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| SFReader Forums > SFReader > Ask The Expert > Conan&Tarzan&Public Domain | Forum Quick Jump
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nathan
Sage
      
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2178
| Posted 11/9/2007 4:08 PM (GMT -5) |   | | It is my unresearched understand that the "statue of limititions" (or whatever) for character trademark is 70 years. This would put both Conan, Cthullu, Tarzan, etc into the public domain.
I know some venues have been doing Conan and Tarzan and Cuthullu for example (though not John Carter of Mars) recently in movies, comics, RPGs, tie-in novels etc all.
But are they doing them because they paid for the trademark and own the properties or because the trademark is open and thus anyone can do it?
From my understanding I could, for example, write a Tarzan or John Carter. Am I (much like the man in Casablanca about the waters) sadly misinformed?
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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crystalwizard
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Nov 2006
Total Posts : 5194
| Posted 11/9/2007 4:12 PM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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John M. Whalen
flashg
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 446
| Posted 11/9/2007 6:21 PM (GMT -5) | | | Danton Burroughs, the grandson of ERB, just sold Pixar the rights to do a John Carter animated film. He also sold Disney the rights to Tarzan earlier. I would say that means they are not in the public domain. AND if you did a Tarzan or Carter pastiche without permision you would probably be sued not only by the Burroughs estate but by Disney and Pixar, and they are ruthless. | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2178
| Posted 11/9/2007 7:02 PM (GMT -5) | |
crystalwizard said...
nathan said...
K=John Carter vs. Cuthullu would be a sword & planet story A very, very, VERY short one! Oh, come on now. JC's very dexterous and agile...
...and prone to reincarnation.
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2178
| Posted 11/10/2007 12:28 PM (GMT -5) | | Hey look, I've always wanted to write a paistche of Howard and ERB--but not that way, lol. And as others have pointed out the lawyers from "The Happiest Place on Earth" don't **** around.
I'd love to send Tarzan off to some ruins near an elephant graveyard to save village children from a lesser Great Old One and maybe give him a tribal girlfriend. But really, Michael Isner was mean and I don't think his replacement is Mr. Cuddles, lol.
Too bad they own John Carter.
Which is neither here nor there. I'm just sitting around praying and casting incantations in the hope that Night Shade Books open up Karl Edward Wagner's Kane the way Conan has been opened up from time-to-time over the years from the 1960's Ace to thru Marvel to the last go around with TOR.
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 11/10/2007 6:11 PM (GMT -5) | | Hey look, I've always wanted to write a paistche of Howard and ERB--but not that way, lol. And as others have pointed out the lawyers from "The Happiest Place on Earth" don't **** around.
***
I was going to stay out of this thread, but I can't help myself. Rather than launcing into one of my infamous lectures, I'm just gonna toss out this concept:
Palimpsest (noun):
1 A manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible.
2 An object, place, or area that reflects its history.
In adaptations of fictional mythos think "Billy the Kid Meets Dracula" a successful palimpsest which is, irregardless of legal issues, a better paradigm than simply writing in someone else's mythos, per se.
My 2 cents.
"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel | | Back to Top | | |
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tchernabyelo
Acolyte
Date Joined Oct 2006
Total Posts : 474
| Posted 11/12/2007 6:43 AM (GMT -5) | | Copyright, which expires (the date of expiry differs in different countries) only applies to material written by the author during his/her lifetime. When copyright has lapsed, works can be published by anyone, which is why you get those various volumes of "the classics" by all manner of publishers - you or I can print up Charles Dickens or Jane Austen or Bram Stoker or Mary Shelley and sell them, and nobody can stop you.
However, characters and milieu can become licensed properties. Those can pass hither and yon in complex ownership terms.
As I understand it, if REH's stories have expired on copyright terms, FS or any other magazine can choose to publish them. But writing new stories featuring those characters is completely out of the question if there is ongoing ownership of the rights.
And Daniel - ain't no such word as "irregardless". Never has and never will be. Regardless, yes; irrespective, yes. Irregardless, no.
Sorry, just a pet peeve.
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2 (forthcoming)
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals (forthcoming)
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"When Winter Came" - ASIM#32 (forthcoming) | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 11/12/2007 1:57 PM (GMT -5) | |
It's a word. Non-standard, but in the dictionary. And I quote: "The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word. ” There is such a word, however."
Whoops....
"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel | | Back to Top | | |
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