Copyright question re: Peter Watts "The Things"

[Ryujin]

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

And the subject of a rather good documentary, that's soon to be re-released on Blu-Ray now that the originators have gotten the rights back.

The 'derivative' aspect reminded me of the James Cameron/Harlon Ellison debacle over "The Terminator." Though Ellison didn't really seek a lot of money over it he was found to have been plagiarized, or at the very least heavily copied from, in the production of the original "The Terminator" movie. This could have been a similar mess, so I understand why a publisher would want to take a pass.