Advocacy Newsroom

Take DG's New Media Survey: Live Stream and The New Normal

Take Our New Media Survey Early in the pandemic, the New Media Committee sent DG members a survey regarding the "new normal" of digital performance. More than five hundred of you responded. Virtual rehearsals, readings, and performances seem to be a way of life now. Even...
The Dramatist

Douglas Post: What Copyright Means to Me

A play is not unlike a house. As dramatists, we imagine the structure, map out the architecture, build the thing from the ground up, filling all those terrifying blank pages with words, words, words that hopefully provide the blueprint for an experience that can enlighten and entertain. Then...
The Dramatist

Mindi Dickstein: What Copyright Means to Me

When I was a kid and I watched television, I didn’t understand how television worked. I thought that, magically, it came out of the box into my house and there were maybe little tiny people inside. It was a very imaginative, magical interpretation. Lord knows I had no idea that someone actually...
Advocacy Newsroom

New Works Now In The Public Domain By F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, and More

January 1, 2021 was Public Domain day. On that historic date, many new titles entered the public domain, including works by literary luminaries that had all been copyrighted in 1925; that copyright has now expired. The works in question include F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, Franz Kafka’s The Trial, and Alain Locke's The New Negro, which features essays by Zora Neal Hurston...
The Dramatist

Stephen Schwartz: Last Word

Copyright is a dry word. So is the phrase “intellectual property”—it’s dry. They sound as if they have only to do with legalities, with issues of foreign and digital infringement, fair use, corporate branding and such. That’s not to say I have anything but enormous respect and gratitude for those who deal with copyright in the...
Advocacy Newsroom

Public Domain Update: Tom Lehrer's Lyrics

#DGuknow that Tom Lehrer's lyrics are now all in the public domain? The songwriter Tom Lehrer recently posted on his website that "all the lyrics on this website, whether published or unpublished, copyrighted or uncopyrighted, may be downloaded and used in any manner. whatsoever, without requiring any further permission from me or payment to me or to anyone else." The Dramatists Guild supports a robust public domain, especially...
Advocacy Newsroom

DG Legislative Policy Agenda

The Dramatists Guild of America is a national trade association of playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists. As such, the Guild is an advocate on behalf of its members on the issues related to their careers as dramatists and, more specifically, in their role as authors of original works of copyrightable expression, created as independent contractors in a free society. The Guild, however, is a non-partisan organization and does not support or make contributions...
Advocacy Newsroom

Major Copyright Victory for Dramatists with Court Ruling on "Jersey Boys" Lawsuit

The Dramatists Guild offers congratulations to its members, Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman, as well as their Jersey Boys co-authors, Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, on their victory in the copyright case of  Corbello v. Valli et al.  The writers’ defense team was led with great expertise by David S. Korzenik, Esq., in a legal battle fought in the courts for over 13 grueling years, as depicted in ...
Advocacy Newsroom

September and October at The Dramatists Guild

This year, September and October will be unusually busy months for the Dramatists Guild. We're pleased to announce Copyright Advocacy Month and Political Engagement Month! Both months will provide dramatists with thematically coordinated opportunities to learn, engage, and participate in these special months at the Guild. ...
Advocacy Newsroom

A Message On Copyright From DG President Doug Wright

The Guild continues to protect copyright, so artists can be masters of the material they create. Often, the Guild is working on  your behalf behind closed doors, in ways you might not be aware. Defending your copyright is one of our core principles, and it has never been more important than in the current climate, when in both corporate and academic interests are deriding the essential nature of copyright. Eliminating it as a...
Advocacy Newsroom

Dramatists Guild Launches Initiative #DONTCHANGETHEWORDS

The Dramatists Guild of America is pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative: #DontChangeTheWords to educate the public about copyright infringement; reporting hotline and webpage also launched. In response to persistent and troubling reports of copyright infringement within high school and college theater departments, the Dramatists Guild has launched a new initiative called #...