How long after?

[jackfaire]

As a child I watched a movie that I loved I now own a copy on DVD I finally found the book written by the guy who "wrote" the movie.

I put that in quotation marks because a few years ago I read a book written by an author. The book was basically the story in the movie with a few minor details changed.

However the characters were the same. Their backgrounds were the same etc.

In fact this book was the clear basis of the movie however the author never received credit.

How long until it doesn't matter that he never gets credit? Note the movie was obscure and made for TV not everyone knows it so the author could go his entire life never knowing someone made a movie based on his books.

[HYHYBT]

It does happen, on occasion, without the later author ever having read the work they're duplicating.

[Racket_Man]

when I first watched the film "The Last Starfighter" it stongly reminded me of a SciFi book that I had read many years ago by nearly the same name (the book was written in the 1960's or so by a 2d tier author). the book was based around not just one but a group of beings being the "last starfighters" using one BFG type ship and taking on single-handed the "bad-guy" armada. when they showed the bad guy COULD be defeated, the rest galaxy fighters came back to help.

I even went so far as to slow-mo through the credits for a "story/script based on Book.... By......." type credit but to no avail.