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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2017 8:39:10 GMT
Liberation Day for all of Wells’ novels currently under copyright is 1st January 2017?? Yes, but that's not the same as copyright for any audio works. It would be like if Tolkein's Hobbit went out of copyright. You couldn't then just make a movie of the novel, because New Line would argue it infringes their copyright. You could however release your own edition of the book without paying royalties, etc.
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Post by mark687 on Jan 13, 2017 11:15:47 GMT
How in the world (no pun intended) has this missed by both companies in negotiations "someone else owns an audio copyright and only based upon vrsions might be acceptable"
Regards
mark687
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2017 13:02:58 GMT
How in the world (no pun intended) has this missed by both companies in negotiations "someone else owns an audio copyright and only based upon vrsions might be acceptable" Regards mark687 Mind boggling that BF didn't spot the potential issue, when the other company clearly did.
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Post by pawntake on Jan 13, 2017 14:06:09 GMT
Liberation Day for all of Wells’ novels currently under copyright is 1st January 2017?? Yes, but that's not the same as copyright for any audio works. It would be like if Tolkein's Hobbit went out of copyright. You couldn't then just make a movie of the novel, because New Line would argue it infringes their copyright. You could however release your own edition of the book without paying royalties, etc. I take your point,so Jeff Waynes audio copyright is still valid. Any idea when it expires? H G Wells passed away seventy years ago!!
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Post by acousticwolf on Jan 13, 2017 14:56:41 GMT
According to the project's kickstarter page the main issues are:
and later:
Which presumably means that both projects (Sherwood & BF) are affected by this and have to seek permission from Wayne (or in other words pay him lots of money) before the title can be used on anything that isn't print, television or movie.
Cheers
Tony
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Post by acousticwolf on Jan 13, 2017 15:01:24 GMT
How in the world (no pun intended) has this missed by both companies in negotiations "someone else owns an audio copyright and only based upon vrsions might be acceptable" Regards mark687 To be fair to EverybodyElse (or Sherwood Sound Studios as they are now known), they have been in negotiations about this since 2014 (according to their initial kickstarter project). I am more surprised that BF may have missed it (especially as they are always going on about various rights issues). Cheers Tony
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Post by kimalysong on Jan 14, 2017 1:30:11 GMT
The copyright system is old and outdated and needs to be reworked
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Post by gregm on Jan 14, 2017 11:26:48 GMT
The copyright system is old and outdated and needs to be reworked It also varies from country to country, just to make matters more confusing (so something can be in copyright in one country and out of it in another). Of course, people who derive income from their copyrights (or from cpyrights of ancestors) would probably favour a reworking that strengthened their income security...
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Post by Sherwood Sound on Jan 14, 2017 17:09:38 GMT
I'd like to clear up a few things.
Copyright and trade mark law are two completely different things. Copyright protects the work of the creator from being copied by a third party whereas trade marks are a commercial mark that identifies the origin of a product and protects that 'brand' from being confused with another similar or identical mark. For example, the series title Doctor Who is a trade mark of the BBC. If ITV produced a TV drama called Doctor Who about solving the case of a murdering GP then the BBC would have grounds to enforce their trade mark rights for infringement.
However, as it stands, the law on copyright expired stories where a trade mark still exists is a little more foggy. Hope of clearing this up is just around the corner but I will say this... You cannot readily identify the public domain source of an adaptation without using the original title of that material.
Please try not to underestimate or production values. Sure, Big Finish is more well-known but our signature sound, style of drama and preservation of quality over loudness give us a bit of an edge. If you've heard Big Finish's Doctor Who boxset UNIT: Dominion then you will have heard my sound design, editing and music. With The War of the Worlds we are going for incredibly faithful, realistic and horrifically dark as intended by Wells. Those of you that have read the novel will know about the death of a young lad as the Martians feed... Things like this will not be cut!
I'm not too worried about Big Finish doing it too, and we won't be the only ones! Our adaptation is a labour of love that both Nick Scovell, the script writer, and I have wanted to do for many years.
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Post by acousticwolf on Jan 17, 2017 11:02:23 GMT
I'd like to clear up a few things. Copyright and trade mark law are two completely different things. Copyright protects the work of the creator from being copied by a third party whereas trade marks are a commercial mark that identifies the origin of a product and protects that 'brand' from being confused with another similar or identical mark. For example, the series title Doctor Who is a trade mark of the BBC. If ITV produced a TV drama called Doctor Who about solving the case of a murdering GP then the BBC would have grounds to enforce their trade mark rights for infringement. However, as it stands, the law on copyright expired stories where a trade mark still exists is a little more foggy. Hope of clearing this up is just around the corner but I will say this... You cannot readily identify the public domain source of an adaptation without using the original title of that material. Please try not to underestimate or production values. Sure, Big Finish is more well-known but our signature sound, style of drama and preservation of quality over loudness give us a bit of an edge. If you've heard Big Finish's Doctor Who boxset UNIT: Dominion then you will have heard my sound design, editing and music. With The War of the Worlds we are going for incredibly faithful, realistic and horrifically dark as intended by Wells. Those of you that have read the novel will know about the death of a young lad as the Martians feed... Things like this will not be cut! I'm not too worried about Big Finish doing it too, and we won't be the only ones! Our adaptation is a labour of love that both Nick Scovell, the script writer, and I have wanted to do for many years. Thanks for that. Liking the new poster and the alternate one - hope you get to use it . So what's the release schedule now? Still first half of this year (April-May time)? Cheers Tony
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Post by Sherwood Sound on Jan 17, 2017 12:00:06 GMT
That's right, Tony. First half of the year for release.
