I Had it First! My Article Subtitle Now a Hollywood Movie Title!
May 30th 2007 02:31
Well, Google Alerts has done it again! I learned just today, after setting up an alert using the subtitle of an article I first published back in January, '07--though I conceived the title several years ago--that a soon-to-be-released Hollywood movie, featuring Jeff Bridges and Kirsten Dunst, among others, shares the same title! But that's not the worst of it!
What's even worse is what I learned when I googled the words "copyright" and "title": I found out something that many of us writers may not know and most of us will certainly not want to hear: Titles are not copyrightable!
That's right! It doesn't matter how cleverly they may be worded, how original you may have thought they were, how absolutely fantastic the play on words may be, how wonderful a parody they may create of an earlier title that the present writer may want to allude to in order to evoke a particular mood or frame of reference--none of this matters one whit! If it's a title, you can't copyright it--period!
You may be wondering what movie I'm referring to; though--if you just happen to be very movie savvy and really knowledgeable about the latest and upcoming releases--you may already know the answer. However, in all fairness to...myself...I'll start by giving you the title of my article--since it came first!
My humor article, first published on January 25, 2007, at Associated Content, is called "A Comprehensive List of Leadership Techniques For the Truly Superior: Show 'Em Who's Boss! Or How to Lose Friends and Alienate People." (I realize that seems like an awfully long title, but I can explain.)
The article was originally entitled simply "Show 'Em Who's Boss! Or How to Lose Friends and Alienate People." (For those who may not know it, the second part of this title is a takeoff on the title of the Dale Carnegie classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People--a great book, by the way.) I also would have much preferred switching the two titles and using the "Comprehensive List" portion as the subtitle and the other part as the title--which would have been the perfect strategy to use for print media.
However, due to the realities of SEO (search engine optimization), A-C recommends that the main headline of the articles it publishes contain enough searchable keywords or keyword phrases to allow the search engines to find it--and thus, my main title was relegated to the lowly status of subheadline. (Sometimes its tough to know which keywords to use where humor is concerned, though, since Google searches unfortunately don't differentiate between the literal and satirical use of words--so even at that, I may not have actually chosen the "optimal" keywords. But then, I was new to the game.)
Be that as it may, headline or subheadline, title or subtitle, that clever play on words was still mine! Which part of the lengthy title am I referring to? You've no doubt figured it out by now: "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People." I thought it terribly clever at the time I wrote it--and today, apparently Hollywood agrees! According to Variety, the comedy, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," is slated to begin filming June 4th.
I have to admit to feeling somewhat violated--particularly since Hollywood's being as high-profile as it is and my being as low-profile as I am, it's obvious who will get the credit for originating this witticism. (Hint: It won't be me.) And, of course, it's equally obvious who will appear to have plagiarized it. (Hint: It won't be Hollywood--which isn't to say that I'm accusing them of doing so either--though, come to think of it, I don't really suppose Hollywood, per se, is an entity that I could actually accuse of plagiarism.) But, alas, there's little to be done for it, and we must move forward despite such minor (?) setbacks.
For the benefit of those who weren't aware of this little idiosyncrasy of copyright law, here's a quote from the U.S. Copyright Office's website: "Names, titles, and short phrases or expressions are not subject to copyright protection. Even if a name, title, or short phrase is novel or distinctive or if it lends itself to a play on words, it cannot be protected by copyright." There's more, but you get the idea. I hardly think they could have spelled it out more clearly than that. If you're interested in reading more on the subject, though, just click the above link to be taken to the appropriate page on their site.
Well, there you have it! The saga of my original, but nonetheless uncopyrightable article title...
And yet another instance where Google Alerts have let me in on the latest little "secret" affecting my work.
Unhappier, but wiser,
Jeanne
NOTE: My contentions in this post were later updated. For details, see Related Post, below.
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Comment by Brenton
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Comment by Jeanne Dininni
Writer's Notes
Thanks for stopping by! I agree with you--and if you read my next post, you'll see that another author did come up with it in 2001--which I just learned! I am aware of the famous book that it's a parody of--because that's precisely where I got the idea for it!
Jeanne