I wish Harlan Ellison would just die already...

[OsmiumJohnnycake]

Lucasfilm was co-plaintiff in the lawsuit against MCA at al. for the original Battlestar Galactica, as I said just upthread.

Yeah, but that was quite a long time ago. Plus there have been other films that were more blatant rip offs of Star Wars. Disney's The Black Hole comes to mind.

Besides which, Lucas completely ripped off Lord of the Rings when he made Willow, so I don't think he has much ground to stand on suing others for stealing "his" ideas.

As far as I'm aware, Lucas didn't do anything to stop Starcrash, which blatantly used lightsabers in the immediate wake of Star Wars. Maybe it was viewed as not high profile enough to bother with, being an Italian b-movie ripoff of an American film, but that didn't stop Spielberg from going after The Last Shark for ripping off Jaws (and successfully having it yanked from theaters after two weeks iirc).

Still, Starcrash had a decent budget for the type of film it was (think I read something about $1 million or more) and it recently got a Bluray release. Of course The Last Shark is on DVD now and available as an Amazon instant download, so I don't know what the ultimate resolution of that case was, either.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

But anyway, again, if there were anything actionable, why didn't any of the Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Enterprises, Saul Zaentz, or United Artists, as appropriate, file suit? It's not like any of them were too poor at that time to protect their property, which by the time of Willow was recognized as valuable.

I don't know. I'm not saying the similarities are enough to make a case over, just that they were enough to show that one influenced the other.

Either way, Terry Brooks pretty blatantly ripped off the characters and plot of The Lord of the Rings for The Sword of Shannara. That novel did incredibly well, and as far as I know Tolkien's estate didn't do anything.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Either way, Terry Brooks pretty blatantly ripped off the characters and plot of The Lord of the Rings for The Sword of Shannara. That novel did incredibly well, and as far as I know Tolkien's estate didn't do anything.

Interestingly, Tolkien didn't believe there was anything that could legally be done if someone wrote stories set in Middle-Earth, according to some of his letters. I suspect he thought that because of his academic interests; he worked with material where writers adapted and reworked others' tales, so in his mind it wasn't the idea itself that was the creation, it was the expression of the idea.

Dennis McKiernan's The Silver Call was originally written as a Lord of the Rings sequel, and his publisher negotiated with Tolkien's estate to publish it as such. Harry Turtledove's Videssos fantasy series also began as a Lord of the Rings sequel.

 

[Kegg]

^
Well, quite. Tolkein did not invent the words 'dwarves' or 'elves', even if so many post-Tolkein fantasy depictions of those races have more to do with Tolkein then any of the myths he drew on (especially elves). He didn't even technically invent 'orc', although he rather repurposed it as a synonym of goblin and that's another fantasy idea that's stuck with a multitude of imitators.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that 'Hobbit' and 'Ent' are considered copyrighted Tolkein-words (and I think Dungeons and Dragons was prevented from using them?)... though the thinly veiled 'Halflings' and 'Treants' of more than a couple fantasy settings amount to being their figleaf public domain equivalents.

 

[Stevil2001]

What is the first story involving time travel to the past? It can't be Connecticut Yankee.

Well, hell, according to Wikipedia the only one that predates it is a very close contemporary, "The Clock That Went Backwards" by Edward Page Mitchell. There's some ancient stuff with forward time travel, but time travel to the future is pretty trivial. I mean, I'm doing it now. And now. And now. And...

I've never read it, but it does have a great line on the first page: "A genealogy is a stupid thing." Indeed. Actually, wow, this guy came up with a lot of stuff (invisible people, FTL travel, cyborgs) in the 1880s, and I'd never even heard of him... I feel like Elijah Snow here.

It's a decent little story. Dude invents the time-travel story and (SPOILER) the predestination paradox to boot! Steven Moffat can eat his socks. Plus it uses Hegelian philosophy, which is probably a first and a last for sf. It's in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents: The Best Science Fiction of the 19th Century, which is a good collection.