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Jan 28, 2017 23:20:33 GMT
How in the world (no pun intended) has this missed by both companies in negotiations "someone else owns an audio copyright and only based upon vrsions might be acceptable" Regards mark687 Mind boggling that BF didn't spot the potential issue, when the other company clearly did. I say this as someone who loves Big Finish to bits but they are the company that took three years to realize their main postal carrier had raised their rates and they were losing a lot of money on shipping. Big Finish is a small company and I doubt if their legal department consists of many people. I have little trouble believing they didn't know about Wayne's ownership of the title prior to announcing it.
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Post by barnabaslives on Jan 29, 2017 21:41:05 GMT
It is a slightly bizarre thing to consider that a work may enter the public domain but not its title, even if I understand why.
Well, buck up - War of the Worlds might be owned as a trademark but I'll bet that Skirmish of the Spheres and Battle of the Big Round Things are still totally up for grabs :-)
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Feb 16, 2017 2:04:48 GMT
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Post by gregm on Feb 18, 2017 4:52:02 GMT
Me too! I have the BBC War of the Worlds from 1967 released as part of the BBC Classic Radio Sci-Fi series (their earlier radio adaptation is lost, at least at the moment) - the cover claims this is a new adaptation, but I can't see a more recent one! Anyone have info?
And does the use of the real name perhaps relate to the BBC copyright material being produced before Jeff Wayne's trademark of the name?
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Feb 18, 2017 6:04:09 GMT
Me too! I have the BBC War of the Worlds from 1967 released as part of the BBC Classic Radio Sci-Fi series (their earlier radio adaptation is lost, at least at the moment) - the cover claims this is a new adaptation, but I can't see a more recent one! Anyone have info? And does the use of the real name perhaps relate to the BBC copyright material being produced before Jeff Wayne's trademark of the name? I have no idea.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2017 18:06:23 GMT
Me too! I have the BBC War of the Worlds from 1967 released as part of the BBC Classic Radio Sci-Fi series (their earlier radio adaptation is lost, at least at the moment) - the cover claims this is a new adaptation, but I can't see a more recent one! Anyone have info? And does the use of the real name perhaps relate to the BBC copyright material being produced before Jeff Wayne's trademark of the name? Something like that I'd imagine. The BBC Radio adaptations of War of the Worlds were long before Jeff Wayne's version, so yeah, that might explain the BBC Classic Radio Sci-Fi CD release of the 1967 BBC War of the Worlds adaptation a decade ago without any problems. This is the CD I have of this story. (The BBC Classic Radio Sci-Fi releases are generally underrated, they really are classics and deserve a much wider audience!) Of course, if BF really wanted to release an audio version of The War of the Worlds under that title, they could always ask Jeff Wayne to do the music for it!
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Post by Gary Bates on Feb 20, 2017 10:21:08 GMT
Me too! I have the BBC War of the Worlds from 1967 released as part of the BBC Classic Radio Sci-Fi series (their earlier radio adaptation is lost, at least at the moment) - the cover claims this is a new adaptation, but I can't see a more recent one! Anyone have info? The brand new two part adaptation of "The War of the Worlds" begins on Saturday 4th March on BBC Radio 4 at 2.30pm. More info and cast details are on the programme pages below: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08gw7mdwww.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hdk9d
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Post by gregm on Feb 25, 2017 2:18:23 GMT
Thanks, Gary. I've started relistening to my existing audio versions (Orson Welles, BBC 1967 and Jeff Wayne) - not directly one after the other. So I may hear 6 versions (at least) this year...
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Post by fitzoliverj on Feb 25, 2017 19:42:05 GMT
There must be something funny going on with these rights. In today's Telegraph there's a review of Stephen Baxter's sequel to the book, "The Massacre of Mankind" - Googling around, there seems to be a lot of confusion as to its status. I suspect, incidentally, that if there is some dispute over the ownership of the 'War of the Worlds' name, Big Finish probably reckon it's not worth the effort for a small company like them. The BBC, meanwhile, has weight, clout, and expensive lawyers on their side, if need be. I wonder if this guy also has lawyers? D G Leigh, author of 'The Massacre of Mankind - Sherlock Holmes vs The War of the Worlds"
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