The Artful Jurist

There's an interesting article in this month's Dramatists Guild newsletter. The article was about a theater company that had invited playwrights to apply for the opportunity to write a commissioned musical. So far, so good. Right?

Well, according to the article, the commissioning contract the theater company was using would give the company 25 percent ownership of the copyright as well as such things as creative control, subsidiary rights, and the right to fire any authors at will.

If you're a budding playwright, let me just say that these contractual demands are way out of whack for the industry. (Something which the Guild's newsletter also strongly pointed out.) That kind of "we own the script" outlook is the sort of thing writers deal with when they sell a movie script to a Hollywood producer. It's not the kind of control that a producer gets over the script of a stage play.

The screenwriters deal away such rights, but they're typically paid handsomely for that sale. Trust me, playwrights aren't making anywhere near the same money. As a result, playwrights have little to no incentive to sell their intellectual property to someone who's merely intending to do a performance. As a playwright, you need only licence your script to a producer—giving that producer the right to perform the show but reserving the property rights to yourself. That, my friends, is the industry standard.