Warner Brothers recently purchased the “exclusive” movie rights to “Rome, Sweet Rome,” which is about a U.S. Marine who travels back in time to fight the Roman Empire. It was created by an author named James Erwin, but now it is disputed whether or not the movie rights purchased by Warner Brothers were actually “exclusive.”

This issue of exclusivity arises because Mr. Erwin originally posted pieces of his creative work “Rome, Sweet Rome” on Reddit.com, which is an online community that allows users to post links and have discussions with one another. Mr. Erwin shared his work with other Reddit users and, in turn, Reddit users provided Mr. Erwin with comments and suggestions.

Unfortunately, by using social media websites as outlet for original artistic work, many people are unknowingly granting these social media websites the use of their original works. Reddit’s User Agreement, like many other user agreements for social media websites nowadays, has a permissive licensing arrangement. Reddit’s User Agreement specifically states that individuals who post on Reddit’s site agree to certain conditions which includes:

“you agree that by posting messages, uploading files, inputting data, or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Website, you grant us a royalty-free perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, enhance, transmit, distribute, publicly perform, display, or sublicense any such communication in any medium (now in existence or hereinafter developed) and for any purpose, including commercial purposes, and to authorize others to do so.”

In other words, since Mr. Erwin posted his stories on Reddit, Reddit may have a right to use or license Mr. Erwin’s story to a third party and possibly even another studio in direct competition with Warner Brothers. I am sure you have identified the problem; Mr. Erwin cannot sell Warner Brothers an “exclusive” license when he has already give a “non-exclusive” license to Reddit.

I hope all three parties have good entertainment attorneys. They are going to need them.

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