# High School does Alien as a play



## dpak (Mar 23, 2019)

Possibly breaking a few copyright laws, but still awesome!

https://news.avclub.com/this-high-school-drama-club-put-on-a-stage-production-o-1833515613


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## ruinexplorer (Mar 24, 2019)

I think that with the social media attention this is getting them, it could be a harsh lesson.


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## JohnD (Mar 25, 2019)

ruinexplorer said:


> I think that with the social media attention this is getting them, it could be a harsh lesson.


Hmmm, well it's a 20th Century Fox film, which is now owned by Disney......
I was checking out the film at imdb and for one of the scenes they borrowed some lasers from Pink Floyd who were shooting in the next door studio.


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## Jeph H (Mar 25, 2019)

Copyright aside
It looks like they did a really good job!


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## Van (Mar 25, 2019)

JohnD said:


> Hmmm, well it's a 20th Century Fox film, which is now owned by Disney......
> I was checking out the film at imdb and for one of the scenes they borrowed some lasers from Pink Floyd who were shooting in the next door studio.


Oh, but the mouse is so open-minded and willing to work with people when it comes to copyright infringement and intellectual property.


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## ruinexplorer (Mar 25, 2019)

Jeph H said:


> Copyright aside
> It looks like they did a really good job!



https://www.reddit.com/r/LV426/comm...did_a_play_version_of_alien_heres_a/?sort=new Looking through the comments, they are about to break more copyright. The director plans on releasing the video of the play.

Looking at the video here, they also used footage from the film.


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## What Rigger? (Mar 26, 2019)

It's insanely good. We should all quit now. 

And yeah, they are gonna get slapped hard and cry foul when the cease and desist letters arrive.


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## Van (Mar 26, 2019)

Ha! Did y'all read in the comments about how the Score for the show was also lifted from the film? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA They are gonna get sued so hard.


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## Doug Lowthian (Mar 26, 2019)

Our community theater takes copyright issues very seriously, partly because that is the law. And partly because that is right thing to do. Whether a copyright holder is making millions or pennies, ownership is ownership. All the adults and children in our group know the value of an artistic creation and have respect for the creators livelihood. 

Lesson these teachers taught here is theft is acceptable as long as you have fun. High school vs Big Corp is no excuse. 

Granted the production looks well done, and if we all could ignore copyright and not use creativity to convey a licensed story, a lot of amatuer productions could be much higher quality. 

My hope is the school board takes a good hard look at the teachers contracts and seek the harshest possible punishment up to and including termination of employment.


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## TimMc (Mar 26, 2019)

Van said:


> Ha! Did y'all read in the comments about how the Score for the show was also lifted from the film? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA They are gonna get sued so hard.



My guess is the director will be fired when the school administration/district is served with papers. The school has been exposed to significant legal liability and I doubt Disney will relent when "we didn't know" is the response. My further guess is The Mouse will settle out of court to avoid the social media posts "Disney sues school, seizes auditorium in judgment" kind of things.

Sonny Bono would be spinning in his grave if he knew what was in the copyright act revision that was named for him... and getting the Bono copyright extension bill written was a Disney project, mostly. Subsequent revisions (also producer-written/lobbied) have ensured that a copyright will come close to perpetual, for all practical purposes. Wait for fair use to get further tightened up, too.


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## ruinexplorer (Mar 26, 2019)

Also, their definition of a "shoestring budget" might vary differently from other schools. I know some universities who would love access to projection. "Recycled materials"? I think that is the purpose of educational theater. I think that their best option is to look towards the cosplay market.


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## venuetech (Mar 26, 2019)

Disney gona take a cue from this production and have a script and school production guide out shortly. Unless they plan to take it to broadway.

Why bother to sue a school when they can develop a product from it.

ALIEN the musical.... true horror


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## ruinexplorer (Mar 26, 2019)

Oh, I'm sure that it will settle out of court. They will get sued, but just to make sure no one else does it.


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## Lynnchesque (Mar 27, 2019)

Wouldn't this be covered under fair use as educational.. if they hadn't sold tickets?