^
Well, quite. Tolkein did not invent the words 'dwarves' or 'elves', even if so many post-Tolkein fantasy depictions of those races have more to do with Tolkein then any of the myths he drew on (especially elves). He didn't even technically invent 'orc', although he rather repurposed it as a synonym of goblin and that's another fantasy idea that's stuck with a multitude of imitators.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that 'Hobbit' and 'Ent' are considered copyrighted Tolkein-words (and I think Dungeons and Dragons was prevented from using them?)... though the thinly veiled 'Halflings' and 'Treants' of more than a couple fantasy settings amount to being their figleaf public domain equivalents.

Yup, early D&D used "hobbit" and the Tolkien estate sued them, and so they used a different name to describe the exact same thing.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I think the problem here isn't that Harlan's mad, it's that he appears to be impeding other creators.

How is stopping someone from ripping you off considered "impeding?" if they are creators, then CREATE.

I don't see how this action impedes other creators.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Tolkein did not invent the words 'dwarves' ...

Actually, I read that he did popularise, if not actually invent, that form of the plural - the usual form is "dwarfs".

http://www.grammarist.com/usage/dwarfs-dwarves/

 

[Myasishchev]

What is the first story involving time travel to the past? It can't be Connecticut Yankee.

Well, hell, according to Wikipedia the only one that predates it is a very close contemporary, "The Clock That Went Backwards" by Edward Page Mitchell. There's some ancient stuff with forward time travel, but time travel to the future is pretty trivial. I mean, I'm doing it now. And now. And now. And...

I've never read it, but it does have a great line on the first page: "A genealogy is a stupid thing." Indeed. Actually, wow, this guy came up with a lot of stuff (invisible people, FTL travel, cyborgs) in the 1880s, and I'd never even heard of him... I feel like Elijah Snow here.

It's a decent little story. Dude invents the time-travel story and (SPOILER) the predestination paradox to boot! Steven Moffat can eat his socks. Plus it uses Hegelian philosophy, which is probably a first and a last for sf. It's in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents: The Best Science Fiction of the 19th Century, which is a good collection.

I'm actually going to get around to reading it shortly.

Regarding Hegelian stuff, it might not get mentioned by name, but I could probably name a dozen works that deploy a Hegelian view of history--well, at least a Fichtean one.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

Yup, early D&D used "hobbit" and the Tolkien estate sued them, and so they used a different name to describe the exact same thing.

One of the early Ultima games had Hobbit as a selectable race.

I can understand them taking D&D to court, considering they did come out with their own role playing game.

 

[JRoss]

I think the problem here isn't that Harlan's mad, it's that he appears to be impeding other creators.

How is stopping someone from ripping you off considered "impeding?" if they are creators, then CREATE.

I don't see how this action impedes other creators.

Because from the arguments put forward it does not sound as if Ellison is actually being ripped off. It sounds more like Mr. Crankypants wants a monopoly on certain types of stories.

I think it would be great if the ghost of Mark Twain sued so that the end of each of those Outer Limits episodes have to have "credit is given to the works of Mark Twain" at the end.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I think the problem here isn't that Harlan's mad, it's that he appears to be impeding other creators.

How is stopping someone from ripping you off considered "impeding?" if they are creators, then CREATE.

I don't see how this action impedes other creators.

Because from the arguments put forward it does not sound as if Ellison is actually being ripped off. It sounds more like Mr. Crankypants wants a monopoly on certain types of stories.

We don't know the details of the arguments.

Did you feel that he was impeding Terminator?

I think it would be great if the ghost of Mark Twain sued so that the end of each of those Outer Limits episodes have to have "credit is given to the works of Mark Twain" at the end.

You're getting stuck that this is about GENERAL ideas. It's not. It's about infringing on copyright. Which is a much more detailed thing.

If Outer Limits did a story about A Connecticut Yankee in Caveman's Court, then, yeah... that MIGHT be infringing on his "copyright"... (I put it into quotes because I don't think Twain's copyright would have extended into the 60s). But, if it's just a time travel story, then, no, Twain loses.

 

[David cgc]

I think the problem here isn't that Harlan's mad, it's that he appears to be impeding other creators.

How is stopping someone from ripping you off considered "impeding?" if they are creators, then CREATE.

I don't see how this action impedes other creators.

That's a facile argument. Chilling effects are very real things, and we're probably lucky as a society that Ellison is viewed as more of a troublesome crank than any kind of real threat.

