parent nodes: Archived History | StarSpawn | Visit to a Small Planet
Copyright
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney or legal expert on the subject of copyrights. The information on this page contains my interpretation of the United States laws governing copyrights and trademarks.
Under rules first established in 1886 in Berne, Switzerland, copyrights were internationally recognized (and is called the Berne Convention). The basic rules stated that any original work was copyrighted at the time of its creation (that is, put in some tangible form). It included novels, plays, poetry and letters. Later, works of art, including music scores, drawings, paintings, sculpture, and photographs were covered.
Generally, a work does not need a copyright notice to be protected. Both individuals and organizations (commercial or otherwise) copyright works. Most publishers automatically copyright the work published (under contract) and, as a matter of courtesy, provide additional copyright information with regard to compiled works (as in a collection of short stories or a book of music).
Each nation produces variations of the basic rules. Copyrights, by their nature to protect the interests of the creator and immediate family, are limited by time - generally 50 to 70 years or longer following the death of the individual. In the United States, the Disney Corporation urged congress to extend the copyright time limit to protect the early cartoons of Walt Disney.
Much of the uniform nature of copyrights has been lost. While most countries respect the copyright laws of other countries, the laws from various countries often are at odds with each other.
A good example of this is Peter Pan and Wendy by James Matthew Barrie (9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937). (Note: James Matthews is not named after the famous playwright.) In the United States, the work automatically came into the “Public Domain” a number of years following his death, but in countries of the former British Commonwealth that was not the case. In 1929, Mr. Barrie gave (donated or transferred) all his rights to the play and book to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, which meant that they benefited from all royalties associated with productions of the play and sales of the book. I have not been able to ascertain why the transfered rights are not honored in many countries including the United States - perhaps it was done by a "gentlemen's agreement" - I really don't know. In the United States, the work is considered to be in the public domain and as such, Project Gutenberg, which is producing e-texts of public domain and classic works, has released the work for use and storage only in the United States where the e-text was created from public domain copies of the book.
Note: Registering a copyright with a governmental body does not make the copyright “more legal.” It only makes it easier to defend the work against copyright infringement.
Restriction By Copyright
While the internet has not changed the basic rules governing copyright, most people do not comprehend the meaning of copyright.
Copyright restricts (that is, prohibits by law) the copying of any work or major portion of that work. Thus, a photograph is protected, no matter what form in which it appears (for instance, as a negative, a positive, printed in a publication, or electronic - this is not a complete list). No one has the right to copy any work or portion of a work without the express permission of the copyright holder. Express permission usually means written permission, since unless an agreement is written, it is both hard to prove and defend.
Technically, the capture of the pages on this site by a search engine and subsequent posting is a violation of copyright law. I own the material on these pages and have not provided any person or entity (such as a corporation) the right to archive this material for later retrieval. Indivduals and companies who have sites on the internet would be wise to understand that copyright laws prohibit backing up sites, except as the owner/creator of that site has expressly granted. I alone am responsible for backing up the material posted to this site.
Likewise, the capture of illegally posted material (including music and films) is also a violation of copyright law.
Fair Use
The “fair use” of a copyrighted work does not automatically extend permission to copy major portions of a work. All the fair use provision allows is the use of small portions of the work in a critical examination, such as a book review or for inclusion in another work such as a scholarly study.
Recent Developments
Several years ago, the earliest Walt Disney Mickey Mouse cartoon (“Steamboat Willie”) was going to have its copyright run out. The famous star of that cartoon was to become public domain – that is, owned by the public at large (which, in my opinion would be appropriate, given the historic nature of the work and character). Personal opinion: To me, that was the purpose behind a work leaving the protection of copyright and entering into the public domain – something to be enjoyed and protected for the general public.
Unfortunately, when a work enters public domain, a number of things can be done to it, including republishing it, perhaps with a different background for Mickey, and thus those producing such a derivative work are able to copyright the new work. The laws allowing republishing a work are why you see such works as the Holy Bible and plays of William Shakespeare carrying recent copyright notices. In both cases, the act of annotating a previously published work creates a new work of art and that new work, even though it incorporates a work in the Public Domain, is protected by copyright.
Disney didn’t want that happening to “the mouse” and as such, urged the United States Congress to extend copyright protection beyond that provided under the earlier law. The new laws included restrictions on creating derivative works based upon the original. However, the United States Congress could not legally (as determined by the courts) protect works leaving the protection of copyright prior to the enactment of the new law. Thus, works created prior to 1923 are generally no longer protected by copyright. This applies only to the United States - the laws vary from country to country.
With the advent of the internet and digital formats, individuals have freely copied many protected works for their own private use. Some countries’ copyright laws actually allow this... For instance, I understand that Canada allows a person to create up to ten copies of a complete work for themselves. Making ten or more copies or making a copy available to others, such as on or through the internet, still constitutes a copyright violation.
Public Domain
A work enters public domain at the expiration of the copyright or a number of years (generally 50 to 70 years, but longer in some instances or locales) after the death of the author. A work in public domain means that anyone can reproduce copies of the work.
Limitations of Copyright
The question arises what may be copyrighted and when the copyright does not apply. Essentially, words and phrases (usually limited to no more than eight words) can be trademarked, but not copyrighted. “Make it so,” is a phrase used by Captain Pickard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The best that can happen to “protect” the phrase is to trademark it, but, because it is spoken, it can be spoken by anyone, including Captain Stollack in my Star Spawn Universe.
Trademarks apply to distinctive symbols (or signs) related to products or services. "You're in good hands with Allstate" is a trademarked phrase and whenever it is published, it generally carries a trademark symbol (™). Unlike trademarks, to be fully protected, a phrase must be registered before it can carry the registered trademark symbol (®) and the rules regarding registering trademarks are very restrictive. You will seldom see a registered trademark connected with a phrase unless it has a distinctive typeface, which then produces the phrase as a recognizable symbol.
A trademark is used to prevent misleading advertising regarding similar products or misusing the trademark to imply approval by the parent company.
Extensive public use of a term can negate the legal protection of trademarked words. One of the best examples of this was the common use of "Xerox" as it applied to a machine copy made by any process, not just that patented by Xerox, the corporation. The term xerox became a verb and adjective: Here's a xerox of your material. Make me a xerox copy. While the word is still trademarked, unless it is presented as the registered symbol (having a distinctive design and typeface), it is no longer as "protected" as words that have not come into common use.
Derivative works or the act of directly deriving a new work from a copyrighted work is prohibited by copyright law. I cannot take a specific television show episode and write it into a novel without express permission to do so. But copyright law does allow adapting characters (actually, character names) to new works of art. I can adapt the characters of a particular show (such as Angel) to my stories without permission. Even the Stargate SG-1 story Visit to a Small Planet is permissible, which directly uses characters from the television series. This allows “fan fiction” stories to be legal, since they are not a directly derived work - that is, an adaptation of a specific show.
But, as is the case of Peter Pan and Wendy, one does not want to indiscriminately take characters produced by others and make free use of them. Corporations, including publishers, cannot automatically assume full rights to a work without it being expressed stated in a legal agreement, such as a contract. Again, national laws dictate the extent to which a person or corporation can produce derived works.
I feel impressed to obtain legal rights to publish for profit the novel Visit to a Small Planet. There are trademarks protecting the Stargate SG-1 name. While Messenger and his group (starting with the story Mutant) represent Angel and his group, they are not protected by trademark or copyright. But I feel impressed to at least acknowledge the source of the inspiration behind those and other characters that I have used in my works.
Page created June 12, 2007
Correction pass: June 14, 2007
Expanded and updated for clarity: August 21, 2007