6 ms·

This is an example of creative, derived work that should be enriching the public commons, when the original is quite old, by a long dead author, yet is still tr

This is an example of creative, derived work that should be enriching the public commons, when the original is quite old, by a long dead author, yet is still troubled by potential copyright claims.

tptacek 16y ago
And it could have been written straightforwardly as a roman-a-clef without incurring copyright hazards. The reason it wasn't is probably the reason it's at risk: marketing. It might even make for a better book that way.
- Tycho 16y ago
  Yes, like Coral Island vs Lord of the Flies. Although I'm not against the idea of people writing in other peoples' universes, ie. fan fiction. In fact I hate the snotty attitude (seemingly) almost everyone takes towards fan-fiction: it's a win for everyone, like the literary equivalent of forking open-source software, but it's never encouraged.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    "Literal" retellings of stories can be jarring; everything needs to sync up or you get stuck on the details that are wrong (like, apparently, "no hobbits"). And, especially with nerd fiction, figuring out who the characters are can be fun.
  - makmanalp 16y ago
    Slight tangent: Here's a secret about forking. When you fork a project, you anger the loyalists. A lot of large open source projects fork because of deep disagreements / polarization within the team. For minor stuff, it usually just gets settled internally. If the project does get forked, it usually ends with either the original project dying or the fork dying. I can't recall any projects off the top of my head that were forked and both the fork and original remained successful.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Emacs / xemacs. NetBSD / OpenBSD. Debian / Ubuntu. XMBC / Plex. KHTML / Webkit. sbcl / cmucl.
      - makmanalp 16y ago
        I guess I might be wrong. However, consider: Regarding XBMC / Plex and Emacs / xemacs, instead of a fork it looks like it's more of adding feature X that the original devs didn't want (not being derogatory here, it's substantial work). I'm sure that they merge in new code continuously and the codebases haven't diverged so much as to be independent. It doesn't look much like a fork in that sense. I'd argue that KHTML is fairly dead. No one really uses Konqueror (I worked for a shop that developed a KDE based distro and even there everyone used Firefox / Chrome), which is probably KHTML's largest user apart from some internal KDE stuff. Hell, even Konqueror has had webkit mode since about a year ago. Qt supports webkit. Tons of other browsers, mobile and otherwise, use webkit. I see the same downward trend for Debian, from being all over the place to being reduced to mostly a server distro. Meanwhile, Ubuntu is coming up with its own server version with pre-made virtualization images and stuff. So, maybe the "weaker" forks just didn't die fast? Of course, this whole idea isn't a law or anything and I can't expect it to apply to everything, but that's the general trend I see anyway. Also, I guess another thing I could claim is selection bias: You've probably never even heard of most of the forks that died. Of course, I don't have the data to prove it either.
        Maro 16y ago
        You know you're on Hacker News when a discussion about Tolkien turns into a discussion of Emacs forks =)
        Tycho 16y ago
        There are two activities that can change a nerdy fourteen-year old's life: reading The Lord of the Rings and learning emacs. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable inaccessibility, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. ;)
