ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the areas of IP law most important to filmmakers. It examines copyright, trademark, rights of publicity, and idea protection laws from the viewpoint of how they impact the filmmaker's ability to make and protect his or her movie. Copyright is actually a collection of legal rights, all of which protect “original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.” Copyright law considers our film or video and audio visual work: “ ‘audio visual works’ are works that consist of a series of related images that are intrinsically intended to be shown by use of machines or devices such as projectors, viewers, or electronic equipment, together with accompanying sounds.” A derivative work is a work based on one or more pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version of a book, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.
