COPYRIGHT IS COPYRIGHT ?

Here's a true story: Years ago, RyanAir announced a competition for ways to save money and/or bring the price of tickets down. The suggestions didn't have to be practicable, just original. In short, a publicity gimmick. 1st prize was either £500 or £1000, I forget which.

The whole thing had spun out of RyanAir's announcement that they were considering charging £1 for the use of the toilet during the flight, and the scorn that was poured on them for that idea. Somebody had suggested that - instead of paying to use the toilet - you could do so for free, but you had to pay for toilet PAPER... at £1 per square. But each square would have the face of RyanAir's president printed on it. This was obviously somebody being sarcastic and critical of RyanAir's bossman.

RyanAir started the competition ball rolling by giving 5 examples of possible suggestions, one of which was that toilet paper with the boss' face printed on it at £1 per square.

I thought that £500 would come in handy. Or was it £1000? Anyway, I wracked my brains for an idea, opting for forgetting completely the idea of suggesting anything useable and going for the original angle... And I came up with a jewel!!!

RyanAir should buy its aircraft WITHOUT ANY SEATS! Money saved on

a) cost of seats,

b) cleaning costs (quicker and MUCH easier to run a vacuum cleaner over an empty space),

c) fuel costs (due to lighter aircraft),

d) luggage-loading staff, as most people would prefer to carry on their suitcases to sit on them in-flight.

Extra money EARNED by

1) cramming more people onto aircraft, hanging from straps as on the Tube, i.e. selling more tickets for each flight,

2) possibly charging people for carrying on their own luggage (to be used as seating),

3) a massive surcharge for reserving the few seats that WERE provided: Luxury Class.

d) an even larger surcharge for people who - fed up with standing - begged in the middle of a flight to be allowed to sit in any vacant seats in Luxury Class.

Brilliant - if I say so myself.

When the 5 finalists were announced, 3 of them had been among RyanAir's original 5 suggestions to get the ball rolling... including the toilet paper idea. Mine was nowhere to be seen. Disgusted, I never checked to see which idea actually took 1st prize, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it were the toilet paper.

But that's not the end of the story...

A very few months later, RyanAir announced that they were considering removing the last 2 rows of seats on each aeroplane and offering free flights to anyone willing to hang on to a strap while standing at the back for the 2-hour flight.

My mistake was that I entered my suggestion via RyanAir's website, rather that via an e-mail. The latter would have proved that the idea was mine. No way can I prove it with the website entry.

(Obviously the standing passenger idea would never be approved by European Safety Authorities. But that's not the point. RyanAir used MY very original idea to drum up more publicity, without acknowledging that it was better than the toilet paper idea [and paying me for it].)

2 things occur to me straight off:

a) As far as I understand copyright law, you CAN'T copyright an idea. if you could prove that the screenwriter had stolen your dialogue or copied a description word-for-word, then you'd have a case. As A.E.H. Veenman has pointed out, you would need to be able to prove that your story pre-dated the screenplay. But if somebody uses your IDEA, you can't do anything about it. Somebody please correct me if I've got that wrong.

b) You write that the film made millions in 2012? This means that it must have been in production for some time before that. You don't turn out a film with a star like Ethan Hawke (from screenplay to opening night) in a couple of months. According to wikipedia, "Shooting for Sinister began in autumn of 2011". This is after all the work of finding finance for the project. Which comes AFTER the financial backers are convinced of their chances of making a profit. Which in turn suggests that they like the screenplay... which has been written some time before that. These things often take YEARS. The point that I'm making is that the screenplay just might have been written BEFORE you wrote your story.

I'm not saying that you copied the screenplay. Sometimes 2 people just get the same idea at the same time. (probably the reason for not being able to copyright an idea. Ideas are free: It's the TREATMENT of them that's protected by copyright law.)

Eric,

Did you happen to make a PDF or screenshot of your material online BEFORE you removed it?

Or does Issuu.com have a "history" listing of actions within the author dashboard?

Sorry, this has happened to you, but unless you have some proof you made your story public before the movie script was written, there's not much you can do.

In the future, if you can't register with a writer's guild, you can print a copy of your story and mail it to yourself. DO NOT OPEN the envelope when it comes in the mail. This is called the "poor man's copyright". The post mark establishes a date at which its contents existed.

If you ever run into a similarity like this again, you'll have proof your material existed on the date of the post mark which may (or may not) precede the date of the movie/book similar to yours.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

A.E.H. Veenman