On Thu, 03 Apr 2003 23:26:59 -0800 Victoria Tarrani 
writes:
> Thanks for the welcoming note.
> 
> Yes, these fairy tales have moved into public domain, but I was 
> looking
> at the story and how it has been used over and over.  That is what 
> I
> think the real point is.
> 
> Disney's Black Cauldron is about an unprepared boy who takes on a 
> mission
> to save the crown; right a wrong; save the world.

(Pssst! It's Lloyd Alexander's Black Cauldron... Disney adapted it for
the screen. And totally mismarketed it (definitely a BAD choice for
little 3 year olds), but let's not go there. If you haven't read the
Taran threesome, they are MORE than worth it.)

Anyway, yes, assuredly, certain themes and situations replay themselves
throughout literature.... Nothing new under the sun (--Solomon the Wise,
Ecclesiastes 3, I believe....)
And that will go on so long as we remain recognizably human.
But there ARE lines of encroachment on others' copyrighted intellectual
property which writers shouldn't cross willy nilly -- and, unfortunately,
there ARE large entities with major legal departments (not to mention
enormous over-devoted fan-bases, who damn with even less legal
precedence) out there who overzealously widen those lines and "protect"
them. 

However, this is not a new phenomena, and I should think that legal
precidence is pretty set on the matter.

[I do recall the scrambling when computer media entered the fray -- back
in the early early days of PCs there was a German law which forfeited
copyright when a matter was copied to a new media -- e.g. tape to floppy
disk or floppy disk to eprom. I am foggy on the details, it WAS '81,
after all, and I'm sure since revised to greater protections. But we at
Olivetti had to deal with the implication.]

One of us might see if e-Brary (I think it is) has a site -- they're a
start-up (ok, 5, 10 years old?) which deals directly with the issue of
protecting copyrighted material in the multimedia/internet world. When my
friend was working there, it was all new and hush-hush (and Ken was
always Lawful Good about non-disclosure agreements), so I have few
specifics beyond this most general concept. I'm woggled today, and
probably through and after the 15th, so can't spare the bandwidth
immediately -- not that anyone really cares.

'Best!
BarbJ

====
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. --Mark
Twain 
====
[Courage is...] tasting the vegetable before making a face. --Bernard
Waber

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