Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Moviemakers certainly mooch ideas from other moviemakers without any copyright infringements seeming to stand in their way, so I can only presume that the topic we're discussing here is using specific characters, locations, and stories, rather than just general ideas or storylines.
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Correct. Copyright protects the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. Storylines (as I interpret the term) can rarely be copyrighted. "Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl to nasty rival. Boy defeats rival and wins girl back." That's a storyline that can't be copyrighted. Probably. OTOH "Popeye meets Olive Oyl. Brutus steals Olive Oyl from Popeye. Popeye thrashes Brutus and wins Olive Oyl back." That's a storyline that can be copyrighted. Probably. The difference is specific characters. Other copyrightable differences might be locations or activities. (Rollerball, from the movie of that name, would be an example of a copyrightable activity. A baseball game would not. Probably.) IMO a 'storyline' should be fairly generic as in my first example. Characters, locations, activities can usually be changed enough to make them non-infringing. But in the final decision infringement is what a judge thinks it is whether I agree with the decision or not. That's way I keep saying "Probably".