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Disagree with the parent on both points. I read the first few chapters of the translation. The book probably couldn't stand on its own. But it was quite interesting as sort-of commentary on Tolkien - even with Tolkien characters completely shifted, it needed to have Tolkien characters to be worth anything. And suppressing that kind of speech is problematic.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >And it could have been written straightforwardly as a roman-a-clef without incurring copyright hazards. I'd not heard of a roman a clef before, a story with a key to translate the characters/figures/places to refer to something else. I don't think this would help - if you provide me with the parts to make a copyrighted work and you know that is what they are to be used for or you designed them specifically for that use then you are committing contributory infringement (YMMV depending on specifics of copyright law in your country, save to say that legislatures aren't idiots). In the same way you can't sell your cover of a pop song by encoding the song as an MP3 ("it's not a song it's just bits").
krig 16y ago
Yes! This is what culture and creativity is. How can we grow as a society when we cannot comment and build on the culture we live in?
- tptacek 16y ago
  You absolutely can do this.
  - scotty79 16y ago
    You just have to ignore some rules.
    - Semiapies 16y ago
      No, you really don't. You just have to be modestly creative. Fiction is full of allusions and references and expies of older works' characters and settings. Rather a few stories have been written as answers or counter-arguments to other works without having to use the same names or be explicitly set in the same setting.
bonch 16y ago
Um, because the original work is still being sold and is making money for its owners--specifically, the direct relatives of the original author, including one who continued his father's work and released The Silmarillion.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  But its hard to argue obscure Russian novel that completely changes the entire setting would in any way decrease the money made by the Tolkien estate.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    The question is not if the Tolkien estate makes less money. The question is if the Tolkien estate has the freedom to decide what derived works they want to allow. Copyright is not about 'if it makes money for the rights holder, it should be allowed'. It's about the freedom of the holder to decide what they think is the 'best', be it in monetary form, or artistic integrity, or whatever. Let's say I'm an author and I feel that my work is best served with no derivatives like fan fiction or translations. That I feel that my novel is a work of art that only be appreciated in its original language. Should I have the right to prohibit translations? I think so. It's about the freedom and the rights of the author (or creator of other sorts), not about the supposed entitlements of others.
    - Eliezer 16y ago
      I see no public good served by an author being allowed to decide what other people do with their characters. Should Tolkien have the right to constrain what people imagine with his characters? The right to constrain what stories I tell my friend? Never mind physical possibility - if Tolkien had left a note saying that nobody was ever allowed to imagine Legolas/Eowyn, would you obey that note in the privacy of your imagination, because you thought it was his right? IMO copyrights, like patents, should have a mandatory licensing rule - it should not be possible to say "you can't do that", only ever "I get a cut of the profits." (This wouldn't fix either system, which allow for copyright and patent of many things that just shouldn't be patented, but it'd be an incremental improvement.)

