Writing from historical sources

[maz]

I'm looking to write a biopic about an obscure historical personality whose story would perhaps still be of interest to people today. The personality in question is so obscure that there is only one biography available, along with a lot of primary sources tucked away out of the public domain (academic institutions, private collections etc), and some online information of variable provenance.

So my question is, if I use the biography as the basis for the majority of the screenplay, does that make it an 'adaptation' by default (and require buying the rights etc)? I assume most screenplays about historical events involve research out of a range of books of history, but in this case there is only one book that I can use for reference, so it strikes me as an unusual situation!

 

[mlesemann]

So my question is, if I use the biography as the basis for the majority of the screenplay, does that make it an 'adaptation' by default (and require buying the rights etc)?

I'm not a lawyer but logic says yes.

Why not do a fictionalized version?

 

[maz]

I'm not a lawyer but logic says yes.

Why not do a fictionalized version?

Parts of it will have to fictionalised along the way to make it viable as a screenplay, but I'm not sure of the logic; is a book based on an account of actual historical events not intended as a source of reference on the topic of interest? Or, to put it another way, do historical facts that one man has written down make them his property in a way that, say, following his references and finding the primary sources myself would not?

 

[Birdman]

Parts of it will have to fictionalised along the way to make it viable as a screenplay, but I'm not sure of the logic; is a book based on an account of actual historical events not intended as a source of reference on the topic of interest? Or, to put it another way, do historical facts that one man has written down make them his property in a way that, say, following his references and finding the primary sources myself would not?

That's a good question.

If I chose to do a Screenplay on Benjamin Franklin, there's a million resources out there that tell all of the things he did. Would I need to ask for permission from all of these sources?

I'm "guessing" the rules are different for a historical person (public figure) than a fictional character who can be copyrighted. You could run into trouble if the person you are referencing is a private citizen.

There are Supreme Court rulings that say public figures are fair game.

(Interesting Link)

-Birdman

 

[mlesemann]

Here's an interesting article on the subject:

http://www.lawlawlandblog.com/2011/05/qa_why_should_i_secure_nonfict.html

 

[maz]

Interesting stuff on both links. Thanks!

For the record, the subject died more than 80 years ago.