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Rights Acquisition & Optioning

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Ken Dhaliwal

Page 1 of 3 At the same time as you formalize relationships with co-producers and suppliers, you need to ensure that you acquire all the intellectual property rights and options necessary to proceed with the project. Intellectual property rights are, very briefly, the ownership rights that allow you to develop, produce and exploit your production. Defining the scope of the project From a producer’s point of view, your approach to rights acquisition and optioning is straightforward: you want to acquire the broadest possible rights for the longest period of time for the least amount of money upfront. To ensure you are obtaining the correct rights, you first need to define the scope of the project: Are you seeking to make only a feature film, or do you want to retain the flexibility to develop the project in a variety of different formats? Do you want to obtain rights only to Canada, or do you want to exploit in various other territories (up to and including the world)?  Will you want to take advantage of merchandising rights?  Home video?  Release a soundtrack?  Issue a novel or children’s book based on the movie? How about Internet rights (always a problem)? Obtaining rights from the correct source The acquisition process is like detective work: you need to carefully track down who owns what to ensure that you are obtaining the rights from the correct source, that is, the person or entity that actually owns the rights you need.  In the case of an un-filmed screenplay, this process may be straightforward. However, you need to be diligent when you are dealing with an existing property that has been created in a different medium, for instance, a television series you want to turn into a feature film.  There are a number of ways to track down the owner of the rights. Copyright Office Search: As a first step, you can conduct a search of the U.S. and Canadian copyright offices at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/app/cipo/copyrights/displaySearch.do?language=eng and  http://www.copyright.gov/records. These searches are a quick and free way to determine who may own the rights, including names and addresses. Publishers: If your production is to be based on a book or other published work, you should start with the publisher to whom the author of the work may have granted the film and/or television rights. Even if the publishing company does not have the film or television rights, it may be able to direct you to the holder. The Internet: As one of the world’s great sources of information, you can never underestimate the searching power of this tool. Professional Search Services: If all else fails, there are professional search companies such as Thomson and Thomson, who will check a variety of sources to determine where the rights lie. Continued... Previous Page - Next Page >>

 

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