Earlier in this thread, we had someone crack a joke that if someone was hoping to be a science fiction screenwriter, the best thing they could do is not read Harlan Ellison stories, to head off any possible accusations on his part. Another post pointed out how he seriously attempted legal action against the last Star Trek movie based on a completely unfounded rumor. Imagine if that had worked. Harlan Ellison, the knight in shining armor, defender of only the littlest of guys, manages to stop production a major motion picture not because they'd plagiarized him, not because they appeared to plagiarize him, but because they were rumored to have used something in a work-for-hire script he probably doesn't have independent ownership of. Granted, Ellison probably wishes he had the kind of pull that his baseless claim of a meritless accusation could stop a film in its tracks, but something on that scale would only need to happen once for it to become a third rail. Consider, if you will...

A recent episode of Doctor Who had a time-traveling robot assassin indistinguishable from a human. Couldn't have that, Harlan might sue. Don't you know his livelihood depends on being the exclusive provider of time-traveling android assassin stories? What about a stone ring that transports people through time and space by walking through it? God forbid!

Were that it could be so simple that you could just say x is similar to y, therefore x was stolen from y. We'd all be paying royalties back a hundred generations, in that case. The Estate of William Shakespeare would be making a killing.

Actually, that last bit gave me a thought. Does anyone know if Harlan Ellison ever made any kind of comment on the ungodly complicated WGA credit arbitration process? It seems somewhat at odds with his "I already published something that this reminds me of, so send me a big truck of money to make me shut up" approach.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I think the problem here isn't that Harlan's mad, it's that he appears to be impeding other creators.

How is stopping someone from ripping you off considered "impeding?" if they are creators, then CREATE.

I don't see how this action impedes other creators.

That's a facile argument. Chilling effects are very real things, and we're probably lucky as a society that Ellison is viewed as more of a troublesome crank than any kind of real threat.

Earlier in this thread, we had someone crack a joke that if someone was hoping to be a science fiction screenwriter, the best thing they could do is not read Harlan Ellison stories, to head off any possible accusations on his part. Another post pointed out how he seriously attempted legal action against the last Star Trek movie based on a completely unfounded rumor. Imagine if that had worked. Harlan Ellison, the knight in shining armor, defender of only the littlest of guys, manages to stop production a major motion picture not because they'd plagiarized him, not because they appeared to plagiarize him, but because they were rumored to have used something in a work-for-hire script he probably doesn't have independent ownership of. Granted, Ellison probably wishes he had the kind of pull that his baseless claim of a meritless accusation could stop a film in its tracks, but something on that scale would only need to happen once for it to become a third rail. Consider, if you will...

A recent episode of Doctor Who had a time-traveling robot assassin indistinguishable from a human. Couldn't have that, Harlan might sue. Don't you know his livelihood depends on being the exclusive provider of time-traveling android assassin stories? What about a stone ring that transports people through time and space by walking through it? God forbid!

Were that it could be so simple that you could just say x is similar to y, therefore x was stolen from y. We'd all be paying royalties back a hundred generations, in that case. The Estate of William Shakespeare would be making a killing.

Actually, that last bit gave me a thought. Does anyone know if Harlan Ellison ever made any kind of comment on the ungodly complicated WGA credit arbitration process? It seems somewhat at odds with his "I already published something that this reminds me of, so send me a big truck of money to make me shut up" approach.

Copyright infringement is much more than a similar idea. Ideas are NOT copyrightable.

The burden is on Ellison to prove the infringement.

Yes, a company might choose to go pay him off rather than spend the money to go to court to win--that's an economic choice: that it's cheaper to pay him off than to spend the money and maybe win.

The thing is: if Ellison REALLY thinks this movie is based on his work, he doesn't ACTUALLY want the movie stopped. He wants a percentage of the profits. AND, if he WAS ripped off, he's entitled to it.

HOWEVER, if he ISN'T being ripped off, then he's entitled to ZERO. ZIP. Except a bill from his lawyer.

Ideas are NOT copyrightable. It's the execution of the idea. Anyone can write a human looking android assassin. But, if I write a story about a human looking android assassin who goes back in time to kill the mother of the leader of the resistance in the future... now I'm treading on thin ice.

