “Hope” poster has artists of many media contemplating whether they’re at risk to be sued over something they might have appropriated…like somebody else’s story or song for inclusion in their own plays.
Typically, the first order of business when assessing whether a piece of intellectual property is fair game is to determine whether it’s copyrighted—and, if it is, to find out whose permission needs to be sought. In Washington, D.C., area, we’ve got the United States Copyright Office right here. If you go directly to the Copyright Office, you can search its records for free. If you don’t happen to be in the D.C. area, you can always hire someone to do the search for you, or you can even hire the Copyright Office to conduct the search. When I last checked, the Copyright Office was charging $165.00 per hour, but some records are available for free on the office’s web site.
Oh!—but then I broke the heart-wrenching news to my fellow dramatists gathered at the autumn soiree: not all the world is the United States of America. The copyright records for many works are kept in the registries of foreign countries, meaning that just because you don’t find a work listed in our Copyright Office doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t copyright-protected. Perhaps you’ll also need to hire someone to search the records of another country.
Hey, no one ever said copyright was easy. And, as I quipped to the dramatists seated around me, if we wanted an easy profession, we wouldn’t be playwrights.
Washington, D.C.
Ah!—‘tis a lonely profession, that of the writer! We engage humanity in our art, but typically do so in the solitary confinement of that quiet place where we scurry off to work in undisturbed isolation. So it’s a pleasant change of pace when writers have an opportunity to gather with fellow scribes for a little face-to-face interaction.
The D.C./Baltimore region had just such an occasion this past autumn when we held our first regional get-together at a local eatery. Kudos to my co-rep Renée Calarco for proposing the idea and finding a location that could accommodate our request for a private room.
We talked shop over the chicken salad and tomato basil soup, and we compared notes on past and present playwriting projects. I also gave an informal talk on some of the legal issues involved in the adaptation of pre-existing material for new plays. That’s a topic that’s popping up a lot now. It seems the well-publicized copyright infringement case involving visual artist Shepard Fairey and his President Obama “Hope” poster has artists of many media contemplating whether they’re at risk to be sued over something they might have appropriated…like somebody else’s story or song for inclusion in their own plays.
Typically, the first order of business when assessing whether a piece of intellectual property is fair game is to determine whether it’s copyrighted—and, if it is, to find out whose permission needs to be sought. In Washington, D.C., area, we’ve got the United States Copyright Office right here. If you go directly to the Copyright Office, you can search its records for free. If you don’t happen to be in the D.C. area, you can always hire someone to do the search for you, or you can even hire the Copyright Office to conduct the search. When I last checked, the Copyright Office was charging $165.00 per hour, but some records are available for free on the office’s web site.
Oh!—but then I broke the heart-wrenching news to my fellow dramatists gathered at the autumn soiree: not all the world is the United States of America. The copyright records for many works are kept in the registries of foreign countries, meaning that just because you don’t find a work listed in our Copyright Office doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t copyright-protected. Perhaps you’ll also need to hire someone to search the records of another country.
Hey, no one ever said copyright was easy. And, as I quipped to the dramatists seated around me, if we wanted an easy profession, we wouldn’t be playwrights.
Rich Amada
ramada@dramatistsguild.com