I haven't yet reported that we went to see "Don't Cry for Me, Margaret Mitchell" at Stage Two of Barter Theatre, up in Abingdon, VA, a couple of weeks back. Although the story of the play sounded extremely similar to "Moonlight and Magnolias," which others had heard of and was apparently read by the KLT playreading group, to my surprise it is by two authors with names that don't match the playwright's name for "Moonlight ..."
I'm not quite sure how a copyrighted play can be written about a very specific set of events -- three people locking themselves in an office for a week to churn out a workable script for the movie, "Gone With the Wind" -- and then another play be written about the same set of events that somehow doesn't impact with the copyright on the first play. I suspect that, since only a few of the facts of that week are actually known in the public domain, perhaps the two scripts are measurably different in interpretation of what went on in that office. But still .....
Anyway, we saw this show and found it entertaining, amusing and relatively short, following the noticeable trend in some current scripts (such as "Doubt" and "Blackbird") to run 90 minutes or just under that, even with an intermission. Responding, one assumes, to the limited attention span of modern Americans.
Some day it would be interesting to read the two scripts back to back and see if they are really all that different, or one is funnier/more successful than the other, or what. But at least now I have seen one version of that story, which certainly is funny at points!
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Ah, I knew there was a reason why my ears were burning. In my earlier life, I did copyright and intellectual property work.
The short answer is this: "Copyright does not protect ideas and concepts".
This may sound like lawyer-like parsing, but copyright only protects "artistic works" (literary, musical, etc). The operative word is "works", which is distinct from the idea or concept upon which the work is based. Thus, I could have a dinner with Andre, and then we could each independently get the idea to write a play about it. If that happened, both plays are copyrightable.
In fact, if I TOLD Andre I was writing a play about our dinner, he STILL could go out and do it, even if he got the idea from me. And again, both plays would be copyrightable (assuming they had different titles).
If you think about it, this is probably good public policy. What you would hope to avoid is to have one artistic work "corner the market" on a particular concept -- e.g., the "boy meets girl, buy loses girl, boy and girl reunite" theme.
Nor would it be desireable to have a single "artistic work" monopolize a particular unique event -- e.g., two Red Sox players writing each penning his own book about the 2006 championship season, or two Titanic survivors separately writing about their experiences.
Besides, if we DID have copyright protection for similar-event works, it would, according to theory, squelch artistic expression. It means that the first one to publish a book/play on something gets to profit from his work being the definitive one, but it is "definitive" only because the author wrote faster than others. I, for one, wouldn't want that.
The flipside, of course, is what you have observed. But I suppose, the rationale is to let the free market sort it out. The more art the better; let the best play prevail.
That said, if "Dont Cry for Me, Margaret Mitchell" (which came later) used "Moonlight and Magnolias" as source material, there may indeed be some copyright problem, especially if some of the dialogue created for the earlier piece had found its way into the latter. But otherwise, it's probably okay.
As a fellow playwright, I admit to being less than satisfied with the notion that could spend countless hours on an original work based on an original concept, get it published (or produced!) and then have someone come along and write another original copywritable work based on the SAME uncopywritable concept. But that's show biz.
P.S. I'm working on this slice-of-life play now about several urbanites who cross paths in a local coffery. Gonna calling "Talking In Starbucks". Whatcha think?
Hmm. Talking in Starbucks? I like it. That will slip you from copyright questions to trademark questions. At least I made up my own cafe!!
Your wonderful reply just taught me that I don't know as much about copyrights as I should, but everything you say makes sense, really. A lot of events in the public domain could be written about different ways by different people without them being the same or "copies" of each other. As long, as you note, that there's no plagiarism going on.
Seriously, though, are you writing any plays these days? I did write a 10-minute play just before we went to DC and saw 25 10-minute plays, but haven't made any huge strides recently on play #3. Seems to be too much else going on. Right now, anyway.
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