From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Doug
Meerschaert
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2000 1:38 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Open_Gaming] The Spirit and the Letter
<< No, that can't be right... there are a LOT of stories that follow the
same
plot... Heck, there are a lot of stories that follow the same plot as LOTR,
and no one crys foul (well, no lawyers.)
How common is "Young novicies are called to do take powerful magic item into
evil lands to destroy the great evil becaues the more experienced folk
can't"?
Maybe I'm thinking about premise, rather than plot--ah well. >>
If you sum up a plot in one sentence, sure you can make it so generic no
lawyer will care.
But now make a more detailed theft: a bunch of young novices from a race of
short-statured demi-humans inherits a magic ring, which turns out to be the
key to the power of an evil ancient demigod. They set off on the road,
occasionally accompanied by a wizard who is himself a demigod, though he
cloaks his nature and functions more as an advisor than as a combatant.
Along the way...
And so on, and so on. If I basically outlined LOTR, then replaced the races
with my own races and the characters with my characters, I could expect to
hear from Tolkien Enterprises. Whether they won or not would depend on how
original my additions and changes were. If I transplanted it to a very
different setting... if I in some way made the story a commentary on
Tolkien, or an alternate interpretation (maybe telling the story from the
evil demigod's point of view)... or even if I changed the tone to
tongue-in-cheek humor... I'd probably prevail. But the closer I stuck to the
original, the more likely they would be to win a derivative claim.
And again, even if I get away with it, knowledgeable fans will be offended.
Ever see the last season of "Buck Rogers"? None of the plots was very
original, but two stand out. I can't recall the titles; but I think of them
as:
* "Space Dracula". They basically took a few elements of Stoker's "Dracula"
and transplanted it into space, with an evil space vampire taking possession
of Wilma Deering. This one was SO bad, I have to leave the room when it's
on.
* "Journey to Someplace That Looks a Lot Like Babel". They BLATANTLY stole
the premise of the old Star Trek episode, "Journey to Babel". AND they even
had Mark Lenard (who played Sarek in "Journey to Babel") as a guest star in
a VERY similar role. Then they tacked on a dumb riddling quest story that
never made the least bit of sense to me.
In the first instance, the source material has been public domain for a
century, so they're safe. In the second, the riddling quest and the whole
detachable head thing (don't ask) probably made enough difference to satisfy
any lawyer. But the utter lack of originality was still offensive.
To be fair: old Star Trek stole a few plots, too. "Gallileo Seven" was an
obvious rip-off of "Flight of the Phoenix". "Balance of Terror" was a plot
straight from many old submarine flicks, complete with the trick of shooting
the dead body out the torpedo tube to make the enemy think you're destroyed.
A plot cannot be copyrighted; but a case can be made that a plot is too
close, and thus derivative. These are among the hardest derivative cases to
prove; but they get prosecuted often.
Martin L. Shoemaker
Emerald Software, Inc. -- Custom Software and UML Training
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.EmeraldSoftwareInc.com
www.UMLBootCamp.com
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