In other words, there were enough similarities in protected expression to survive summary judgment. The case settled before trial. Greene has been conclusively drubbed by Shakespeare in the battle for historical relevance, but perhaps he can take comfort in two things. First, the earliest mention of Shakespeare in a published U. In his opinion in Emerson v. Davies , Justice Joseph Story supported his argument that copyright protection should be afforded to mere compilers of pre-existing materials i.
Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Shakespeare was not incentivized by copyright protection When London publishers and their lawyers were casting about for arguments to justify the perpetual printing monopolies that were the precursor to the Statute of Anne , they turned to Shakespeare.
Judge Hand, in affirming judgment for the defendant and 27 years before West Side Story , opined that: If Twelfth Night were copyrighted, it is quite possible that a second comer might so closely imitate Sir Toby Belch or Malvolio as to infringe, but it would not be enough that for one of his characters he cast a riotous knight who kept wassail to the discomfort of the household, or a vain and foppish steward who became amorous of his mistress.
I had no idea until reading this article. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details such as the timestamp may not fully reflect those of the original file. The timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.
From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. File information. Structured data. Captions English Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents. Italiano: Il 'secondo quarto' Q2. Il frontespizio del secondo quarto dell'Amleto. This file is lacking author information.
This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason:. However, as Said exposes, this is complicated by the relationship between readers and characters. He explains that copyright laws have not taken into consideration evidence that readers work a lot with characters.
Characters evolve per their readers, they can be completed by their imagination. In this sense, characters seem o stand by themselves, independent from their work. Readers become attached to characters, sometimes even more than to the story itself. However, whether the authors can protect their characters or not is very unclear.
There are too many variables, such as the nature of the character and their relationship to the text, what do they contribute to the story, and how they are described and delineated. This is particularly relevant to the case of the graphic novels Kill Shakespeare. Fable takes many different myths and fairy tales characters, from Cinderella to Little Red Riding Hood, and reimagines them in modern-day New York. Yes, the Bard himself is a character in these graphic novels. It is a parody of not only the plays, but the author himself.
One might wonder, what sort of parody? It could be a critique. McCreery comments on how students tend to be forced to read Shakespeare, implying that it is a tedious task McCreery, Could we see Kill Shakespeare as a critique of the medium and a way to make students want to learn about the English writer? The important questions are: what is being parodied?
Hypothetically, could we make a case for copyright infringement? Now, although the graphic novel and the original plays differ quite a lot, there are certain elements that can be found in both. The characters remain the same. Would this be enough to open a copyright case? Although these are well known characters with famous linguistic tendencies, catchphrases, mannerisms, relationships, and emotional traits, per the legal definition, Kill Shakespeare is clearly a parody work.
However, as Said explains, if a character constitutes what the story is, they could be copyrighted independently. We could debate for hours whether Hamlet is the most important character in Hamlet , but we cannot ignore that he does constitute a big portion of the play. Could we then say that McCreery and Del Col are committing a copyright infringement?
Probably not. We do not know much about their physical attributes and we cannot base ourselves in actors or actresses that have portrayed them before because they are all too different. The characters in Kill Shakespeare share the name given to them by Shakespeare, but physically they are owned by McCreery, Del Col, and Andy Belanger, the graphic artist. Now, we can argue about the ownership of characters based in their delineation in Kill Shakespeare , but we can only argue about the difference between copyright infringement and parody in a hypothetical case since Shakespeare and his work are actually public domain.
A better example for this are fanfictions. Fanfictions are, as the name implies, works of fiction written by fans of particular canonical universe such as Star Trek, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and many others. They are pieces of fiction created by authors who use material from pre-existing works.
Perhaps the biggest collection of fanfictions right now is that of the Harry Potter series. Copyright law requires that writers who use pre-existing material ask permission to the original author. Although fanfictions writer do not contact J.
Legend says she even has a FanFiction. Net profile! Yet, one cannot help but to wonder: are fanfiction legal? Fanfictions usually make no money for they are published online. Also, most of the fanfiction writers labeled their works as AU alternative universes and their characters as OOC out of character.
However, the problem is that whether the fanfictions are AU or canon-verse, the characters are problematic, no matter if they are OOC or follow the canon mannerisms and emotional traits.
Said explains:. Said, In the case of Harry Potter fanfictions, the physical attributes of the characters are problematic.
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