G'ha! I'm amatur-lawyering again! *sigh*...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Martin L.
> Shoemaker
> Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2000 3:21 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: [Open_Gaming] The Spirit and the Letter
> 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.
I think the alternative interpretation wouldn't fall under fair use... which
is a Bad Thing, if you don't have permission from Tolkien's estate.
> And again, even if I get away with it, knowledgeable fans will be
> offended.
Which is ALSO a Bad Thing, although I don't think quite as bad as a
copyright violation...
> 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.
Ugh.
> * "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.
Dear god, that's retchid!
> 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.
Hey, I think that proves my point. :)
> 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.
And the moral of this story:
Don't make cheesy OGL'd stuff, because cheesy OGL'd stuff sucks.
DM
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