Curiouser and curiouser

[trinityvixen]

More details about the brou-ha-ha over the Watchmen fiasco.

What seems significant is that Warner didn't inherit the project directly from the producer as he left Fox. It got shopped through at least two other studios who held onto it for a while and then shuffled it off. Notably, the niggling detail that the producer in question says means Fox has no case (and which they use as the basis for their case) was not passed on in the materials.

It looks like it worked out like this: Person A sold something to Studio B, who wanted to be involved whenever Person A's company made the product. Person A, through various job changes, kept the product through his involvements with Production Companies C-and-later-D with the blessing of Studio B. Studio B claims "blessing" is a strong word; they still were to be included regardless of which Studio (E, F, G, or H) eventually rolled out said product. Person A says this is bullshit; Studio B gave up all rights in the deal when it shifted from Production Company C to D.

Person A then got into business with Studio E with the intention of making the product. Somewhere in their deal, Studio E, either because they didn't do their homework or because Person A and/or Studio B didn't inform them properly, lost the paperwork that said Studio B still had rights to the product. When Studio E sent Person A and product packing to Studio F, they couldn't send on the document to show one way or another that Studio B was ever involved because they didn't have it themselves. Studio F, in turn passed on all the documentation minus this one, very important piece to Studio G.

Suddenly, Studio G has actually rolled out the product and Studio B is hopping mad that they presumed to produce something they didn't have rights to and that they didn't/couldn't have known they didn't entirely own because Studios E and F didn't provide that information.

I don't think that helped me, actually.

Lawyers out there, riddle me this: the paperwork to prove Fox's case was not provided to one of the studios in a chain that lined up to purchase it. The studio that made the product, Warner, did not have a document it couldn't really have known that it needed to have because it wasn't included in the previous two legal changes of hands. Is Warner liable regardless?

Comments

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I think (and no, I'm not a lawyer) that Warner is indeed still liable. You can't simply point a finger at someone and say, "Well, he didn't tell me, so there!" It's Warner's responsibility to do due diligence and they didn't--if they had, they'd have found out about that original agreement right at the start. Of course, they can in turn sue whichever studio didn't pass that agreement along, and sue Gordon as well for not mentioning it, but in this particular suit they are liable.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You're probably right. I mean even when stolen goods are bought through a pawn shop, the buyer has to give them up if the original owner wants them back, even if the buyer pays no other criminal penalty.

The lawsuit, though, will hinge on the promise/agreement between Gordon and Fox as he moved through production companies. He claims he had it in the clear, Fox claims otherwise. It will all come down to that, I suppose, with what money goes where. An easy solution, if Gordon turns out to be wrong, is to eat Fox's percentage (which is probably all they're angling for in all this) out of his monies, since, if the court finds he was in the wrong, it's all his doing.

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Well, that'll be the first issue, whether he had it in the clear. If the verdict is no, they'll get to the second issue of who's to blame. He'll do his best to slough it off on Warner and all the studios before it in the chain. Fox will probably try to keep it on Warner's head, since better for them to injure a rival like that. Ugly stuff.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that Warner has more money than a single producer and the potential to make the most money is off the film's grosses.