Experts See Little Impact on the Movie Business : Hollywood: Buchwald’s tentative victory may lead to some procedural tightening up, but the issues in the dispute are nothing new.

Art Buchwald’s legal bout with Paramount Pictures will probably be remembered more for its marquee value than for any serious impact on the way Hollywood does business.

Agents and production executives said Monday that Buchwald’s tentative victory in his suit claiming authorship of the idea for Eddie Murphy’s hit film “Coming to America” may lead to some tightening of the already complex procedures by which production companies review and purchase ideas.

But it does not appear to have introduced major new concerns. The issues in the Buchwald-Paramount dispute have been faced in previous court cases and union arbitrations, the executives said.

“The finding for Art Buchwald will make people examine their practices even more closely,” said David Friendly, a production executive with Imagine Films Entertainment, which has a film production deal with Universal Pictures. “Keeping track of the idea is part of our job. We’re incredibly careful about that.”

Disputes over authorship, one of Hollywood’s more nettlesome perennial problems, are usually resolved in arbitration proceedings conducted by the Writers Guild of America. The guild reviews about 300 cases a year.

Despite the arbitration procedures, however, virtually every major studio has faced authorship suits--although most receive far less publicity than Buchwald’s dispute with Paramount. Buchwald did not request a guild arbitration but is a member of the guild’s East Coast affiliate.

Walt Disney Pictures, for example, is defending itself against a suit in which writer Martyn Burke has sought damages in excess of $10 million. Burke has claimed that the studio based its film “Good Morning, Vietnam” on material misappropriated from a project based on his novel, “The Laughing War.” Disney has denied the charge, and the suit is still pending.

One Universal executive said his studio has faced as many as seven such suits at a time during recent years, and it was particularly plagued by people who claimed authorship of “E.T., the Extra-Terrestial,” a 1982 hit directed and produced by Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment for a time tried to prevent such claims by requiring anyone who submitted an idea or script material to sign a release waiving the right to sue. It dropped the practice about a year ago, however.

One studio chief, who declined to be named, said the most unusual feature of the Buchwald case was that Paramount did not settle out of court.

“Juries tend to find against studios. When your lawyers think a case has any merit at all, they’ll usually tell you to settle,” he said.

A top talent agent, who also declined to be identified, said the court’s decision would probably increase the level of “paranoia” that surrounds major stars.

“There was incredibly sloppy work around Eddie,” the agent said, pointing to Murphy’s embarrassing admission in a deposition that he was familiar with Buchwald’s story idea.

Imagine’s Friendly said the level of concern about misappropriating ideas is such that some executives will stop a story proposal meeting, rather than listen to ideas that might be close to a screenplay already being developed.

“You interrupt and say, ‘I can’t even hear this,’ ” he said.

Lionel Sobel, who edits the Entertainment Law Reporter and served as co-counsel to Paramount in the case, said such authorship disputes are “very common.” But most lawsuits on such matters are filed by individuals who, unlike Buchwald, never had a contract with the studio, he said.

However, working relationships that bind the tight-knit show business community appear to disarm many disputes before they reach court or an arbitration panel.

“Everybody’s pretty cautious. You deal through agents, and with the same executives over and over again,” said James Berkus, president of the Leading Artists talent agency. “I’ve never had anyone steal from one of my clients.”