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## NickVon (Mar 27, 2019)

Lynnchesque said:


> Wouldn't this be covered under fair use as educational.. if they hadn't sold tickets?



Maybe portions of it. But the Music is the Music if lifted straight from the movie. same goes if they used any of the video. Their play-writing of the story would maybe be considered fair use as an adapted work.

But I'm sure they sold tickets. Probably not for much, but selling a products is not the definitive line for fair-use if I understand it correctly.

It's not like they did a Satirical "Al Liam: the Play, In space it doesn't mater if you're a ginger", scored their own sound design, and Pond 5 Video loops. Which I think would be nearly fully protected.

I'd be interested to see how this does work out. It's important to teach students the appropriate use of licensing when doing this kinda of work. And I feel bad that what would have been a great under the rug low-key great experience might have some unintended consequences from going viral, because of lack of knowledge or care from the adult staff.


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## PjB (Mar 27, 2019)

Lynnchesque said:


> Wouldn't this be covered under fair use as educational.. if they hadn't sold tickets?


I'm afraid not. Any showing of copyrighted material is infringement. My 7th graders wanted to do a staged version of Princess Bride. This was in a private school and the only people in the audience would have been friends and family. I contacted William Goldman for permission and he said "no." Upon further discussion I was told that even if we just went into the auditorium and turned on the lights, it counts as a "production"! Fair Use covers working with the material in the classroom only- scene study, character work, etc.


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## dpak (Mar 27, 2019)

Lynnchesque said:


> Wouldn't this be covered under fair use as educational.. if they hadn't sold tickets?


It's my understand that fair use means you can use what you like in your classroom with students, but the moment you invite any kind of audience, it becomes a performance. It think it would even count as a performance if they were performing in the classroom for the parents of the students. Whether admission is charged is irrelevant - you're still using someone's work.


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## Bob Musser (Mar 27, 2019)

What Rigger? said:


> It's insanely good. We should all quit now.
> 
> And yeah, they are gonna get slapped hard and cry foul when the cease and desist letters arrive.


I hope they get through their run OK, but when I was in HS back in the 70's, we got slapped by Mad Magazine for stealing some material for an evening of one-acts, and had to cancel. Content owners aren't playing, and with social media, they WILL find out. I still think someone ratted us out to Mad back in the day; how else would they have found out about a high school production in Northern California?


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## Jeph H (Mar 28, 2019)

ruinexplorer said:


> Also, their definition of a "shoestring budget" might vary differently from other schools. I know some universities who would love access to projection. "Recycled materials"? I think that is the purpose of educational theater. I think that their best option is to look towards the cosplay market.



According to this, the budget was only around $3,500.

Saved a lot without those pesky licensing fees....


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## Footer (Mar 29, 2019)

Its Bergen County, kids couldn't go shopping on Sunday so might as well rip off a movie, that'll show them blue laws. 

A few years back we had a promoter bring in "The Snow Sisters: The Musical". It was a straight rip off of Frozen including playing back clips from the movie. No mouse could be seen in the production. After looking up the laws around it apparently Disney has just given up on a lot of these copyright cases and just looked at what is better for the brand vs the PR nightmare the internet can bring in. https://www.salon.com/2014/05/23/ho...top_worrying_and_love_copyright_infringement/

So, I doubt they actually sue. Its the best thing to happen to the Alien franchise in a long time.


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## Amiers (Mar 29, 2019)

They sold tickets for 5$. The performances is over and they won’t do another showing. 

I bet after all the viral blows over the Mouse will get their cut and crap will be got. Their PR team prolly knew the day if not days before that they did it because word travels fast on the internet.


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## ruinexplorer (Mar 29, 2019)

They probably found out after. What really gets me is that there are amazing works done around the country all the time, but a fan based ripoff is what gets the attention.


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## Rob (Mar 30, 2019)

It seems Ridley Scott, Sigourney Weaver and James Cameron were pretty happy with it all. I don’t think there will be any blow back. Quite the opposite in fact; Ridley Scott is funding an encore performance.

https://nerdist.com/article/high-school-production-of-alien-xenomorph-realistic/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=Nerdist&utm_content=High School Production of ALIEN Is Insane


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## Amiers (Mar 30, 2019)

This also popped up on my FB this morning. 

