How To Write A Better Evil Overlord
Click here for a great list addressing some of the worst and most common villain cliches in science fiction, fantasy and adventure stories. It’s “The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord” (copyright Peter Anspach, so no stealing).
My personal favorite is #61.
If my advisors ask “Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?”, I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
Enjoy!
Edited to add: I’ve been told that the film rights to this list have been purchased and a screenplay is being developed based on the list. At first that sounded bizarre…but then it started to sound very funny.
That was hilarious.
My personal fave was #81:
Weird. Why only a top hundred or less? There is about six and a half billions ways on this planet already… and counting! Here’s mine; If some troubles seemed too harsh to overcome, i’d designate the worse enemies and make sure they fail while watching from a distance close enough to understand what to do for the next. :)
Copyright? Copyright? You cannot copyright other people’s work. That’s pretty much black-letter law. Those 100 ideas were thought up by other people.
Including me, by the way. I contributed the one about the snake.
Malvolio:
I got an email telling me that the list was copyright Peter Anspach, and so I posted as much.
If you think that’s not right, you should probably contact Peter.
C.
Has it really been sold for a film project? That sounds like sheer madness…
And if so does that mean Malvolio gets a 101th of the proceeds?
:-)
Hey, I’d settle for an “and” credit.
Peter actually has a whole website devoted to the list: http://www.eviloverlord.com/
And while you can’t copyright someone’s words, you can copyright an entire collection, I believe, containing those words. (Or else collections of quotes would have no copyrights.)
Diane,
Virtual “content” isn’t a copyrightable item, yet. That has to do with the capacity to reproduce ad-infinitum without proper tracking of any initial registration. Proving authorships.
Just bootlegging DVDs is proof enough, knowing the data (in all forms or multiple locations!) is “freely” available in illicit mechanisms allowing it to take place.
P2P file exchange isn’t on a target list by the law for nothing. Unless, you want a steep curve towards elimination of indirectly empoverished talents by theft.
Leave it to our intrepid readers to begin a good conversation about copyright from practically any starting point.
Uttered quotes (like, say, “I did not have sex with that woman…Ms. Lewinsky.”) are not intellectual property because they’re not in fixed form, and therefore anyone can use them freely.
Written quotes, which are typically small excerpts from larger works, are intellectual property but may be reprinted under the fair use doctrine.
Notably, though, fair use doesn’t change the fact of ownership. You can fairly republish my words (“Fair use doesn’t change the fact of ownership”) but I still own that unique expression in fixed form.
In the case of the Evil Overlord material, if other people were writing and submitting the material to Peter, then Peter probably doesn’t own those words unless he reached an agreement with the submitters.
So, Peter could make a collection using the fair use doctrine, but the right to prepare or license a derivative work (like, say, a film) still rests with the coauthors of the material, which would be all of the submitters. At least, that’s what I think, but a good intellectual property lawyer would know best.
Okay, so if he’s sold -the list- to a film company then he’s probably acting illegally.
However, if he’s sold -the idea of the list- to a film company then he should be fine, as long as it doesn’t include Malvolio and the others’ lines.
Is that right?
Did peter actually sell it? Who to? I’m gonna start a list!
Kas/Benvolio:
Right. The idea of the list is not copyrightable, because you can’t copyright general ideas. Of course, one must wonder why a studio would bother purchasing something that they could just use without paying.
I speculate that the sale was for the rights to the actual text (which is intellectual property), because that’s where I see the value. I can’t say for sure what’s going on here, other than that I received an email (not from Peter) stating that the list had been copyrighted by Peter and the film rights had been sold and a screenplay was being developed.
It sounds like you should contact him and deal with this matter directly. I don’t know any of the parties or details involved.
Virtual “content” isn’t a copyrightable item, yet.
You are wrong.
A copyright lawyer would need to look into the collection of quotes — you can get copyright on a collection even if you didn’t create the whole thing.
Diane , why have copyright on others words?