On Mon, Dec 16, 2002 at 05:09:47AM -0800, Greg Rapawy <grapawy at yahoo.com> wrote: > --- David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: > [...] > > Quite a lot of interesting literary work has come > > out of the Sherlock Holmes universe, after the > > estate no longer controlled it. A lot of > > literature is heavily based on Shakespeare, and > > couldn't be if he were still in copyright (consider > > Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead). > > I think we agreed earlier that it's important things > > go into the pot, and the question is *when*. > As an example of particular interest, the Paarfi > romances might well infringe Dumas' copyright if > Dumas' works were presently in copyright under modern > American copyright law. (They wouldn't have under the > law at the time Dumas wrote, both because foreign > works were not then covered by American copyright and > because infringement was then defined much more > narrowly.) Umm, no. While the Paarfi works are pastiches, they are NOT even remotely similar enough to cause copyright issues. Or, in other words, copyright doesn't cover style or plot. > There might be a viable fair use defense, though. In > recent years, courts have been broadening the fair use > doctrine for what are referred to as "transformative" > works -- works that create new art through the > innovative use of old material, including but not > limited to parody. For example, a federal court of > appeals ultimately reversed the preliminary injunction > against the publication of "The Wind Done Gone," a > case which was widely covered in the press. The Wind Done Gone is a vastly different case, since it explicitly uses the same characters. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp