Re: New Apple II SuperSite Online

[Roy and/or Janet Miller <millers@inetnebr.com>]

**** **** wrote:

>
> Ah. This I might be willing to concede is fair and even ethical law. But,
> how does it fit into things, when a corporation such as Disney releases a
> movie or game based on public domain stories? They in particular have a
> history of co-opting public domain "IP" for their own use, giving nothing in
> return, and then even trying to sue others who quite legally also use this
> public domain "IP".

I'm not sure what you mean by "IP", nor have I heard of Disney suing anyone for
using a public domain story. However, if someone were to use images from one of
their moronic stories, that would be a violation of Disney's copyright. Is
someone wrote a children's book based on their version of a public domain story,
it would violate their copyright on their version. In the area of music, if you
make an arrangement of a public domain piece, your arrangement can be
copyrighted.

> Also, I don't like the idea of criminalizing fan
> fiction.

Just because you are a fan doesn't give you the right to violate the copyright.
When I was in college, a friend an I took the Avalon Hill game Midway, and
working from it created a Star Trek game. We put a LOT of work into it (and it
was a lot of fun to play) however, what we did violated the Star Trek
copyrights, and might have violated the Avalon Hill copyrights too (I'm not so
sure on that, since we used ideas, not images or rules, etc.) We could have
changed the names of ships, races, weapons, etc, and then we might have been
able to sell or give the game away, however, in the form in which we made it, we
didn't have the right to do so.

Besides, it's a civil violation, not a criminal one.

Roy