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EXCLUSIVE: I’ve obtained a shocking official ABC Studios memo written by EVP Howard Davine to showrunners and executive producers with deals there. Those who’ve seen it are shaking their heads in disbelief. “I’m stunned that they would have done this,” one insider tells me. “I can’t believe they actually put this down on paper.” That’s because the memo blesses anyone who brings foreign formats to ABC Studios first so that the studio can steal the idea without paying the fat licensing fees that would accompany an up-and-up deal. Obviously, ABC Studios doesn’t want to repeat what happened with a show like Ugly Betty, which is the American version of the Latin telenovela. This now proves they would rather just rip it off.
Here’s the memo:
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Underlying ideas don’t necessarily deserve copyright protection. I think the memo is fair in reminding showrunners that it’s safe to look for inspiration in similar formats. Ugly Betty was a successful foreign transplant, but the fundamental concept itself, “Fish-out-of-water”, is old as dirt. When I saw the original Spanish version on TV I thought they’d ripped it off from ‘The Devil Wears Prada’….
Perhaps Mr. Davine can walk across the lot and ask a few Disney legal attack dogs about how they have treated some poor foreign schmucks who have dared to produce under the “general underlying premise…no reason to license” rules. I’ve seen it. It is not pretty.
Also missing in Mr. Davine’s manifesto is the statement: “and the poor bastards won’t be able to afford the legal fight, anyway”.
I don’t think this is just about “Ugly Betty.” ABC just shot a pilot they bought from TIger Aspect called “Roman’s Empire.” (Kelsey Grammer as the lead)
We won this country from Britain because we didn’t like their tea tax and didn’t think they could rule this country better than we could. Now we’re going to watch their shows and rip them off because we don’t like what their charging for their product and we don’t think they can produce better than we can. You’ve been warned, UK. Stop charging money for things that belong to you!
Dear Mr Davine.
Hey this is GREAT News!!
Using your model it take it that we can all safely strip-mine the entire DISNEY catalogue and not seek permission nor recognise nor pay for it!!
Love your work big guy.
ps – are you related by chance to “Harold” above?
Bottom line, if you are importing formats, make sure the rights holder isnt a cocky bastard trying to rip you off, at the end of the day, if the format kicks ass, then any studio would buy it, specially if you bring a big writer attached! Foreign rights holders, be prepared to give up your big back ends, and over priced license fees!!!!!
WGA-
What you should have done when the exec pitched your friends’ ideas back at you was said, “Hey, I know so-and-so were thinking along those same lines. You should talk to them.”
Might not have gotten you the job, but it would have put some fear into that exec.
Christy: “Yo soy Betty, la fea” premiered on Colombian television in 1999, four years before the novel “The Devil Wears Prada” was published.
you know what, on second glance at this… they’re just protecting themselves and it makes sense. to often an agent will send crap over, you like it then it becomes a waste of time as it gets all tangled up in business affairs. i’m suprised other *cough* networks haven’t sent a similar memo to their development executives who are reviewing such material like crazy these days.
New series in development at ABC:
“Dr. What” – A time-traveling Time King who comes to earth in a time machine disguised as a newspaper box to battle an evil race of cyborgs called the Darthleks. His ever-changing cast of sidekicks help keep casting costs down by replacing them whenever they ask for raises.
“Montgomery Snake’s Aerobatic Carnival” – a sketch comedy show with a group of comedians who specialize in verbal satire and physical humor.
“Front of the House/Back of the House” – a weekly soap opera about rich people who live in the front of the house and the servants in the back of the house who work for them.
“Are you Being Waited On?” – sitcom about the odd people who work the sales floor in a failing department store.
“Erring Towers” – about a hotel owner, Mr. Erring, who tries to do his best but always screws things up. Helping him is his demanding wife, a saucy maid and an immigrant waiter.
“Mr. Pea” – a series of weekly skits about Mr. Pea who is a child in a grown man’s body. He usually gets himself in a bind and then has to get himself out of it in an ingenious fashion. He barely speaks, and when he does, he mumbles, which could reduce dubbing costs when selling the series abroad.
More series to come…
Here’s what copying a forgien format get you –SOLD!!!!
No writer I’ve ever met is eager to copy a forgein show. It’s actually slightly soul crushing. But network executives are so scared of taking risks that they’ll only approve something if they know its derivative. Their sole goal is to cover their ass. Doing something interesting or new is not on their agenda. Many writers I know have toyed with the idea of pitching an original show and claiming it’s a foregin (sorry, I really can’t spell that word!) format, just to put the corporate lackeys at ease.
Network TV by and large sucks, and it all goes back to when the gov’t let networks buy studios. Before then, you have about 100 different studios, often run by people who actually liked creating stuff. Some small studios took risks, so they could stand out from the pack. Sometimes that stuff made it on the air.
Bureaucrasies aren’t designed to do anything but perpetuate themselves. Big governments never can do anything. Radio became unlistenable when consolidation hit.
Based onteh comments, excuses, rationailzations of others in the field on the art of plagiarism, i would be totally surprsied if there were EVER a memo or a phone call demanding that heretofore concealed “sources” of a movie be credited and paid.
