Copyright question re: Peter Watts "The Things"

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tomBitonti

Adventurer

• Jun 30, 2015

• #1

Forked from http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?462203-Alien-Intelligence

Alzrius said:

I've long been fond of Peter Watts' short story "The Things", which is a retelling of the 1982 John Carpenter film The Thing from the point of view of the alien. It does an excellent job of putting us in a distinctly non-human mindset. And it has an audiobook version to boot!

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Can anyone explain why this is *not* a copyright infringement? There is no parody, and the story has a commercial value. And the work matches fine details, including names, from the original work.

Please don't take this as a criticism of the work, which is a good piece of work. And I'm not trying to get the author in trouble! I'm just wondering about the copyright aspects.

Thx!

TomB

 

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Morrus

Well, that was fun

Staff member

• Jun 30, 2015

• #2

I'm not familiar with the short story (though I've seen the film). Perhaps he had permission from John Carpenter?

 

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tomBitonti

Adventurer

• Jun 30, 2015

• #3

Morrus said:

I'm not familiar with the short story (though I've seen the film). Perhaps he had permission from John Carpenter?

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That's one possibility. Also, the story has certainly been around for a year or two, and has at least one publication: I expect that if there were a problem, we (very probably) would have heard about it.

I know that some derivative works are allowed, say "The Wind Done Gone", which is allowed as a satire (see http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93224). But, I don't think at applies here.

Thx!

TomB

 

Alzrius

The EN World kitten

• Jun 30, 2015

• #4

tomBitonti said:

And the work matches fine details, including names, from the original work.

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I'm honestly not certain that that's enough. The short story only refers to last names (e.g. Blair, Childs, MacReady, etc.), which are common surnames, so I don't think that that's enough to establish a copyright claim, even if it is clearly understood to be referring to the movie.

I can write a story about "Harry" who's a young wizard, so long as I don't mention anything that's unambiguously a reference to the works of J. K. Rowling (e.g. I don't talk about "Hogwarts" or "Dumbledore" or anything like that).

Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so I could be way off (and I suspect that whether or not something is definitively a copyright infringement is something that could only be settled by a court-issued judgment), but that's my understanding. There's no unambiguous reference to someone else's intellectual property there.

 

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tomBitonti

Adventurer

• Jun 30, 2015

• #5

Interesting:

http://www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp/2010/01/02/clarkesworld-and-peter-watts-the-things/

Story would have been accepted to Eclipse Three, but the editor declined to publish it because of copyright questions. The story was subsequently publish in Clarkesworld.

Thx!

TomB

 

Alzrius

The EN World kitten

• Jun 30, 2015

• #6

tomBitonti said:

Interesting:

http://www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp/2010/01/02/clarkesworld-and-peter-watts-the-things/

Story would have been accepted to Eclipse Three, but the editor declined to publish it because of copyright questions. The story was subsequently publish in Clarkesworld.

Thx!

TomB

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That is interesting! I hadn't noticed that blog post before, though it's notable that he clarifies in the comments that it was due to them not wanting to pay for a copyright lawyer to look it over and come to a conclusion, more than anything else.

I had initially wondered if the author could say that it was based on the original short story, but that was published in 1938, which I believe means that it's still under copyright also.

 

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tomBitonti

Adventurer

• Jun 30, 2015

• #7

Copyright used to be for a shorter period and used to require renewal?

Maybe the original copyright lapsed or expired.

The names are definitely in the original story. (See: http://nzr.mvnu.edu/faculty/trearic...scri/Who Goes There/Who Goes There Chap 1.htm).

Is it possible that only the visual and audio aspects of the film have copyright, and the text elements do not?

Thx!

TomB

 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Staff member

Supporter

• Jun 30, 2015

• #8

Homage usually gets a pass...unless an IP holder decides to press the issue. How much of The Mythos was written by people other than HPL?

Peter Schilling's "Major Tom" is clearly based on Bowie's Major Tom featured in "Space Oddity" and "Ashes to Ashes."

 

Umbran

Mod Squad

Staff member

Supporter

• Jun 30, 2015

• #9

Dannyalcatraz said:

Homage usually gets a pass...unless an IP holder decides to press the issue. How much of The Mythos was written by people other than HPL?

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Lovecraft is a horrible example, though. For one thing, he was particularly generous, and encouraged people to reference the Mythos. But, beyond that, some of his early work has fallen into public domain, the copyright status of the rest of his work is a bit of a mess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Copyright

 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Staff member

Supporter

• Jun 30, 2015

• #10

Good point.

Still, homages rarely result in lawsuits- Bowie could have crushed Schilling, no question, but did nothing. By my guesstimation, the best way to stave off a suit- after express permission, of course- is to make the homage GOOD.