My understanding is that - the writer writes the script, which is subject to the usual literary copyright rules - the contract writers are employed under is some kind of a license-to-perform-and-broadcast rather than a complete buyout of everything, to give them long term creative control and a possible long term revenue stream from their creations, and to avoid paying excessive ammounts of BBC license fee money for 'all rights' buyout. - effectively, the writer still owns the 'characters'- as they're considered to be 'a substantial part' of the work; copyright applies to parts of works as well as the whole thing.
- the people who designed the daleks were employed by the bbc, and their contracts of employment have a specific clause assigning copyright in all work done for the bbc to the bbc, even though this is covered in copyright law anyway.* - the visual designs are covered by the artitic and designs provision, plus the instantiation from plans in copyright law But I am not a lawyer. You'd need to check with a rights professional to verify my understanding. *BBC contracts still contain this clause, irrc. This email is BBC copyright, as it's being written in the course of my work, using BBC tools. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Crossland > Sent: 13 February 2007 11:20 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: > [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] > RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC > Bias??? >Click and Torrents) > > On 13/02/07, Kim Plowright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > (Yep - the BBC doesn't even own the Daleks...) > > > > The BBC owns *half* the daleks - specifically, the look and visual > > identity. The estate of Terry Nation owns their behaviour. > > > > So - if you want to use a picture of a dalek, you approach > the BBC. If > > you want said dalek to move around shouting 'Exterminate!' > > you deal with the Nation estate. > > Fascinating. How is it possible for 'the look' and 'the > behaviour' to be restricted in this way? > > Coming from the world of software programs, where "clean room" > reimplementation of visual identity and behaviour is > neccessary to do anything - and why software idea patents are > so harmful - I am totally in the dark about how this works. > > The "format rights" that were mentioned earlier seem to be a > mirage, lots of handwaving about copyright and trademarks, > but caselaw against the idea. > > I cannot see how copyright can be extended in this way. > Please point me at URLs, or key search terms, or explain :-) > > -- > Regards, > Dave > - > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To > unsubscribe, please visit > http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > Unofficial list archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