I would benefit greatly were honesty in crediting and paying “sources” the prevalent culture, but alas it is in the black hearts of many many successful players.The honest ones never demand honesty from o0thers, either. Rememberit is NOT plagiarism if one dos acknowledge the real authors of the piece, and allows them to benefit from your use of their creations.
congrats for at least posting this evidence of one ripoff.
That is a start.
Funny comments all. I worked for Disney for a decade until 2004. The heads of some of their divisions would shock the hell out of the ABC/Disney fans with some of the hate-filled language they used to describe their customers. Friends of mine who are still there regale me with similar stories today.
Every time someone I know says he or she is taking the family to a Disney park or Broadway dreck, I want to upchuck knowing that the highest level producers think most of them are idiots, dislike children, etc.
The Lion King was stolen almost ENTIRELY from writer Tom Disch, a science fiction writer who did a treatment for 500 dollars. He’s American; when he commited suicide recently, it was primarily because he was destitute. They do it OVER AND OVER AND OVER.
I am quite sure Harold above is one of their lawyers by the way. And just so those parent company zombies don’t think I am not bitter. I have worked for one of their rivals ever since.
It’s a very odd memo given that all the networks will buy these days are shows that are adapted from an outside country (Israel being the hot spot at the moment.)
A better idea, I would think, would to just make a deal with the BBC directly and help fund their shows in return for the right to remake them here.
Or of course, as someone above said, you could just play the British shows on American TV and allow people to (God forbid) have to hear an English accent.
As a production company owner who’s been pitching shows to the nets for the last few years, my question is:
WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND THINKS THIS ATTITUDE WILL STOP WITH FOREIGN PROPERTIES!!
If they want your idea, but haven’t worked with you, they’ll just go through the same process. We all need good lawyers.
F
It’s already happening: the Canadian show Cold Squad became Cold Case in the U.S.
Dan Zee – you forgot one…
“Life on Mars”
Boston Legal fans will remember the price Steve McPherson paid for the format rights.
Old news…. usually they steal British ideas because the British are smarter and more creative…
- “Steptoe and Son” became Sanford and Son
- “Man About the House” became Three’s Company
- “Till Death Do Us Part” became “All In The Family”
- James Bond became Matt Helm
- “Are You Being Served?” was turned into “Beane’s Of Boston” (it didn’t get picked up)
- Fox is stealing “Spaced”
- UK “The Office” became US “The Office”
…and on it goes.
Guys – ABC did nothing wrong. seriously… why pay for something that you don’t have to pay for… for instance, let’s say a hollywood writer comes in with a pitch – die hard on a bus. you don’t have to make it as DIE HARD 2. you could just call it SPEED.
“The Lion King was stolen almost ENTIRELY from writer Tom Disch..”
Or Kimba the White Lion?
Or Hamlet?
Amazing but not surprising as UK television produces the best series in the world (really… Don’t hurt, please! lol): DOCTOR WHO, PRIMEVAL, THE FIXER, SPOOKS, LEWIS… all the stuff that doesn’t go beyond BBC America or PBS in the US, which leaves some field to more network adaptations in the future.
To Dan Zee: Thank you so much for your humor! I’d kill to see a screening of the DOCTOR WHAT pilot…
What’s wrong with this?
It states a reality (foreign formats are popular) followed by the reasoning for avoiding unnecessary costs and legal issues (exact copy – pay / underlying idea – don’t).
Why doesn’t everyone blame NBC instead? They’re the ones ripping off foreign shows and resurrecting old ones.
About Ugly Betty: although they kept the title and the concept, they changed the story. In the original version, Betty gets beautiful and marries her boss, therefore becoming the boss herself.
As early as the 1830s deTocqueville was commenting on the lack of creative thinking in America. But he wasn’t entirely right. At the beginning of the twentieth century and continuing through the 1960s there was a flurry of unprecedented creative output in art, cinema, theatre, music, dance, and architecture.
That’s before MBAs, as opposed to largely self-taught, or self-made individuals, began to steer the course of capitalist enterprises, ranging from high tech companies to Hollywood. After 1980, if not before, there was widespread pressure not just to increase profitability – always a motivation of producers and sponsors of creative endeavors – but to maximize it at the expense of creative endeavors. Ideally, film moguls, TV producers, music producers, publishers, and sponsors aimed to combine art and commerce whenever possible. By 1986 that aim was exhausted.
This latest memo is merely one derivative objective stacked on a mountain of derivative objectives as America’s traditional cultural bases, NY, LA, Chicago, NO, including Broadway, the silver screen, the novel, and jazz have been run through a profitability mill that routinely turns out reruns, remixes, and smooth jazz (whatever that is). Hey, how ’bout throwing in Reality TV with those feeble efforts?
This Derivative Syndrome is also resposnible for the loss of true political leaderhip, in part as a result of Focus-Group politics, mediocre design out of Detroit, the fall of the novel as a key sociological compass, the lack of meaningful programming, the rise of “talent” shows, and the loss of overall direction.
Maybe that MBA-driven quest for hyper-profitability didn’t work out so well? Now what?
so top hollywood producers are sharp fellas who didnt get where they are today by writing cheques?
SHOCK HORROR
Behind every great fortune is a crime.
TV is not exempt.
TV producers and network execs? Really not exempt. In fact, if a phrase has a target market, this phrase’s target market is TV producers and network execs.