William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— Harry? when he came back swirling ice in a glass, standing there loosening his tie — listen, I can't read all this, interest disallowed on a loan made to Erebus from one of their subsidiaries where the master has included in the overhead only the interest on the plant investment used in making the picture? that overhead that doesn't assist in the production of the infringement shouldn't be credited to the infringer and this allowance for continuities that were scrapped and pictures that were made but never shown and all the rest of, and this. And this Harry? legal costs? where the master allows only those legal expenses directly incurred by the, but that's me! I mean that's you, that's your law firm defending them against me for stealing my…

— No look Oscar, a lot of legal expenses go into a… — No listen Harry that's Mudpye getting paid to sit right here for that deposition twisting around everything I said so I'm supposed to be paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars for cutting my own throat while the…

— Not the way it works Oscar, he was probably priced out at around one eighty an hour but they'd be billed by the firm for…

— Yes for destroying everything I, for destroying me!

— No look Oscar, look, all kinds of legal expenses connected with a venture like this one, contracts, leases, insurance all just the nuts and bolts of the industry, not an art form it's an industry you see that by now don't you? and he sat back in the chair at a safe distance — you can see it right there. They can only charge back what they bought and paid for making the picture, but they can't charge for their work exploiting what they stole and that's where the court is protecting you but they didn't steal the battle at Antietam did they? Cast of thousands all those special effects how many millions do you think they…

— But they stole it from me! And Ball's Bluff, they were both in my play and they…

— Went over this back at the start didn't we? that you can't copyright the Civil War? You don't show the battle at Ball's Bluff in your play do you? They just talk about it, you don't show Antietam it happens offstage, you see what I mean? The basic plot, the general skeleton it was already in the public domain wasn't it? A man hires substitutes on both sides in the Civil War, they're both killed in the same battle and he goes off the deep end as some sort of moral suicide who…

— Well he, no, no he doesn't really go off the deep end but…

— But what was the proportion of the gross receipts of the movie that could be credited to your play, that's what the court is trying to untangle here. Expert testimony from producers and exhibitors ran from five to twelve percent, one of them said nothing at all. A hit play, a best seller that would have been different but your play Oscar, your play just wasn't in that class was it.

— Class! How can you, listen. Where do I come out that's all. Just tell me where I come out.

— Right there somewhere, look at the last paragraph before the…

— Just tell me!

— Twenty percent, Oscar. One fifth of the net profits.

— Twen, twenty percent of…

— Of the net.

— Of the net.

— A fifth of the net profits on the picture look, they probably keep two sets of books anyway, one for the SEC and the IRS and the stockholders and the other to suit the fifty page net profit definition in their standard contract so you won't be taking home millions but the real damn point is, whole God damn point is where we live now, all been trying to tell you that from the start haven't we? Don't have to tell you you know it, you know it better than the rest of us, why you've fought it so hard while the rest of us just swallow hard and look for another dollar so we can be entertained and take our minds off it, why people go to the movies isn't it? to see Anga Frika show us her Nordic-Eurasian tits not some moral agonizing over questions that don't have answers? That's what this proceeding's about, what the whole of the law's all about, questions that do have answers, sift through all the evidence till you come up with the right ones.

— The right ones! One fifth of the, how can you say the right ones! We won didn't we? we won the appeal?

— The right ones within the framework of the law, Oscar. Won the appeal yes, they stole from your work. Question now is how much they stole, and how much they did steal contributed to the picture in relation to their own contribution, just went over that didn't we? Look. The Blood in the Red White and Blue is a spectacular, a ninety million dollar spectacular, blockbuster whatever you want to call it, the more tawdry vulgar and bloody the better, you just said that yourself didn't you? why these mobs of people have poured in to see it? what that ad you just showed me, what forty million dollars in advertising promises them? The stars, the track record of the studio, the producer, director who gave them Uruburu with the man's face smashed with a sledgehammer? the top box office draw of an actor like Bredford and their sensational Anga Frika with tits nobody's seen before? That's why she gets a straight contract three million dollar deal while Bredford takes twenty four million off the top and Kiester around six, any movie, could be a movie about the Borgias with her as Lucrezia and Bredford playing Michelangelo, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the French revolution and a tale of two titties that's why the expert witnesses they brought in call them the controlling factors in the movie's success.

— No but the, what expert witnesses, where did they…

— Just told you, producers and exhibitors here, here's the citation Section 70, Title 35, U.S. Code, 35 U.S.C.A. that opinion or expert testimony should be competent upon the issue, apparently without regard to where the burden of proof might for the moment lie, goes on to say the court is justified in basing its decrees on…

— But they're the ones who said my play contributed only five or ten percent and one of them said nothing at all because it wasn't a Broadway hit? Producers and exhibitors what do you expect them to say they're part of the, they're already on the other side they're part of the snake pit with the studio and Kiester and…

— That's why they're experts Oscar look, problem's spelled out right here. The plaintiffs, that's you, plaintiffs called no witnesses to rebut this testimony, and if their failure to do so was because of the commanding position of the defendants in the industry, they did not prove it. We must therefore assume that the testimony represents the best opinion of the calling but look, you've still got an advantage under the Copyright Act, gives the court the power to award you damages in lieu of actual damages and profits as they put it. Give you the job of showing actual money damages would be hopeless, ask you to sort out who contributed what you'd be completely at sea and never recover a dime that's why the burden falls on the infringer and that's what this is all about, expert witnesses and all the rest of it. Stars, producers, director, supporting players, extras, scenery and locations, set designers, cinematographers, special effects, composer, costumers, it's a costume drama isn't it? makeup, hairdressers, point is there's a pretty fair market value established for all these services and the story is just one more element where development may run through ten writers and twenty versions of the script and the original concept, the story idea is left in the dust. One of their experts here calls it mundane, another one says it's frail so they try to put a price on it, on your contribution, fair market value for the…

— Like the hairdresser.

— Like the hairdresser, look. They see a thousand ideas a day, even good ideas don't always make good movies, they buy one and stake millions on it hoping for some big success and that's up to the development and execution of the final product, the rest is goods and services.