Rights??

[ScriptNurse]

When it comes to celebrities and public figures, the rules seem to change. You also cannot write any stories about Mickey Mouse, for the same reason ... AND ... the 70 year rule was changed by an act of Congress at the behest of Disney to protect their intellectual property for an extended period of time. All entertainment companies are aggressive when it comes to their copyrights. If they fail to assert their rights, that failure sets a precedent of demonstrated non-enforcement, which is Step 1 on the road to losing one's copyright. In the case of someone like Disney, their fortunes are based on "the house the mouse built."

[Micky P]

I have been developing a movie about Einstein using my own research and story lines HOWEVER I stumbled across this on the web site  "..Lionsgate purchased not only the rights to Isaacson’s book but also the rights to his life story. So don’t tell your children stories of Einstein’s wacky adventures without paying a residual to the film company." Einstein is dead so what is it that makes him off limits? I would be performing my own research and not relying on someone else's book/work to get the job done. How could Lionsgate pay for the rights? He's dead, surely Einstein possessed the only rights?

Glad I caught this one in time.....Lionsgate is very vicious when it comes to this stuff, I wrote to them once and they informed that they now had the sole rights to my idea! What gives here?