Amazon Attacks!
The online retailer wants to produce your movie. Just be sure to read the fine print.
IT WAS AN OFFER no wannabe director could refuse: Last November, Amazon.com quietly raised the curtain on Amazon Studios, a virtual screening room where aspiring writers and directors can submit their original films and scripts for the chance to—as the site boasts—win money, get noticed, and get their movie made. Starting this month, the studio will award monthly prizes of $100,000 and $20,000, respectively, to the best movie and script uploaded to the site. Even better, if they spot the next Star Wars, they’ll pay its creator $200,000 and take it to Hollywood. And, with apologies to Marlon Brando, Amazon coulda been a contender if no one bothered to read the fine print.
Within 24 hours of the announcement, anti-Amazon backlash flared up—fueled by a blog post by Jesse Harris, a Seattle native and the 24-year-old executive director of the National Film Festival for Talented Youth—and most of it was focused on a handful of clauses buried in the agreement that every submitter must agree to: For starters, by uploading your project to the site, you grant Amazon a free, exclusive “option” to consider your script or film for 18 months. (In other words, you can’t shop it anywhere else for a year and a half.) It’s not unheard of for a studio to get exclusive rights to a script while deciding whether to turn it into a film, but rarely for that long or without compensating the writer. “I have clients who are writers, and I tell them, ‘Don’t give it away for free,’ ” says Seattle-based entertainment lawyer Lance Rosen. “If someone is interested in your work, they pay to acquire it.”
Then there’s this: Even after the option period expires, Amazon Studios retains nonexclusive rights to any work submitted to the site forever. What the company plans to do with all of those unused scripts and movies—if anything—isn’t spelled out in the agreement, but the fact that Amazon owns a piece of them may make it difficult for the writers or filmmakers to land a deal elsewhere. “Screenwriters often pull something out of a drawer that they wrote 10 years earlier, finally see the flaw in it, revise it, and sell it,” says Gano Lemoine, an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles. “But if they’ve already thrown it up on Amazon, and it has some residual rights to the script, a studio’s going to be very reluctant to touch it because the intellectual property rights have been split.”
To be fair, the 18-month option and Amazon’s ongoing rights to the submitted content are spelled out in an FAQ section on the site. And the studio’s director Roy Price concedes that the company’s process may not be for everyone. “We are merely an additional option for screenwriters and not a replacement for traditional Hollywood,” he says. But Harris and others in the film industry worry that young directors seduced by the promise of a big break will miss any references to the control they’re surrendering. It’s possible that many already have. By the middle of December, more than 1,700 scripts and films had been uploaded to the Amazon Studios site.
Of course, it’s also possible those aspiring Spielbergs knew exactly what they were signing up for. “A struggling writer might say, ‘Hey, nobody’s reading my damn screenplay anyway. What do I have to lose by getting into bed with Amazon?’ ” Rosen says. “Somebody will get their movie made and get paid for their screenplay. But by far, most people won’t.”
Published: February 2011
Amazon Studios? or criminals? My self and my writing partner started a joint writing project, just about a year ago now. We tireless, going through countless changes, and revisions and then the big day. The draft, and victory. My friend suggested try Amazon Studios , and submit our baby.
Got mixed reviews, but eventually got better, which each draft. We eventually got onto “The New and Notable.” section. WOO HOO!. We were destined for glory. Oops, something went goofy with the account. Ended playing email tag for about three weeks, and no success. So, the rep suggested we delete the account .(FYI) user can’t that. WHY? It should have raised an immediate red flag.
Then, after creating the new account. The old account, re-appears. Must have been magic, I figured.
Noe I have to problems, and all the new edits were being posted to the wrong account. OOPS. Another email to tech support.
I eventually did some digging and found an actual to call them. Took a while, but I got through.
Quick explanation, and please shut this down. Which, account? It appears you have two accounts?
Yes, I do.
Bottom line, they deleted both accounts and then denied me access. Only to discover ALL my drafts, and videos were still there. Deleted what? The screen play is slated for actual submission. But, because of Amazon’s negligence (Or maybe not), That project is now “DEAD” and i can’t use it. further a sequel was written, it is linked to the original movie. What do I do with that?
Anything else out there , who is mad as I am about this?
s
The one that got away!!! (found out before signing/uploading my project :o)
So I’m not a lawyer. I still have common sense, and will never trust Amazon with anything, ever again. Why, you ask? Well read on…
http://studios.amazon.com/ claim to buy “options” for full feature movie scripts “Test movies” narrations etc. On http://studios.amazon.com/ they present “monthly winners” together with “their” acclaimed prices. After browsing about http://studios.amazon.com/ I discovered many complaints regarding their “Contract”, hundreds of people that felt cheated and how almost every thing negative written in blogs (including their own) had been “mysteriously” deleted. I received a phone call from “Amazon studios” who of course wasn’t able to answer my questions, but told me I would receive a call from the people at http://studios.amazon.com/
which proceeded to send me an email telling me they don’t offer phone support. Enough is enough, I logged onto my profile page (http://studios.amazon.com/users/32520) and changed all info – login info and wrote them back, telling them to delete my “account”. Their “contract’s” “Fine print” say that after the option of 18 (to +18) months the rights revert back to whoever uploaded the material but! they still retain the Copyright indefinitely. So they are in fact saying “we can simply load you with garbage about we’re working with WB (largest film studio in Hollywood), keep the acclaimed price money/compensation because once you upload your Copyrighted works, we own it…”
To all the filmmakers looking to get their start:
Submitting your work to Amazon Studios is like making a deal with a large studio without the support and consult of an agent or media attorney. You be your own judge, but if you’re just not at that level yet, don’t make the mistake!
There are other opportunities for you to develop your skills and test out your ideas than giving them to a large corporation who won’t care to personalize “you” on their roster of talent.
mofilm.com – a commercial contest site based in the UK. They offer small prizes ranging from $1,000-10,000 and trips around the world to meet other talented filmmakers.
poptent.com, massify.com, http://zooppa.com – all great commercial contests that support the growth of young filmmakers with great ideas.
filmracing.com – this is how I got my start! If you can make a compelling short film in 24, 48, or 100 hours then you can make a feature with a large studio or independent company.
kickstarter.com – the independent way to work hard and raise money for a project you truly believe in.
don’t waste your time with a lottery ticket like amazon studios. any hard working filmmaker knows that the best way to get it done is to just put in the hours, work hard, connect with people you love and trust, and tell a story you believe in.
finally, read jesse harris’s blog and pay attention to all of the rules. be a maven if you don’t agree with the rules. speak up, you have a voice. after all, isn’t that why you are a filmmaker?
best,
keith rivers
keithriversfilms.com
I wish Amazon Studios would re-think their approach to this. It had so much potential but they killed it by being greedy. If only they would just start a more traditional production company and just fund great films rather than make this silly social experiment. Or if they leveraged their distribution arm to release indie films they could have a huge impact and maybe even make money. Amazon Studios as it stands is just throwing away money and not really helping filmmakers. Read my blog post that as Seattle Met put it “fueled the backlash” : http://nffty.org/explore/your-say/amazon-the-movie-studio-yeah-right