Lethem: free film option in exchange for public domain release after 5 years

Debcha sez, "Jonathan Lethem has some unusual terms for the film option for his latest novel, You Don't Love Me Yet; the option is only available to a filmmaker who is willing to release all ancillary rights to it (and the novel) into the public domain five years after the film's debut, so that 'any number of other kinds of artwork based on the novel's story and characters, or the film's: a play, a television series, a comic book, a theme park ride, an opera' could be made. 'Lately I've become fitful about some of the typical ways art is commodified,' he writes on his blog, 'I also realized that sometimes giving things away — things that are usually seen to have an important and intrinsic 'value', like a film option — already felt like a meaningful part of what I do. I wanted to do more of it."

What we won't do is hold onto the characters – their names and characteristics – or the plot and situations, the notions and conceits and milieu of the book, all those other recognizable characteristics which would ordinarily continue to be legally controlled by the filmmaker or his/her investors (whether or not there was ever any likelihood of them being put into use). After a reasonable interval of exclusive use – a phase where the only way to access this story is as an audience member of the book or film – anyone else can use it to make new artworks, without any fear of being accused of violating anyone else's copyright. Because I want those subsequent uses to be utterly free, there isn't even a requirement that subsequent work acknowledge the film or the novel as a source (though many people would probably feel that etiquette requires a credit).

Link

(Thanks, Debcha!)