Chain of Title
As it is common for scripts to be stuck in development hell, the options for a script may expire and be re-sold multiple times. As well, producers who purchase an option and re-work the script own the rights to their own derivative work- while the original rights holder owns the underlying rights. This lineage is referred to as the chain of title. This lineage can become cloudy if the underlying rights are divided. Producers may purchase the rights to specific territories (i.e. a country, the entire world, or the universe) and/or they may purchase ancillary rights such as merchandising rights.
In some cases, it may be uncertain as to the exact owners of a particular version of a script and to the exact set of rights. It is important for an entertainment lawyer to determine how 'clean' a chain of title is.
Read more about this topic: Film Rights
Famous quotes containing the words chain of, chain and/or title:
“It could not have come down to us so far,
Through the interstices of things ajar
On the long bead chain of repeated birth,
To be a bird while we are men on earth,”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The years seemed to stretch before her like the land: spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives; always the same yearning; the same pulling at the chain—until the instinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last time, until the chain secured a dead woman, who might cautiously be released.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to “Defender of the Faith,” than George the Third.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)