Comment by ignostic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ignostic | Hacker News Reader

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Wow, I learned something valuable here: that it would be illegal to use negotiation solely to harvest ideas.

I remember the story of a script writer who pitched his script, but then the studios rejected him. One studio just had their own similar script written. He never sold the script, and when the movie actually came out no one was interested because it was too similar to the (essentially stolen) version that had been produced. Could he have sued the studio if he could prove it was his idea? How similar would it have to be? Would he have to prove that they entered into negotiations just to get his idea?

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I wonder because I've had an idea brewing in my mind for the last 5+ years, but I have nowhere near the millions in capital required to get it going. The price tag is so high that I don't expect any ownership, but I just want to be involved and to make a fair amount if it succeeds.

A law class once taught me that "ideas cannot be patented," so I completely shleved the hope. I couldn't patent the implementation because it would be easy to implement the same idea a hundred different ways. I bring nothing more than an idea to the table, and then I'd be easy to cut out.

I'll talk to a lawyer before I do anything, but it sounds like I could take my idea into negotiations with a larger company. As long as I can prove that the idea was mine, they can't just take it and copy it. Maybe?

I'm feeling a glimmer of hope that my idea could someday get off the ground, but I worry that the modification loopholes that have held me back in the past are too large.

Could he have sued the studio if he could prove it was his idea?

It's been done before and is the reason why studios do not read unsolicited scripts. Art Buchwald sued Paramount when Eddie Murphy was given sole story credit for a movie he unsuccessfully pitched. Art won the lawsuit, but instead of appealing, paramount settled for $900k and in exchange the ruling was vacated.

The movie was "Coming to America" (1988)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchwald_v._Paramount

How about a trailer?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140331/11334226752/anima...

If the studio had pre-emptively given copies of all its scripts in production to some third party authority, it could avoid the negotiations issue. I'd imagine it doesn't come up enough to warrant this, though.

If I recall correctly, this was over Eddie Murphy's "Coming To America." Art Buchwald wrote and pitched a script that was passed on, yet later produced almost identically.

J. Michael Straczynski claims the same thing happened to him when he pitched Babylon 5 to Paramount, who passed. Then not too long after that Star Trek: Deep Space 9 debuted, and there were some noticeable similarities between the shows.

As a big fan of B5 and a minor fan of DS9, I always found the "whole series was a copy" claim ridiculous. The similarities between the shows were often tangential. A lot of the things that were actually similar, like the fact that both series focused on large space battles, were most likely because of technology (ie, the ability to render large space battles) rather than the DS9 writers stealing from the B5 script. The shows as a whole follow wildly different trajectories.

The only version of the theory I've heard that made any sense is that studio execs who knew of both shows (which were being developed simultaneously, not particularly inspired by each other) may have taken ideas they liked from B5 and suggested them in a very conceptual way to the DS9 writers ("how about having a ship in addition to the station, so we can have some occasional planetary adventures?")

What I'm curious about is where the legal line lands on social proof arbitrage.

For example, lying about competing offers-- for jobs or funding-- is generally considered ethical, insofar as social status inflation and self-promotion fall into the "everyone does it, and most people have to" bucket. (Is it legal? No idea. But few consider it unethical.) If you know an employer does a lot of back-channel reference checks, you absolutely should use a fake competing offer (if you don't have a real one) to put time pressure on them.

On the other hand, the article cites cases in which lying about a competing offer is illegal (and also, for those cases, unethical).

The weird, queasy line is that it seems to be illegal (and generally considered unethical) to lie about a product, whereas lying about yourself (i.e. "you are the product") is ethical, legal, garden-variety social status inflation-- except surrounding official, factual credentials where higher standards must be imposed (e.g., as in law and medicine).

Lying about yourself is generally considered unethical as well. It usually doesn't get you prosecuted (unless you lie to the government for a security clearance or something), but it can and probably will get you fired if your employer finds out, and there have been some high-profile firings in that regard.

I think your confusion comes from the difference between "lying about facts" vs. "telling a story". Facts are things that are independently verifiable - things like your dates & places of employment, degrees conferred, job titles, salary, etc. There are varying degrees of consequences for lying about these - typically, lying about your salary gets at most a little distrust, while lying about your degrees can get you fired - and you can always simply refuse to answer or provide those facts, but lying about them is almost always considered unethical.

However, how you tell the facts is your story, and you can and should paint that in the most positive light. For example, "founder" of a product is usually a complicated title because of the twists and turns all ideas go through. It could legitimately be used to refer to the person who came up with the idea, the person who did the first workable implementation of the idea, the person who first realized an idea was a viable business, the person who contributed the bulk of the money toward making the idea a viable business, the founder of another organization that merged early on into the business in question, etc. And there are famous people who fit into all of those categories - Elon Musk, for example, basically never did the work of reducing an idea to a workable implementation, but he is credited with founding multiple companies where the heavy engineering lifting is done by others. Steve Jobs mostly contributed money and cheerleading to Pixar, but is widely considered a founder of that company.

"There are varying degrees of consequences for lying about these - typically, lying about your salary gets at most a little distrust"

Because it is an incredibly gray area. For example I currently get 6 weeks annual leave and very generous medical. If I'm applying at a place that only offers 2 weeks annual leave and limited medical then when they ask my current salary I'm going to add these benefits based on their equivalent cash value.

For example I earn ~$2k/wk and so the extra annual leave is worth $8k/year. And to get the equivalent medical would cost me around $10k/year. So I'm going to happily add $18k to my current salary.

Likewise I don't feel it is unethical to adjust for cost of living differences between countries and cities. For example if moving to San Francisco for work I would need to be paid about 20% more just to maintain my current income.

I don't think talking in purchasing power instead of nominal is unethical. Etc etc etc.

I don't see how lying about anything could be considered ethical. It may be socially acceptable to lie about yourself, but that doesn't make it ethical. Plenty of things that are socially acceptable are in fact profoundly unethical.

So, the line is in fact very simple: if you are an ethical person, you never lie.

Update: however, upon reflection, society forces us into practical considerations. If you avoid lying you will be taken advantage of because you weaken your position in society. For that reason, while lying is never ethical, it is sometimes the only realistic alternative. You may for example have people lying about being hiv-positive to get a job. There is no rational reason in many job categories to reject such an applicant, but in practice they won't get a job if they tell the truth. I also would make an exception for withholding the whole truth. Sometimes people have the right not to know things which would only hurt their feelings and bring no practical benefit.

Whats the idea?

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