Screenwriting : Adapting a book, contract terms... advice please by Anthony Cawood

Anthony: You may wish to review these lawyer's link: http://www.marklitwak.com/optioning-literary-material.html http://lehmannstrobel.com/articles/acquiring-story-rights/

If you need advice or free info from an entertainment attorney, PM me.

Thanks Phillip, will check out that link. And thanks David, will pm you later on, appreciated.

dont get screwed in "development hell". make sure your adaptation with Author/Owner/Publisher doesn't mean they own your material once you're off the project.

Thanks Dan, but practically what do you mean and how do I prevent it?

A Hire the best Entertainment Lawyer on your budget. Dont share the same lawyer as the other party. It is a partnership- set deadlines however long (6, 12, 24, whatever months). The theory is both parties have something at stake, a deadline to work for and against. Personally I witnessed (paper trail) a Writer's adaptation partnership (his idea) turn into a "work for hire" (Producer) and the Writer was terminated legally. Producer owned the new adaptation material. Always about $$$$ when there is a serious offer. People take more credit, big Egos, change stories.

Hey Anthony, Just an fyi, when I was tapped for a unique adaptation and needed someone to look over the pending contract asap I did quite a bit of research and settled on a pro-artist legal team in Echo Park - "COUNSEL FOR CREATORS." I really can't say enough about how great they were to work with. I dealt with Nate and Chuong, but as you'll see if you peruse YELP, everyone there gets 5 star ratings by writers and other creatives. They also have a very cool and affordable system, wherein you can sign up month to month for $99 (and cancel at any time) - that gives you full access to the team, so you can schedule calls, ask questions, and even have them review a contract! If you need it re-negotiated that is a separte fee, of course. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to paste their link, so I won't, but you can easily find them online. Best of luck to you!

Thanks for the follow up Dan, John - unfortunately getting an agent isn't that easy ;-( , Jean thanks for the recommendation.

A Does the Author have authority to let you adapt his work and is the Kid's book a best seller?

Doesn't the WGA have a standard form for this type of agreement? It should (and it would be free :))

The WGA is a labor Union. Plenty of WGA Writers have been screwed over, losing Credits and more importantly, residual checks

Anthony: There are many writer's contract templates out there. My experience is they generally favor the party who is issuing them (in most cases, the producer). However, I'm married to an attorney. She has taught me to redline anything I don't like about any agreement that I've signed or am considering signing. Last year, I signed a "right to shop agreement" for material adapted from the life of a woman named Deborah Nelson. She's a former inner city educator whose daughter was murdered in a gang related shooting in Sacramento. In the agreement it states that: "Producer warrants he has secured the life rights from Deborah Nelson and has the rights to assign writer to adapt and portray Deborah Nelson and her life story in said screenplay (Loved Into Excellence). Writer to have full writers credits and negotiated writers fees should the screenplay be optioned, financed or picked up by third party producers." Therefore, I would be looking for similar verbiage in your agreement with the author that protects you against any copyright infringement issues. I also interviewed Deborah Nelson before writing the screenplay. So I had both moral and contract support.