Copyright question. A scene inspired from another film.

[NatalieOshea]

So there's this scene I wrote in my script -- Jason and Eric agree to meet up at this warehouse. It starts off a friendly conversation and then it turns into an argument when it's established that Eric betrayed Jason. So Jason grabs out a gun and shoots Eric in the stomach three times. Jason goes up to Eric, who is lying on the floor, and looks down at him. Angry, Eric goes, "You motherf**ker!" But then Jason shoots him a few more times, killing him.

That scene is inspired by a scene from the 2005 film Four Brothers -- Detective Greene and Detective Fowler are at the bar and Greene suspects that Fowler is a crooked cop, so Greene takes Fowler's gun and badge and leaves to get into his car, but Fowler follows him out (Greene doesn't know Fowler had a second gun) and SHOOTS Greene three times... Angry, Greene goes, "You motherf**ker!" But then Fowler shoots him a few more times, killing him.

In any case, could Paramount sue us for copying that scene? I really like that scene in Four Brothers and think it wouldn't look bad in my film too but we don't wanna get sued, but it is in my script.

 

[Blade_Jones]

Whether it's "inspired by" or "derived from" doesn't matter. It's still just a very generic sequence of events that has probably played out in numerous movies. If someone could actually copyright that sequence of events then everyone would be suing everyone. Not gonna happen and no judge would allow it because it would open up a floodgate of lawsuits. Too generic to claim as intellectual property.

 

[stef]

Whether it's "inspired by" or "derived from" doesn't matter.

On the contrary, it has everything to do with that.

If it's a derivative work, it is under copyright by the original holder. As I noted in my post, that is clearly not the case, and as you noted, similar films have been done a whole lot. It would have to have major copyrighted elements in it, and because it doesn't, it's not derived from that movie. If it were a derivation, much of the creativity would be from the original movie, not the remade part.

For instance, consider the somewhat recent Romeo and Juliette movie with dicaprio. That was derived from the shakespearean play, despite being all new footage and a completely different feel. It is a derivative work. All the dialog was the same. But because it was derived from something in the public domain, I can (I believe) reprint the script without breaking copyright, since they don't own the copyright on the dialog (but they do own the copyright on the new stuff -- the footage and any major changes they made to the dialog). I cannot, however, reshoot the film with the same costuming as that is (probably) new creative elements under copyright, because that would be a derivative work. And I definitely cannot copy the film and distribute it, even though the script was in the public domain, because the movie had tremendous new creative elements which are under copyright.

But consider the opening of The Fifth Element. That was probably inspired by the Harry Canyon scene of Heavy Metal. But it had no actual derivations from Heavy Metal, just something that had a similar pace, feel, and occupation of the main character.