This is an example of creative, derived work that should be enriching the public commons, when the original is quite old, by a long dead author, yet is still troubled by potential copyright claims.

tptacek 16y ago

And it could have been written straightforwardly as a roman-a-clef without incurring copyright hazards. The reason it wasn't is probably the reason it's at risk: marketing. It might even make for a better book that way.

Tycho 16y ago
Yes, like Coral Island vs Lord of the Flies. Although I'm not against the idea of people writing in other peoples' universes, ie. fan fiction. In fact I hate the snotty attitude (seemingly) almost everyone takes towards fan-fiction: it's a win for everyone, like the literary equivalent of forking open-source software, but it's never encouraged.
- tptacek 16y ago
  "Literal" retellings of stories can be jarring; everything needs to sync up or you get stuck on the details that are wrong (like, apparently, "no hobbits"). And, especially with nerd fiction, figuring out who the characters are can be fun.
- makmanalp 16y ago
  Slight tangent: Here's a secret about forking. When you fork a project, you anger the loyalists. A lot of large open source projects fork because of deep disagreements / polarization within the team. For minor stuff, it usually just gets settled internally. If the project does get forked, it usually ends with either the original project dying or the fork dying. I can't recall any projects off the top of my head that were forked and both the fork and original remained successful.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Emacs / xemacs. NetBSD / OpenBSD. Debian / Ubuntu. XMBC / Plex. KHTML / Webkit. sbcl / cmucl.
    - makmanalp 16y ago
      I guess I might be wrong. However, consider: Regarding XBMC / Plex and Emacs / xemacs, instead of a fork it looks like it's more of adding feature X that the original devs didn't want (not being derogatory here, it's substantial work). I'm sure that they merge in new code continuously and the codebases haven't diverged so much as to be independent. It doesn't look much like a fork in that sense. I'd argue that KHTML is fairly dead. No one really uses Konqueror (I worked for a shop that developed a KDE based distro and even there everyone used Firefox / Chrome), which is probably KHTML's largest user apart from some internal KDE stuff. Hell, even Konqueror has had webkit mode since about a year ago. Qt supports webkit. Tons of other browsers, mobile and otherwise, use webkit. I see the same downward trend for Debian, from being all over the place to being reduced to mostly a server distro. Meanwhile, Ubuntu is coming up with its own server version with pre-made virtualization images and stuff. So, maybe the "weaker" forks just didn't die fast? Of course, this whole idea isn't a law or anything and I can't expect it to apply to everything, but that's the general trend I see anyway. Also, I guess another thing I could claim is selection bias: You've probably never even heard of most of the forks that died. Of course, I don't have the data to prove it either.
      - Maro 16y ago
        You know you're on Hacker News when a discussion about Tolkien turns into a discussion of Emacs forks =)
        Tycho 16y ago
        There are two activities that can change a nerdy fourteen-year old's life: reading The Lord of the Rings and learning emacs. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable inaccessibility, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. ;)
joe_the_user 16y ago
Disagree with the parent on both points. I read the first few chapters of the translation. The book probably couldn't stand on its own. But it was quite interesting as sort-of commentary on Tolkien - even with Tolkien characters completely shifted, it needed to have Tolkien characters to be worth anything. And suppressing that kind of speech is problematic.
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>And it could have been written straightforwardly as a roman-a-clef without incurring copyright hazards. I'd not heard of a roman a clef before, a story with a key to translate the characters/figures/places to refer to something else. I don't think this would help - if you provide me with the parts to make a copyrighted work and you know that is what they are to be used for or you designed them specifically for that use then you are committing contributory infringement (YMMV depending on specifics of copyright law in your country, save to say that legislatures aren't idiots). In the same way you can't sell your cover of a pop song by encoding the song as an MP3 ("it's not a song it's just bits").

krig 16y ago

Yes! This is what culture and creativity is. How can we grow as a society when we cannot comment and build on the culture we live in?

tptacek 16y ago
You absolutely can do this.
- scotty79 16y ago
  You just have to ignore some rules.
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    No, you really don't. You just have to be modestly creative. Fiction is full of allusions and references and expies of older works' characters and settings. Rather a few stories have been written as answers or counter-arguments to other works without having to use the same names or be explicitly set in the same setting.

bonch 16y ago

Um, because the original work is still being sold and is making money for its owners--specifically, the direct relatives of the original author, including one who continued his father's work and released The Silmarillion.

joe_the_user 16y ago
But its hard to argue obscure Russian novel that completely changes the entire setting would in any way decrease the money made by the Tolkien estate.
- roel_v 16y ago
  The question is not if the Tolkien estate makes less money. The question is if the Tolkien estate has the freedom to decide what derived works they want to allow. Copyright is not about 'if it makes money for the rights holder, it should be allowed'. It's about the freedom of the holder to decide what they think is the 'best', be it in monetary form, or artistic integrity, or whatever. Let's say I'm an author and I feel that my work is best served with no derivatives like fan fiction or translations. That I feel that my novel is a work of art that only be appreciated in its original language. Should I have the right to prohibit translations? I think so. It's about the freedom and the rights of the author (or creator of other sorts), not about the supposed entitlements of others.
  - Eliezer 16y ago
    I see no public good served by an author being allowed to decide what other people do with their characters. Should Tolkien have the right to constrain what people imagine with his characters? The right to constrain what stories I tell my friend? Never mind physical possibility - if Tolkien had left a note saying that nobody was ever allowed to imagine Legolas/Eowyn, would you obey that note in the privacy of your imagination, because you thought it was his right? IMO copyrights, like patents, should have a mandatory licensing rule - it should not be possible to say "you can't do that", only ever "I get a cut of the profits." (This wouldn't fix either system, which allow for copyright and patent of many things that just shouldn't be patented, but it'd be an incremental improvement.)