Rights

Every financier, distributor, festival, and insurer will ask one question before anything else: who owns this, and can you prove it. A signed paper protects the Estate as much as the Producer — it fixes what the Estate has agreed to, what it has not, and what it can stop.

“The Work” — PsyOp’er by Boone Cutler, published 2020 by Traitmarker Books, together with the author’s underlying journals, notes, photographs, audio, and video relating to his 2005–2006 deployment as a Tactical PsyOp team sergeant in Sadr City, Iraq.

“Life Rights” — the right to portray Boone Cutler’s life, character, experiences, and words, whether or not they appear in the Work.

“Digital Likeness” — any synthetic, AI-generated, animated, or otherwise recreated representation of Boone Cutler’s face, body, or voice.

The Estate represents that it holds, or will procure, motion picture, television, streaming, and interactive rights in the Work.

The Estate and the Producer will jointly obtain and review the 2020 publishing agreement with Traitmarker Books before signature of the long form. If that agreement granted or reserved audiovisual rights to the publisher, a written release, quitclaim, or joinder from Traitmarker is required, and this term sheet is subject to obtaining it.

This is not a formality. It is the single most common reason a book-to-film deal collapses eighteen months in.

The Estate grants the Producer the right to create and exhibit a Digital Likeness of Boone Cutler within the production and its marketing, on the following terms.

Scope. Limited to this production, its sequels, its documentary and interactive companions, and their promotion. Not licensable to third parties, not usable in advertising for any other product, service, cause, candidate, or company.

Source material. The Digital Likeness may be trained on and built from authentic recordings of Boone Cutler supplied or approved by the Estate. A catalogue of source material, with origin and date for every item, is maintained by the Producer and available to the Estate on request.

Fidelity. The Digital Likeness will not be used to depict Boone Cutler stating anything he did not state, or doing anything he did not do, except as dramatization of events described in the Work — and any such dramatization is presented in the production’s declared reconstruction style, never as archival record.

Estate approval. The Estate holds written approval over (a) the final Digital Likeness design, (b) any scene in which the Digital Likeness speaks words not drawn from the Work or from Boone Cutler’s own recordings, and (c) any use of the Digital Likeness in marketing.

Term and reversion. The consent runs for a negotiated number of years from first commercial release, then reverts. On reversion the Producer retains the right to exhibit the completed production as delivered, and no right to generate new material.

Prohibited uses, permanently. Political endorsement, political advertising, product endorsement, adult content, and any use that would reasonably be understood as Boone Cutler holding a view he did not hold. These survive termination.

Deletion. On expiry or termination, the Producer certifies destruction of Digital Likeness models, weights, and training sets, other than material required to be retained for legal or archival purposes.

• Based on the book PsyOp’er by Boone Cutler.
• Boone Cutler credited as the author on screen, in the main titles, in the form and size customary for a based-on-book credit.
• The Estate offered a producer credit, form to be agreed.
• An end-credit card identifying which portions of the production are reconstruction rather than record.
• An end-credit dedication, wording at the Estate’s election.

Contingent compensation — a negotiated percentage of net proceeds to the Estate, definition to be negotiated on a customary basis.

A charitable share. A negotiated percentage of the Producer’s net proceeds directed to the Boone Cutler Foundation, or to the Spartan Pledge programme, at the Estate’s direction. This is not decoration; it is the reason the film is being made and it belongs in the paper.

• The Estate is consulted on the treatment, the first draft screenplay, and the rough cut, with a reasonable period to comment.
• Consultation means the Producer must genuinely consider the Estate’s comments. It does not mean creative control, other than the approval rights expressly granted in section 4.
• The Producer will not portray any living member of the Cutler family without that person’s separate written consent.

The Producer bears sole responsibility for clearing every other person depicted, including surviving members of Team Voodoo, interpreters, and the Iraqi source known as “Baghdad Mo.”

Source protection. The Producer will not disclose the true identity, location, employer, or family details of that source to any party, and any material in which he appears will be reviewed by a named reviewer for identifying detail before release. This obligation survives termination of the agreement and is not waivable by the Producer alone.