> >I went to a talk once by Philip Jones-Griffiths, Magnum photographer > >famous for his book Vietnam, Inc. The film Apocalypse Now! ripped the > >book of quite comprehensively. In particular, there is a scene where a > >VC soldier is dying in the arms of some GI, having fought on with his > >guts hanging out and now begging for water. Robert Duvall's character > >says something like 'Any man who can fight with his guts hanging out can > drink from my canteen any time' > >and makes to offer the VC soldier his canteen. But before the soldier > >takes it, Duvall is distracted and walks away, splashing water on the > >ground and not giving any to the VC. > > > >The composition of the scene, and the text, are identical to > >Jones-Griffiths' book. During the talk he said that Magnum approached > >Coppola, pointed out the similarities, and asked for the royalties. > >PJ-G said "he responded with those immortal Hollywood words 'Sue me!'". > >Magnum couldn't afford to take him on, so he got away with it. > > > >If it's that difficult for Magnum, so much more so for Joe TriXpack. > > That's a weird story - in the U.S. it costs nothing to sue for copyright in the > end because you get to make the infringer pay your legal costs (assuming > you've registered your copyright and I can't imagine Magnum wouldn't > have!) I suspect there's more to this story than what you were told.
it may well come down to this ridiculous idea of registering your copyright. Jones-Griffiths was a member of UK Magnum and to the best of my knowledge there is no need to register copyright over here. The original author of the work is the copyright holder unless s/he has explicitly assigned it elsewhere. Having to register copyright is a mockery of the whole principle. B -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
