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He sued the Tolkien Estate and Amazon? Why?? After doing that, I’m not surprised they want to shut him down.
by electriclove 3y ago
He sued the Tolkien Estate and Amazon? Why?? After doing that, I’m not surprised they want to shut him down.
- kmeisthax 3y agoBecause authors have not even the first clue about how copyright works. This is at least partially by design, because if they did, nobody would sign ownership away to a publisher. The reason why publishers want ownership is specifically because they get paid way more in the derivative works market than by selling copies of a book. Derivatives are also the reason why the plaintiff lost. Fun fact: fan fiction is not copyrightable, so if you make a derivative work without permission you own nothing. Yes this means it's legal for the original author to just resell your fan work as their own, as the plaintiff alleges (even if it didn't actually happen here).
- ronsor 3y ago> fan fiction is not copyrightable, so if you make a derivative work without permission you own nothing This is false. It's possible for both you and the original author to simultaneously infringe each other's copyrights. This is unintuitive but true due to the simple fact that you own all the original parts of your work.
- seanhunter 3y agoCertainly in the UK it seems you have to have permission from the original rights holder to create the derivative work in the first place. If they didn't have this permission they weren't entitled to create the work and therefore their claim of copyright in the original parts of that work would be moot. I'd be surprised if that were not the case elsewhere https://copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p22_derivative_works https://copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p22_derivative_work...
- jasinjames 3y agoThis aligns with what I was taught in my U.S. Intellectual property class a few years ago
- Dalewyn 3y agoIt's also the case in Japan. Japan's very lucrative doujinshi (read: fan novels) and fan art scenes exist purely because most of the creators and publishers turn a blind eye to them (it's free marketing and good will from fans of their works). They only start caring if the fan works are being sold for profit or harming the original IPs. Comiket exists thanks to everyone knowing and respecting where the invisible lines in the sand are drawn.
- GoblinSlayer 3y agoThat's the opposite: you don't need permission from the author to do anything. Only if you make trouble, the author may slap you.
- Dalewyn 3y agoNo, you do need their permissions. It's just most creators and publishers choose to ignore the otherwise flagrant violations of their copyright, because most of the time everyone wins.
- GoblinSlayer 3y agoThey make fanfiction without permission, and it works fine, so they don't need permission.
- Dalewyn 3y agoNot obtaining permission and not needing permission are two very different things. Permission is absolutely required in Japan, legally speaking. In practice, the requirement for permission is ignored under gentlemen's agreements.
- Lapha 3y agoNote that the author of the unauthorised derivative work 'B', based on the 'original' work 'A', still retains copyright over their own (unauthorised) work B. Even if a court compels the author of B to stop distributing their infringing work B this fact doesn't change, B doesn't go out of copyright, and the author of A (or anybody else for that matter) doesn't have any additional rights to the use the work B. In this particular case the Guardian article doesn't answer the question, but it's almost certainly the case that the courts found that Tolkien's estate didn't infringe upon Polychron's unauthorised work. In the UK (and much of the world), the bar for creating an original work is incredibly low, currently it's the EU approach where the author needs to express (creative) originality through choice, selection, or arrangement of a work. Previously the UK had the 'sweat of the brow' rule where the bar was even lower, only requiring 'labour, skill or judgement' in producing a work. The UK also explicitly protects derivative works from being considered infringement if they're found to be a parody, caricature, or pastiche, but this obviously isn't the case here. Also note that 'copyright service' is a private company that sells copyright protection as a service through registering a work. The UK, unlike some countries, has no register of copyrighted works so you don't need to register a work for it to receive copyright protection in the UK.
- antiterra 3y agoTo the the contrary, in the US, there is caselaw that, if your unauthorized derivative work is infringing, then you do not own the original elements of that work either. See Pickett v Prince.
- gorlilla 3y agoWhat were the original elements there? That it was made into a guitar? What other part of the work was creative? I'm honestly asking because I can't find anything that goes as far as the claim you're making regarding original elements. I'm not even sure what original/severable elements could exist in that particular case.
- antiterra 3y agoPickett argued there were original elements, not me. But whether they existed didn’t matter to the court. From the decision: “We need not pursue the issue of originality of derivative works. The Copyright Act grants the owner of a copyright the exclusive right to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work. […] So Pickett could not make a derivative work based on the Prince symbol without Prince's authorization even if Pickett's guitar had a smidgeon of originality.”
- smeagull 3y agoWait, so the Lord of the Rings, being a derivative fan fiction work of mythology, is not copyrightable? Cool beans. I assume the same is true of all of Disney's works too.
- dryanau 3y agoThat's a rather daft take.
- brookst 3y ago“Derivative work” is a term of art and does not just mean “inspired by” or “influenced by”.
- smeagull 3y agoThe only thing it doesn't meet, is that the things they stole are not copyrightable, because they came too early to be copyrighted. They stole first, and then got protected by law.
- arlcode 3y agoIt depends. The original snow white story as written down by the Brothers Grimm is not under copyright and Disney can't do anything to stop you using it. But lot's of what is associated with that is actually original stuff by the Mouse and therefore (still) copyrighted or trademarked. In particular the well known blue-yellow dress, red bow in her hair, the dwarves appaerences and names are all not part of the traditional fairy tale. Also in that story snow white is a child roughly 7 years old.
- AniseAbyss 3y ago[dead]