Sam Raimi, director of the new film “Oz: The Great and Powerful” is being very careful not to infringe on the rights of the 1939 classic movie “The Wizard of Oz,” even though the movie is supposed to be a prequel.
He was told that anything unique to the movie that was not in L. Frank Baum’s book series was off-limits, but discussions about what that entailed occurred on-set every day. Raimi told the Huffington Post about wanting to have beautiful rainbows when the wizard first appeared in Oz, but the legal department was afraid people may think he was going “somewhere over the rainbow.”
“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t even have rainbows in this damn thing,’” Raimi said.
Although many debates occurred regarding what was off-limits, one thing was for sure: the ruby slippers were out. Raimi said he didn’t even ask how much it would cost to be able to incorporate them in the film.
So why is Raimi being so careful? To avoid a lawsuit. Copyright infringement is serious, and the resulting litigation can amount to an exorbitant amount of money. If your copyrighted work has been infringed on, or you want to copyright a piece of intellectual property you should contact an Intellectual Property attorney today.
Source: Huffington Post