Again, it's about SPECIFICS, not GENERALITIES.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Would someone enlighten me with specifics which show that in the past Ellison has threatened or pursued litigation for infringement on grounds with no more merit than "I already published something that this reminds me of, so send me a big truck of money to make me shut up", please?

I took the trouble to support the claim that one of his previous cases did have merit.

Thank you.

 

[Kegg]

But surely the only way to stuidously avoid Harlan Ellison lawsuits would not be to not read his fiction, but to read all his fiction, so one would know enough to not accidentally duplicate it, hmm?

Seriously though, all Harlan Ellison did about the rumour that the new Trek movie might be using his idea was get angry on the internet. I don't really think he'd go to court over baseless hearsay, but the internet's the internet. Perhaps not a terribly wise move, but in no way is it dangerous.

Actually, I read that he did popularise, if not actually invent, that form of the plural - the usual form is "dwarfs".

Point. The same's true for 'Elves' as opposed to 'Elfs'. Tolkein liked swapping out fs for vs, clearly.

 

[Klaus]

JRRT had a lot of trouble with copy editors who tended to use "dwarfs"...

...and Ellison is a great natural resource, one shouldn't wish him gone when all you have to do is ignore him if you so desire. I wasn't going to post in this thread at all given the title, but I decided I had to say something. Even wanting to name the thread this is a sign of deep, deep problems IMHO. Please try to get some counselling and try not to hurt yourself or anyone else in the meantime.

And if you think I'm overreacting to fanboy hyperbole, I think there is a line and this crosses it.

 

[David cgc]

Copyright infringement is much more than a similar idea. Ideas are NOT copyrightable.

The burden is on Ellison to prove the infringement.

Yes, a company might choose to go pay him off rather than spend the money to go to court to win--that's an economic choice: that it's cheaper to pay him off than to spend the money and maybe win.

Ah, ah, ah, you're leaving out a possibility. The company might not have the wherewithal to pursue the lawsuit or to settle monetarily, and so it might simply can the project, or preemptively avoid any productions that have even the merest potential to be lawsuit-bait. Hence, impeding creativity, chilling effect, so on, so forth.

It's not like this isn't a consideration. And while he's hardly all-powerful, Harlan Ellison is notable. When he talks, people listen.

Ideas are NOT copyrightable. It's the execution of the idea. Anyone can write a human looking android assassin. But, if I write a story about a human looking android assassin who goes back in time to kill the mother of the leader of the resistance in the future... now I'm treading on thin ice.

Again, it's about SPECIFICS, not GENERALITIES.

I admit, The Outer Limits is a bit of a hole in my classical education, but I don't see those bolded bits anywhere in the synopsis of "Soldier" or "Demon With A Glass Hand."

Actually, that's now inaccurate. As has been mentioned up-thread, the story goes that the beginning of "Terminator," specifically, was a direct rip-off of the beginning of "Soldier." "Soldier" happens to be on Hulu, so I just watched the beginning.

Holy.

Shit.

So, the similarities were, a desolate future-war landscape, and a disoriented future-soldier appears out of a time-warp in an alley and is taken into custody because he's apparently a dangerous madman. This was worth suing over. I mean, I was expecting something like "The Island". If you replace "future-war" with "alien" and "future-soldier" with "future-doctor," and throw in the part about killing a hobo with a raygun, "Soldier" and "City on the Edge of Forever" are a far closer match (which is a similarity an uncharitable person might use to explain why Ellison so jealously guards decades-old royalties. I guess it's what they say about how stealing from other people is plagiarism, but stealing from yourself is just having a style).

 

[Amaris]

If his work has been infringed upon, I hope is successful in his lawsuit.

 

[JRoss]

Funny thing about this thread title and the uproar it has caused? It's within the realm of probability that Harlan might make a similar comment about someone he disliked.

 

[scnj]

Ideas are NOT copyrightable. It's the execution of the idea. Anyone can write a human looking android assassin. But, if I write a story about a human looking android assassin who goes back in time to kill the mother of the leader of the resistance in the future... now I'm treading on thin ice.

Again, it's about SPECIFICS, not GENERALITIES.

In this case, I don't think the execution of the ideas are close enough to merit this lawsuit going far. The one major similarity is the villain in each story being called Timekeeper, but I'm pretty sure that could be chalked up to an honest coincidence.