A recent dispute between the director and author of the famous play, Stones in His Pockets, highlights the copyright issues in scripts.

Marie Jones claimed that she owned the sole copyright in this play. The first director, Pamela Brighton, claimed that she should be the joint owner, since she had made contributions during the rehearsal process for the first production.

The play was written for the Dubbeljoint Theatre Company in 1996, under the standard Theatrical Management Association Writers’ Guild Agreement. Despite the court recognising the worth of the director’s input, it decided that the playwright was the sole owner of the copyright in the final script. However, it was also decided that the director owned copyright in the original draft for the proposed script, but that she had given permission for that draft to be used by Marie Jones. The permission had now been withdrawn, so future agreements for the performance or adaptation of the play would require her consent.

The case highlights the difficulties in dealing with works of joint ownership, especially when the script is developed over time. When a team of people are involved in creating a new work, it is important to decide at the outset, who will own the copyright in the finished product.

The Copyright Designs and Patents Act defines a work of joint authorship as “a work produced by the collaboration of two or more authors in which the contribution of each author is not distinct from that of the other author(s).”
References:
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 (as amended)
Brighton and Dubbeljoint v Jones [2004] EWHC 1157 (Ch)