Quote:
Originally Posted by Sauron the White
from WCH -
This is not at all what I have been taught copyright to mean. Could you please cite some law or legal language which supports this position which is quite a bit broader than anything I have ever read or understood?
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STW, copyright exists from the moment a work is created. That's one of the basics.
Here is a link which may answer some of your questions:
http://www.publaw.com/cfaqs.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sauron the White
Question: if I sell you exclusive film rights for a 1,000 word short story can I then wait a few years, write a novel length version of the story including many of the same characters, scenes, and events and sell that version to someone else in film rights? Would not the appearance of a far more detailed book length version compound and greatly impact my efforts to use the rights I have already purchased from you?
Of course, I could still do it. But your subsequent actions will cause my legal usage of those original rights to be ridiculed, derided and castigated because they are different that what people have read in the fuller treatment.
That reality materially diminishes the rights you sold to me.
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Indeed... but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll get compensation, which is what your argument seems to turn on– unless I've misunderstood it again. (I'm finding the point-of-view shift in that passage rather confusing.)
And no,
The Silmarillion is not a derivative work.