Re: Re: Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 129

From: Donald R. Oddy <donald_at_grove.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 00:57:28 GMT


In message <8C717DAD0FC113E-1D8-7549_at_mblk-d51.sysops.aol.com> rjmeints_at_aol.com writes:

[derived material]

>Issaries isn't trying to steal anything, especially someone's
>copyright, but they do, under most country's laws, have the
>right to stop you from publishing works based on their intellectual
>property without their permission.

This is simply wrong. While US copyright law specifically gives the author the right to prevent derivative works UK law allows them. Given that copyright law is one of the things the EU is standardising it is likely that the same applies in other EU countries which would mean the the US is pretty much on their own.

Here's a link to a detailed explanation of UK copyright law - http://www.jenkins-ip.com/patlaw/cdpa1.htm Section 16 lists the copyright holders rights.

>As a non-Gloranthan example: You can't write a Harry Potter book,
>using all of the characters, etc. and legally publish it. If you
>had a Harry Potter website with such stories on it it's pretty
>safe to say that you could very well get a "cease and desist"
>letter from JK Rowling's lawyers.

Lawyers are capable of writing the worst legal nonsense possible if a client is paying them - I've dealt with some of it.

In this example it would probably come from Warner Bros. lawyers as they hold the Trade Marks on Harry Potter characters. Trade Marks infringement is much easier to establish than breach of copyright.

While confirming all this stuff I read though the Berne Convention. While it doesn't make it clear where jurisdiction lies the implication is that it is up to the courts of the country where the alleged infringing material was first published to act. So a derived work first published in England would be subject to English law.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/


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