I don't think that's a copyright issue, rather something more related to trademark (although I don't think you can trademark the title of a book either, there are a bunch of more obscure IP-related protections and this might fall under one of them).
Nobody can copyright a three word phrase. [edit: almost never, see [1]]
Copyright also applies if you copy enough story elements, but that doesn't apply because 50 Cent's movie is not in any meaningful way a copy of Achebe's story. And if that were the case, even changing the title completely wouldn't avoid infringement. You would violate Rowling's copyright, for instance, if you took a Harry Potter book, outlined the plot (even with character and place names changed), and wrote a new novel from scratch using that outline.
"The novel with the said title was initially produced in 1958 (that is 17 years before [50] was born)," replied his lawyers, according to Naijan. "[It is] listed as the most-read book in modern African literature, and won't be sold for even £1bn."
I think this was IP bullying by Achebe's legal team (if were laywers at all). They claim to have a monopoly to use the very generic title (even when separated from the underlying story), and when offered a lot of money (I'd love to hear 50 Cent's lawyers reason for offering a million dollars to use that title), they make a category error, confusing rights to the book itself with rights to a fairly generic title.
If the state of the world is anything to go by, you indeed cannot protect the title of your book, as it's quite frequent for two books to have exactly the same name.
> You would violate Rowling's copyright, for instance, if you took a Harry Potter book, outlined the plot (even with character and place names changed), and wrote a new novel from scratch using that outline.
Terry Brooks might be surprised to hear this, as he seems to have been safe from the notoriously litigious Tolkien estate. Try reading The Lord of the Rings sometime, then read The Sword of Shannara (accurately described as "especially blatant in its point-for-point correspondence" [1]).
Again, though, all that's only relevant if you're interested in the actual state of the world.
You might be able to trademark it, if it's sufficiently unique in its market to be trademarked. (i.e. you form a corporation with the book title as its slogan, or you attach the trademark to some product or service you sell.)
However, contrary to popular belief, trademarks do not prohibit others using your trademarks in their writing. They prohibit others using your trademarks deceptively or in a way likely to cause confusion. Which means you don't have the same ability to prevent someone from using your trademark in the title or content of their book, that you have to prevent them from using copyrighted material in their book.
Exactly. There is no protection to the title of books. The reason the author can force to change the title is the same reason you can be "forced" to sign an EULA. If you want to use the story, that is illegal until the writer contractually gives you that right. He can put whatever terms in that contract and you can say yes or no.
So an author can force a film company to switch all it's employees to rainbow colored forks in their family homes and the film company has two options : comply, or find another book to make a movie from.
This is similar to an EULA. You are in no way forced to sign the EULA. But there's nothing else giving you the right to use the software. So you have one of two choices : agree to the EULA, or find another piece of software.
Of course you can take the plot outline and rewrite the story without copyright infringement. Copyright infringement applies when reusing the actual author's writing.
Copyright law, at least in the USA, views a sufficiently non-generic copy of another work's plot as a copyright violation. For a specific example of how this works, here's a lawsuit based on the concept, and don't miss section 31: http://www.scribd.com/doc/74815749/Angelina-Jolie-Lawsuit (that particular lawsuit didn't succeed.)
Another quirk: copyright law also views copies of sufficiently important elements (like characters/setting/etc. which are clearly taken from another work) as a copyright violation, even if the story is different; fanfic is technically a copyright violation.
Nobody can copyright a three word phrase. [edit: almost never, see [1]]
Copyright also applies if you copy enough story elements, but that doesn't apply because 50 Cent's movie is not in any meaningful way a copy of Achebe's story. And if that were the case, even changing the title completely wouldn't avoid infringement. You would violate Rowling's copyright, for instance, if you took a Harry Potter book, outlined the plot (even with character and place names changed), and wrote a new novel from scratch using that outline.
"The novel with the said title was initially produced in 1958 (that is 17 years before [50] was born)," replied his lawyers, according to Naijan. "[It is] listed as the most-read book in modern African literature, and won't be sold for even £1bn."
I think this was IP bullying by Achebe's legal team (if were laywers at all). They claim to have a monopoly to use the very generic title (even when separated from the underlying story), and when offered a lot of money (I'd love to hear 50 Cent's lawyers reason for offering a million dollars to use that title), they make a category error, confusing rights to the book itself with rights to a fairly generic title.
[1] http://fairuse.stanford.edu/2003/09/09/copyright_protection_...