This is strange

James Rogers said:
Has anyone else besides Nate and me had their work borrowed?
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In a different way.

There have been multiple times when I've seen scenes from my movies copied in other, higher budget indie movies. There's one scene in Detours that was copied SO specifically - the blocking and characters were identical and the dialogue was ridiculously similar - that it's a running joke between my husband and me. And the wedding cake bakery scene in Surviving Family - also copied almost exactly. I choose to take it as a compliment :)
 
There's some really slimy weasels out there. No self-respect, integrity or respect for others.. so many people walking around with corrupted moral codes. I couldn't do something like that. I'd feel guilt and certainly wouldn't feel as if i'd earned my place; people who do such things (like in Hollywood) walking around like it's their work kind of become a self-parody.
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Almost all of my music is samples, other songs and other people's music, sample packs, stems and Idea's. I think my movie idea's are mashups of a 10000 movies, comic's and other media.
I think Nate north makes a valid point, you don't steal from people that have less then you.
 
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Hey, Ven. How's it going? I agree. I could not do it either, and if I did, I'd probably be to embarrassed to show my face if I got caught.

On a side note, I use to live in Illinois. Worth, Illinois. There use to be a novelty shop on 111th street called Riley's trick shop. That's where I got my start with special effects make-up, masks, and all that cool stuff.. I worked there when I was a kid.
 
Hey James, I can remember all kinds of interested shops when I was little - thrift stores, candy stores, misc. "Mom & Pop" stores, and Halloween/effects-type shops like you mentioned. Now most of those things are gone and replaced with commercialism. I'll never forget those places though; the feeling they gave me as I explored them. Anyway, I love practical effects and wish they had more prevalence today. Practical creatures may not always come across as real world, but they sure are memorable, with lots of life. I don't view myself as a good effects artist, but it's creations like these that inspir(ed) me, especially as a child:
iu
 
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LOL! Thanks, Mike. I've got several gallons of that stuff sitting around and you're right, it's still good.... I've got just enough of the raw material left to make one or two more 5 gallon batches.. I've also figured out how to make a 'sticky' additive for times when you really want the stuff to stick..

But let's not forget about Alien Zombie Monster Slime. It was good too!
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Feutus Lapdance said:
Almost all of my music is samples, other songs and other people's music, sample packs, stems and Idea's. I think my movie idea's are mashups of a 10000 movies, comic's and other media.
I think Nate north makes a valid point, you don't steal from people that have less then you.
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I used to use a lot of stolen samples when I was younger, and I'm still into what's called mashups, I was doing it with an mpc 2000 before they even had a name for it.

These days I don't use any stolen samples, It's not any kind of philosophy or moral high ground, it's just that back in the day, we had nothing to work with. We HAD to use borrowed loops because only a person with a 2 million dollar studio could record a drum track properly.

Now, music has become fully democratized, with all the advantages and disadvantages that comes with. I've got unlimited legal samples, and more instruments than any human could ever play. At this point the only bottleneck is time, skill, and creativity. It's nice. It's what I always wanted. I just wish I had more time, skill, and creativity, lol.

As far as movies, I kind of see them like bricks in a pyramid. The brick halfway up the side is it's own unique object, but it wouldn't be there if it weren't for all the bricks under it. It's not stealing from them, it's supported by them. This was the whole idea of the pyramid, that with every achievement we could build higher and higher as a collective, hopefully improving the height each individual could hope to aspire to.

For those unfamilliar, this is a mashup, it's stolen samples only, and it's good art, though you can't sell it. I can appreciate the sheer lunacy of combining AC/DC with Crowded House.

 
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Nate North said:
At this point the only bottleneck is time, skill, and creativity.
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Same thing with digital sculpting. It's to the point now where the only thing keeping EVERYONE from being able to sculpt something really cool is creativity. Wrinkles, textures, smoother surfaces, intricate designs. All easy today, but without creativity the results are still only mediocre.
 
OK, now here's a question. Has anyone thought about taking their fully legitimate indie movie or short and back it with something you would consider the ultimate music track? I'm serious. You couldn't sell it but you could certainly give it to some close friends and acquaintances just for kicks. I don't know about you guys but when I write, I always have music in mind; The doors, Tubular Bells, Nina! I haven't made a feature but I would consider making a special limited edition with the ultimate music track!!
 
