🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1385@necis.UUCP> adamm@necis.UUCP (Adam S. Moskowitz) writes:
>In article <67632@sgi.sgi.com>, karsh@trifolium.esd.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) wrote:
>> In article <3231@awdprime.UUCP>, tif@doorstop.austin.ibm.com (Paul
>> Chamberlain/32767) wrote:
>>> 
>>> Does reading a story
>>> then writing a new one
>>> with the same plot
>>> (with no copied text)
>>> infringe on copyright?
>>
>>     Yes.
>
>Oh, come on, Bruce; you're wrong and you know it! Copyright, as it pertains
>to written works and films, and as defined by several thousand cases (known
>as precedents) say you're wrong and I'll offer just a few examples:

I'll quote an example from "How to Copyright Software", by Attorney M.J.
Salone:

	Carl Jones' computer game, GOTTCHA began with Carl's idea of
	having John Law Fuzz chase and capture Bad Guy Biker.  The
	program, consisting of Carl's expression of the ide of John
	chasing and capturing Bad Guy, is protectable by copyright.
	But Carl's copyright won't protect him from someone else
	designing a game using the idea of a cop (or anyone else)
	chasing and capturing a criminal.  In other words, another program-
	mer is legally free to produce a similar cop and biker game,
	as long as he doesn't directly copy Carl's story (expression).

So the point is that if you don't directly copy the story, you can get
away with it.  But if you directly copy the story and therefore make a
derivative work, you'll infringe.

At least that's my understanding of it.  I'm not a lawyer and I don't intend
to play one on usenet.  Are there any lawyers listening who could clarify
the issue of how close a (non independently created) copy can be without
infringing.

>Akira Kurosawa (sp?) directed a bunch of films starring Toshiro Mifune as a
>samurai (The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Zatoichi, Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, . . .)
>Clint Eastwood starred in several movies as a gunslinger (Fistful of Dollars,
>High Plains Drifter, . . .) The Clint Eastwood films were direct "rip-offs"
>(to use a term I'm sure you'll like) of the Kurosawa films; or was it the
>other way around? Did anyone sue anyone over those films? I don't think so.

"The Magnificent Seven" and the "The Seven Samurai" are, I think, an example of
what you are discussing.

There are several possibilities.  The producers of the copycat films
could have licensed the Kurosawa film from their copyright holder.
The copycat films could be protected behind the fair use doctorine
which, among other things, protects parodies.  The copyrights on the
story behind the Kurosawa films may have expired.  The producers may
have concluded that their film was sufficiently different that it was
substantially an original work.  The owner of the story may have put it
in the public domain.  There are a lot of possibilities.

I was not involved.  But just because a work has been copied is no reason to
presume that it was illegally copied.

The movie studios know how to get licenses and when they need to get them.
They do it all the time.

Quoting from "How to Copyright Software":

	At one end of the continuum, a work so clearly relies on another
	that it's obviously derivative.  An example would be a song with
	only a few notes changed from an already copyrighted one.

	At the other end of the continuum, a song with only a few minor
	similarities is clearly not derivative, but rather an original
	work of authorship entitled to copyright status on its own.

	In the middle of the continuum is a large gray area, where the
	judgement as to whether one work is a derivative of another is as
	likely to depend on what the judge had for breakfast as on any
	abstract legal principal or formula.

>"Star Wars", by what's-his-name Lucas, "borrowed" more than a few ideas from
>Kurosawa's (?) film "The Hidden Fortress" and again, no suits.

You can certainly borrow some ideas.  You may not create a derivative work.

>The movies "Breathless" (I think that was the one) and "DOA" were both
>re-made. Same exact (!) plot, almost identical characters, just shifted a few
>years forward. Suits? I'm almost certain not.

Licenses and royalties.

>Why no suits? Because no copyrights were infringed upon. You're wrong,

Copyrights don't mean that you can't copy.  They mean that you must obtain
permission to copy.  The licensing of copyrighted works is very common
in the entertainment industry.

			Bruce Karsh
			karsh@sgi.com