Donald writes:
*>>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.
Donald - you must be high! Of course, UK law does not allow derivative
works (or ("adaptations") without the approval of the copyright owner.
Period. Read the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (which is
remarkably similar to - and was modeled on - the US Copyright Act). Section
16 specifically provides that "The owner of the copyright in a work has, in
accordance with the following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive
right to do the following acts in the United Kingdom ...make an adaptation
of the work."
The UK Copyright Act defines an "adaptation of the work" along the same
lines as a "derivative work" under the US Copyright Act. Either is
considered an infringement of copyright and subjects the infringer to civil
and criminal penalties. This isn't surprising - as a general principle of
the Berne Convention, a copyright owner has an exclusive right to make
adaptations or derivative works of his copyrighted work. How far that
protection goes varies from country to country, but that is the basic
principle of the treaty.
Jeff