Judy Potocki at 2012-01-20 00:10:04:

I don't have words of wisdom for Matt -- but to the question about compilations of old works, ie: those in the public domain in the United States: Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org) currently offers 38,000 free e-books that are in the public domain. The site digitizes works after they enter the public domain and makes them available at no charge. It's a treasure trove of stuff to read online or download. The site indicates more than 100,000 free e-books are available thru its partners and affiliates in other countries. Authorama.com also carries free e-books. The site says that its classic works are in the public domain. As a word of caution, rights (including other nations' copyright protection) still may be protect any given work, so you still have to check. Also, the US Supreme Court this week upheld Congress’s right to extend U.S. copyright protection to millions of books, movies and music compositions by foreign artists that once were in the PD. Things like Hitchcock's movies and Picasso's paintings. So a lot of old works that you might expect to be free and clear may still be copyright protected. But these sites are a good start. And there may be other aggregates out there.

Mac at 2012-01-20 03:21:16:

Wow - that query could almost mirror mine from a few years ago. In my case it has a happy ending - I've successfully contacted the copyright owner and it looks like we've come to an agreement - the lawyer is literally writing up the paperwork now. (And charging me a fair bit for it!) I'd definitely start with the children. For a start, they'll probably be happy that someone remembers the contribution their father made and be able to point you in the right direction. But here's the surprising thing - don't be shocked to discover that the kids don't actually know who owns the copyright. The annoying thing about copyright is that it lasts for 70 years after death .. but is very rarely mentioned in a will. Think for a moment - if you died today .. have you mentioned who owns the copyright to this particular blogpost? No? Well - someone will own it. If you leave the laptop to your son and everything else to your daughter .. who owns the copyright to all the emails that you've written - the ones that are sitting on the laptop? Nope - copyright doesn't transfer along with the physical medium so they won't go to the son. What about the daughter - does she even realise that she probably inherited the copyright to this blogpost? Even professional executors of wills don't think about copyright ! If the original writer was Canadian and you can't track down the heirs then you *may* be able to get away with licensing the work from the Canadian orphan work register .. which is the Canadian solution to this problem. It has never been used (as far as I can tell) to license a work for a full film adaptation and I spoke with about six E&O insurance brokers .. only one could find someone who willing to even consider issuing the film project E&O insurance based on that kind of license. So it is unlikely to be a good solution. But someone needs to be the first test case! (I can recommend the one who was willing to offer E&O insurance if you like - just google me to get my email address.) Something you should consider is literally cold-calling every number in the phonebook matching that last-name for the state that the family was in. I avoided it for a long time .. I had dismissed the strategy as a pathetic last ditch effort. But it worked. After only about 150 phone calls I had found a family member who could help .. they vaguely remembered that they may had a relative with that name ... and a bit more research confirmed it. In my case I had already made contact with the copyright holder .. but she was now an elderly lady living in a retirement village who was happy to give me verbal permission .. which is nice but totally useless for a film project. For ethical reasons, though, I was certainly not going to talk an elderly lady into signing a contract that she didn't really understand. So I really was only willing to have a written agreement with the support of her family - so in the end I literally sat down and was prepared to call all 410 phone numbers in that state's phonebook to find the family. (You'd be surprised how manageable it is .. you get into a rhythm and get through about one every two minutes. You'll also be surprised how genuinely helpful people are - I had only 2% outright rejection .. most called another family member over to check if they could remember any relatives with that name. If you put your mind to it you can get through it in an a week ... calling for a few hours every evening.) Anyway - that's my brain dump on what I've learned from the process. The resources I ended up using were: 1. Contacting the original agent who represented the stories. After nagging many times they finally came back to me with details. It took a *lot* of nagging though. 2. Contacting local sports clubs where the heirs had lived - one of them contacted me and reminisced about how they remembered him and his wife .. and gave me approximate times that they had died. 3. Worked with a local genealogist who, armed with my rough information, looked up the tombstone to get the exact date of death .. and then armed with that sourced a copy of the death certificate. Then, armed with the death certificate, found a copy of the will. The amazing thing is that the genealogist did all of this work for about $110 total. 4. Brute force phoning. I did the usual facebook and google searches too .. but in my case they all came up empty. When you do get to negotiating an agreement that are a few things to consider: 1. The amount you pay the family won't be much compared to what people think of when they normally think 'film'. As part of my research I spoke with a producer who made a film version of the great short story 'The Other Celia' .. written by a major Sci-fi author. In his case he'd licensed the rights for only a few thousand dollars total when the film was made. (So it included the option as well as final payments) (I believe the rights may have been non-exclusive ... check with him first) 2. Another thing to consider - if the permission is in the form of an exclusive license or copyright transfer than you *may* need to pay stamp duty on the contract. In my state there is an exception for intellectual property that hasn't been used in commerce in the previous 12 months .. but it should be checked. 3. Obviously get a lawyer involved ... but read up on standard agreements first as a starting point ... there are a bunch at DoneDealPro.com . Then, in your initial contact with the lawyer, explain what you want and present them with the sample contract. Naturally they'll explain that the sample contract isn't enough etc etc etc ... but it lets them know that they can't get away with the standard lawyer trick of charging you a lot and then just presenting you with the standard contract that you would have found on the internet anyway. It will give you a good starting point for the conversation. Anyway, good luck with your search, Mac

Chris Pluchar at 2012-01-20 04:22:07:

I won't even try to outdo Mac. He's clearly hustled to make that happen. In my case, I remembered a book I had read in middle school. I didn't remember many of the details, but I knew it had won a small award and I knew the rough story line. So I started Google searching and found information about the author working for a particular company. So I checked out their website and found his email. It came back undeliverable. So I contacted a couple other people who looked amiable in their photos and asked them if they knew him or knew if he was still with the company. He wasn't, but they had a coworker who had been around when he was. So I spoke to that coworker and essentially made my case. He agreed to contact his friend (the author) and said he'd let me know what he said. About a week later, I got an email from the author. He was excited/flattered that I had remembered his book after all this time and he was more than willing to sign whatever I needed to adapt it. I guess the moral of the story is don't be shy. People are generally helpful as Mac noted. And as long as you're not trying to take advantage of anyone, you'll find the right person eventually. Good luck!

jonnykurzman at 2012-01-20 07:31:18:

Fourteen years ago I was in Matt's position. I wanted to get the rights to adapt an obscure SF novella written in the 1950's by a writer whose work, at the time, had never been adapted into TV or film. The book was out of print in the UK (where I live) and the US. I tried various publishers on both sides of the Atlantic. Eventually I tracked down the literary agent who represented the author but never got a reply to my enquiry. Everything went quiet for a while, then one day I stumbled upon a fan site dedicated to the author. The person who ran the website kindly put me in direct contact with the author (now in his 80's) who in turn put me in contact with his Hollywood agent. Thing was, I wanted to make a dark, existential very low budget, movie. This agent had just done the deal for Starship Troopers. There were some very funny moments during the negotiation. I don't think he could really get his head around what I wanted to do, but God bless 'I'm, he supported me and let me have the rights, for what must have been peanuts compared to what he was used to. The author's film agent was a company called Created By. I don't have their up-to-date info. I mention it because they represented a lot of the SF authors from the period Matt is talking about. It would certainly be worth asking them. In case you're wondering what happened to my project. My screenplay won first prize at the Rhode Island International Film Festival and we had a German co-producer on board, but we never managed to secure any finance from the UK and eventually the option ran out. Good luck Matt.