James Rogers said:
OK, now here's a question. Has anyone thought about taking their fully legitimate indie movie or short and back it with something you would consider the ultimate music track? I'm serious. You couldn't sell it but you could certainly give it to some close friends and acquaintances just for kicks. I don't know about you guys but when I write, I always have music in mind; The doors, Tubular Bells, Nina! I haven't made a feature but I would consider making a special limited edition with the ultimate music track!!
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Sure, people do it all the time. That's basically 10% of youtube and 90% of tictok.

I would do it myself, because it's fun, but I quit doing it because I develop psychological attachments to how a song works in an edit, and then I feel disappointed by the compromises I have to make when taking the product to market.

Like I would never eat an ice cream cone and then drink a coke. It's not that the soda tastes bad, I actually really like it, but if you throw off your scale by watching your movie with a soundtrack by John Williams and Stevie Wonder, the very good version you do own will seem a bit dull by comparison.
 
Speaking of youtube, whenever I have unlicensed music in my videos, they know, sometimes they let me keep it, other times they tell me to remove it or mute it. I have a hard time believing all the people who have all this awesome music on their channels have had it cleared. I don't believe it!!
 
James Rogers said:
Speaking of youtube, whenever I have unlicensed music in my videos, they know, sometimes they let me keep it, other times they tell me to remove it or mute it. I have a hard time believing all the people who have all this awesome music on their channels have had it cleared. I don't believe it!!
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They don't. Licensing fees for a high profile track run about 25k. Since it's incredibly unusual for a youtube video to make those kinds of profits, you can safely assume that they just did it without permission. It's to their detriment though, because powerful organizations have built automated systems which just collect up all the revenue from any video using their work, via an automated system. Some are even quite predatory about it.

For Save Point, I license, or get permission for every track across over 2000 selections. It's the best way for people who need quality work and don't want legal complications wrecking their income. You'll never see one of my videos that has a legal claim on it.

If a kid wants to play a def leopard song behind a transformers clip, I don't see what harm it causes. If you're getting serious about content development, it's wise to play by the rules.
 
There are several, and I send a monthly check to all of them.

In order of quality, I'd list

Artlist
Epidemic Sound
PremiumBeat

It's not very expensive, but you do still have to do the job of music supervisor. That sounds super easy, and it's a fun job, but if you're doing it right, it can eat up a great deal of time, carefully auditioning and testing 8,000 pieces of candidate music.
 
I was reading my answers from earlier, and in case someone comes along trying to learn about this from the thread, I thought I should be more clear. There is missing information here. When I said 2000 tracks, that's post curation for me personally after curating for about a year. That's the number of tracks that we use so far from the services, and a few other sources. When I said 8000 tracks, that's about how many I would guess I've auditioned in the search process that let to the 2000. It wouldn't normally be that high of a ratio, but the sites do a curation and rating pass for you, meaning that you can sort by quality and curate down, and also my use case is unique, and I have uses for everything from Orchestra to Rave to Calypso and beyond, so I'm not super finicky until I get to the actual edit.

Each of these services has ballpark 70,000 track selections under blanket subscription fees. Pick any 2 of them, and you will have an enormous selection of tracks to work from legally.
 
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I am contributing to this thread to find ways to avoid getting scripts stolen.

Craigslist in Hollywood is I think a center of this. People advertise for scripts then after they are delivered suddenly change their tune and become negative. I think this scam is used in TV scripts especially.

Another way of scamming is to change the name of the work. In fact, however, many mainstream hollywood movies have similar or identical plots.

One method I envisioned is to belong to wga or a similar organization. And have a lawyer represent you. The lawyer is the one who actually sends the script to the recipient.
 
I might be glad if someone stole one of my scripts.
Assuming your script is properly registered and protected, you might make more on an out of court settlement with whomever infringed upon your copyright than you would if you produced it yourself. I'm talking from the point of view of a micro-budget film maker.
 
freedom crusader said:
find ways to avoid getting scripts stolen.
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Make sure you register it with the WGA (you don't need to be a member to do that).

Remember, though, you can't copyright an idea so there's no law against someone stealing your idea. I've seen movies that I swear stole entire scenes from my low budget produced features, and I just shrug it off.

The reality is that most of us aren't writing scripts that are so great that people want to steal them. But overall, be super careful who you send scripts to - and I can't even imagine sending one to a Craigslist contact without some serious vetting. If someone seems really interested, figure out who they actually are and if they have (or can get) the financing to make the movie. Then start with a synopsis before sending the whole thing.

Just my 2 cents worth...
 
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