AMANDA DEDIE
News Editor
Imagine looking up at a movie screen and seeing the opening credits attribute a screenplay to someone else, even though the writing is eerily similar to your own. This was the case for Terrence Burns, M.D. and John Zoll, two former firemen from Buffalo, N.Y.
In 1991, Burns and Zoll took note of the fact that there seemed to be no film stories about firemen and their work. The two men, who were firemen at the time, got together shortly after to write a screenplay for a movie. Following its completion, Burns and Zoll paid to have their script copyrighted and, through a friend with connections, had it sent to Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles.
Months later, the men went to see “Backdraft” in theaters, and left with an uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right. They went back the next day with legal pads and noted over one hundred similarities between the movie and their script.
Soon after, this was brought to court for copyright infringement, which turned into a 10-year battle against Universal Studios in Hollywood; the parties reached a settlement in 2001.
This situation was discussed last Thursday in McEwen G24. Judge Jeremiah J. McCarthy and Paul Zuydhoek, who were Burns’ lawyers; Kenneth Africano, Universal Studios’ lawyer; and Burns himself spoke about a number of issues related to copyright law.
The discussion included how to protect a screenplay using submission agreements, Screen Actors Guild registration and copyright, scenes de faire arguments — certain types of scenes that cannot be totally protected because they’re common within a genre — and the use of experts and economic analysis of damages.
“This was written about in textbooks about copyright law. This is a case that’s referenced in the body of literature for law students. It has a little bit of added glamour because of who’s involved, and there’s a human interest side of it, with John and I,” said Burns.
Stuart Shapiro, an adjunct professor of the music industry applied professional studies program, said that originally his class was covering a case that was presided over by Magistrate Judge McCarthy. He had decided to contact him in the hopes that McCarthy could visit his class to make a presentation.
“I contacted Magistrate Judge McCarthy to see if I could get him to come in as a guest speaker,” said Shapiro, “and he actually called me back a couple of days later and said, ‘I’ve got a better idea. I’m gonna bring in the legal teams for the plaintiff and the defendant and the plaintiff himself [of the Backdraft case], and we’ll do a whole presentation on what transpired.’”
Shapiro hoped that his students and the other attendees took away a lot of good information in relation to the class that they are taking this semester.
“It gave some insight into the real-world considerations of what’s involved in a lawsuit. One of the things that was so great about this presentation is that we had the actual fellow there … and he was able to give some insight into what he and his partner went through,” said Shapiro. “[They were] trying to take on a major motion picture studio, which had at their disposal a lot of resources in regard to legal teams and the ability to put up roadblocks to someone who was claiming that their script for a movie had been infringed.”
“The thing I found the most interesting was finding out how long a copyright case could go on, because seven years is a really long time for a copyright infringement case,” said Cija Williams, a sophomore music industry major in attendance. “I wouldn’t want to be caught up in a copyright infringement case.”
William did admit, however, “The idea of lawsuits is just a dull conversation, but when you get into movies, and things you’ve seen, that makes it a little more interesting.”
Burns came out of this 10-year journey not only happy, but after dedicating himself to this case and investing years of hard work and dedication, he also had a new sense of accomplishment and life-lessons learned.
“[Shapiro] can’t make you care about your work. He can give you an assignment but he can’t instill that sense of caring or professionalism. I don’t care if you don’t care to be anything more than mediocre, but don’t expect to have an enriched life. Don’t expect to do anything exceptional if you don’t want to put forth the extra effort … Either you have that sense of caring and wanting to be better at doing something, or you don’t. If you do, it’ll make you able to sleep at night and [feel] proud of what you do.”
As for the case itself, it is important to note that the case was settled with both parties happy with the outcome. No party harbors ill feelings toward the other and, due to a confidentiality agreement, the amount that was won during the settlement cannot be disclosed.
“This was a business dispute, and [Universal Studios] had to protect themselves. They get sued all the time — they can’t roll over and just cave on everything because it isn’t practical. They approached it from a standpoint of, ‘we have a practice, we have an algorithm to follow,’ and this is what they do,” said Burns.
“Years later I look back on the whole thing and think, if you set aside the emotions, it really was a business dispute … at the end of the day, the system worked, we settled and everyone went on with their business,” Burns said of the events that happened 24 years ago. “It was quite an adventure.”