Edit: Here's a mirror of the video posted by Swaim.
I don't know if many of the folks here are familiar with someone called Michael Swaim -- if you remember comedy website Cracked, he did video stuff for them. Really clever in a unique way, interesting person. Anyway.
This is an update to this post, I guess, it didn't show up when I searched the sub but it did when I googled, so there's that. I would say go check that post for context, but the video's been taken down -- see below. So I'ma provide some context:
So earlier this year, Swaim and Abe Epperson livestreamed themselves writing the script for a movie called Force of Nature, and them submitted it to a company called Emmett Furla somehow -- it's difficult to parse the exact details, see below. This is on record. They livestreamed it and there is a video from May of them reading the script. (don't be surprised if that link stops working soon, I don't have the resources at the moment to upload a mirror but someone needs to do it asap).
Now... the studio didn't respond to their submission. No agreement, no contract, I assume Swaim and Epperson didn't even know if it had been received.
Imagine their surprise when it turns out that the studio was producing a film with the same title and plot, starring Mel Damn Gibson!
So Swaim and Epperson, along with their fans and their friend Cody Johnston (screenshot) and his fans, raised a bit of a stink on Twitter -- because this is obviously theft. Swaim also released a video on his YouTube channel, Small Beans. However, except for Cody's tweets, you won't find anything directly incriminating about this topic on either Swaim or Epperson's twitter pages, and you won't find Swaim's video. Why? Well... see below.
This is the below part from all those "see below" bits
If you do go on Swaim's twitter, you'll see a tweet about "deleting some tweets because of legal horsecrap" (screenshot) (that's paraphrased), and then this tweet. (screenshot). Emmett whatever, the studio, is threatening to sue Swaim and Epperson for bringing up that the studio stole their script, and they basically strong-armed/blackmailed/whatever the term is these guys into deleting the evidence that the studio is stealing from them. I'm sorry that I'm using so many italics, I get passionate about injustice.
The writers are absolutely not in a place to be able to afford a legal case -- they had to crowdfund to do a YouTube series a few months ago, for crying out loud -- They're not able to hire lawyers against a movie studio.
So... now what? Is there anything that can be done? Help? I've been a fan of Swaim's work for years and this is some bull- shit.