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For precedent on this, see the case Anderson v. Stallone, in which Timothy Anderson sued Stallone/MGM for allegedly ripping off his fan script for Rocky 4. Cour
by salted-fry 6y ago
For precedent on this, see the case Anderson v. Stallone, in which Timothy Anderson sued Stallone/MGM for allegedly ripping off his fan script for Rocky 4. Courts ruled that his fan script, as a derivative work of Rocky, had no copyright protection, and so MGM was free to rip it off if they wanted to.
I happen to disagree, in that I think the law should say that derivative works are co-owned by the owners of the original work and the creator of the derivative; but that does not seem to be what the law currently says.
- jonny_eh 6y agoUnless the derivative work was created with permission.
- salted-fry 6y agoYou're right - the case I'm quoting is specifically about unauthorized derivative works, which is a pretty important distinction, especially in this context (as presumably the colorizations of Garfield were authorized)
- jonny_eh 6y agoRight, and since the online Garfields have unique colours, and future licensees can't just use them. They'd need to put in the effort to re-colourize, or pay the site for their colourized versions too.