Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 homicidal_squirrel Jul 28, 2011 11:06:12	news.yahoo.com/lucas-loses-uk-battle-ove... What's the difference when it comes to copy-rights? Lucasfilm said that "unfortunately" the court had upheld an "anomaly of British copyright law under which the creative and highly artistic works made for use in films — which are protected by the copyright laws of virtually every other country in the world — may not be entitled to copyright protection in the U.K."
#2 LFK Jul 28, 2011 12:12:43	Something to keep in mind is the purpose of copyright: it's to allow the creator of a work sufficient protection to allow them time to exploit and profit from the product of their labour. Outside the US, which recently changed their copyright laws, copyright only extends for a few decades, and in most cases ends with the artist's death or shortly thereafter, because the flip side of protecting the artist is the idea of public domain, that art and culture are no one's explicit property, and that excessive restriction of what people can and cannot do with ideas cripples cultural growth. The difference is that props serve only a utilitarian purpose within the construction of a work of art, and even though they may involve great artistry in their construction they are, in and of themselves, just parts. Essentially the way UK law is set up is to protect the end product, not the parts, unlike the US system which protects toymakers, and thus props as "iconic imagery." Another thing is that this is in regards to physical products. The physical prop-object of the stormtrooper helmet is no longer copyright in UK, even though it's possible that the image of the stormtrooper may be. This actually carries somewhat in North America as well. The prop-object of Ridley Scott's Alien is no longer protected, you can make as many Alien knock-off costumes as you want, but the image of the Alien is still copyright. Now, honestly, most creative people don't care a whole ton about their characters or imagery being recycled by others, since they probably stole the idea in whole or part from someone else in the first place, but there's a handful of really anal people out there and George Lucas is one of them.
#3 LFK Jul 28, 2011 17:20:36	Isn't Star Wars just a collage of Westerns and Samurai flicks? With lasers. Exactly, which is why things are supposed to fade into the public domain.