Are you allowed to do adapations of books/novels?

Posted by: thegardenstate89 (Guest), November 30th, 2005, 1:50pm

I know that many people do fan fiction around this site, but I was curious are you allowed to post script adaptions of novles on this site? If you can is infriging any copyright anyways? I haven't seen anybody post any sceenplay versions of novels yet.

Posted by: bert, November 30th, 2005, 2:01pm; Reply: 1

Check out this link, to one of the scripts in horror, called "Manhattan Ghost Story" (the very last one in the very long list of horror scripts, oddly enough). I don't have any "legal" stuff for you, but this is a very cool thread:

http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b=horror,m=1063335305

Anyways, the dude wrote an adaptation (he was straight-up with it, and cited the author), and the author actually dropped a response on his thread! And said it was better than the guy who was getting paid to do it!

Just goes to show...you never know who might be lurking around on these boards...

Posted by: Old Time Wesley, November 30th, 2005, 2:11pm; Reply: 2

I think as long as you make it clear on the title page that you do not own the characters or the idea it's okay... Basically you can write and post them but if you even try to sell it you've breached copyright laws and become screwed.

The only problem though is that people don't read fan fiction, sometimes you get lucky but on a whole nobody cares if the script is not original.

I guess Hollywood is to blame or maybe writers who don't know how to write fanfics are but whatever the case the simple answer is yes you can do it as long as you say it's not yours and you do not own it.

Posted by: Higgonaitor, November 30th, 2005, 7:05pm; Reply: 3

I wonder if that was really the author...

Posted by: Old Time Wesley, November 30th, 2005, 9:12pm; Reply: 4

The guy signed up, posted once and now is not a member anymore so anyone think that it could have been the author of the screenplay who posted a message by the novel's writer?

I don't mind either way, whatever gets you some reads or in that case not.

Posted by: bert, December 1st, 2005, 8:42am; Reply: 5

Quoted from Old Time Wesley

...anyone think that it could have been the author of the screenplay who posted a message by the novel's writer?

I would prefer to believe it was legit. It sure reads that way.

But, yeah, if he was just fooling around, it doesn't seem to have worked, ending up dead last out of 193 scripts. How does that happen?

Posted by: Old Time Wesley, December 1st, 2005, 8:59am; Reply: 6

Maybe people are smarter than you'd think. Is the script any good to begin with? Maybe that's the real question and since the writer isn't her either that's another one.

Who wants to read work by someone who isn't even here to say thanks.

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