Maybe this is why this didn’t go in guns blazing.


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## What Rigger? (Mar 30, 2019)

Well, there you have it, folks. I say good for them, let 'em have this. "Everybody gets one."-Spider Man


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## ruinexplorer (Mar 30, 2019)

And thus begins the age of ripoffs. This doesn't hurt the big corporations, but it will definitely hurt the smaller productions.


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## MNicolai (Mar 30, 2019)

I still wouldn't be surprised if Disney issued some kind of soft warning letter to them. Copyrights are use-it-or-lose-it. If they let this slide, it will be used against them in other infringement cases on the Alien IP.


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## DrewE (Mar 30, 2019)

MNicolai said:


> I still wouldn't be surprised if Disney issued some kind of soft warning letter to them. Copyrights are use-it-or-lose-it. If they let this slide, it will be used against them in other infringement cases on the Alien IP.



In the US, at least, copyrights have no such requirement, broadly speaking. It might perhaps enter into the discussion of damages in other cases, but not whether infringement occurs or not.

A more interesting question might be exactly whose rights were being infringed. Clearly Disney would hold the copyrights to the film clips used, but it's hardly obvious to me that they (and not, say, the writers of the screenplay) would hold grand rights to stage adaptations of the screenplay. Similarly, the grand rights to the music and maybe to the soundtrack recording may be held by someone else. Obtaining all the required clearances to make a legal, non-infringing stage adaptation could well be a very daunting task indeed...but of course that's no reason to ignore them.


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## ruinexplorer (Mar 30, 2019)

DrewE said:


> In the US, at least, copyrights have no such requirement, broadly speaking. It might perhaps enter into the discussion of damages in other cases, but not whether infringement occurs or not.
> 
> A more interesting question might be exactly whose rights were being infringed. Clearly Disney would hold the copyrights to the film clips used, but it's hardly obvious to me that they (and not, say, the writers of the screenplay) would hold grand rights to stage adaptations of the screenplay. Similarly, the grand rights to the music and maybe to the soundtrack recording may be held by someone else. Obtaining all the required clearances to make a legal, non-infringing stage adaptation could well be a very daunting task indeed...but of course that's no reason to ignore them.



Not to mention the set, costume, and prop designs. I find it doubly disturbing that Ridley Scott says that he wants to fund an encore performance.


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## Amiers (Mar 30, 2019)

ruinexplorer said:


> Not to mention the set, costume, and prop designs. I find it doubly disturbing that Ridley Scott says that he wants to fund an encore performance.



I think it was from an intrigue point of view. But on the opposite side of legal they are like this is a slam dunk.


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## JohnD (Apr 28, 2019)

In other news, Sigourney says hey.
https://ew.com/movies/2019/04/27/alien-the-play-sigourney-weaver/


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## ruinexplorer (Apr 28, 2019)

Has anyone seen anything from Disney/Fox and their opinion on this? I have only seen stuff from Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver (who are not official representatives).


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## TimMc (Apr 29, 2019)

ruinexplorer said:


> Has anyone seen anything from Disney/Fox and their opinion on this? I have only seen stuff from Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver (who are not official representatives).



Give The Mouse a couple years to compose the music and it'll be on Broadway as the follow up to Lion King... with Julie Taymor as the alien.


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## Jay Ashworth (Apr 29, 2019)

ruinexplorer said:


> Has anyone seen anything from Disney/Fox and their opinion on this? I have only seen stuff from Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver (who are not official representatives).



I expect the rightsholders went on vacation unexpectedly in the Bahamas when the news broke, so they could avoid having to be a$$holes in public.


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## TimMc (Apr 29, 2019)

Jay Ashworth said:


> I expect the rightsholders went on vacation unexpectedly in the Bahamas when the news broke, so they could avoid having to be a$$holes in public.


 I heard Ja Rule is still interested in putting on a festival.... just sayin'


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## ruinexplorer (May 1, 2019)

Nice article by Stage Directions on this production.


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