joel@peora.UUCP (Joel Upchurch) (06/06/85)
> Ellison stated that the idea of 'The Terminator' came from > two episodes he wrote for 'Outer Limits'. The episode names elude > me but the plots were: 1) the soldier from the future, Quallo Kaprikni > (sic?), and 2) Bob Culp as a robot from the future with a glass hand > ('Demon with a Glass Hand'?). He therefore sued for copyright > infringement and won. > > Joe Barone, {allegra, decvax!brunix, linus, ccice5}!rayssd!m1b > Raytheon Co, Submarine Signal Div., Box 330, Portsmouth, RI 02871 This seems a little thin. The producers would have had to copied a lot more than the IDEA from Ellison for him to win a copyright suit. Ideas are not copyrightable, only the particular expression of those ideas are. If you could sue a writer for stealing an idea, they could sue every writer in existence. When was the last time you saw a TV show or a movie with an original plot? A writer has to be very good just to come up with an interesting variation of an old idea. I enjoyed the Terminator, even though I couldn't find a single element in the plot that hadn't been used before. As Siskel and Ebert pointed out, it actually works better as romance than Science Fiction. 'I came across time for you, Sarah.' Heck, most women today would feel lucky if they could find a guy that would stop off at the cleaners to pick up their laundry. :->
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (06/08/85)
In article <1027@peora.UUCP> joel@peora.UUCP (Joel Upchurch) writes: >> Ellison stated that the idea of 'The Terminator' came from >> two episodes he wrote for 'Outer Limits'. > >This seems a little thin. The producers would have had to copied a >lot more than the IDEA from Ellison for him to win a copyright suit. >Ideas are not copyrightable, only the particular expression of those >ideas are. If you could sue a writer for stealing an idea, they could >sue every writer in existence. When was the last time you saw a TV >show or a movie with an original plot? A writer has to be very good >just to come up with an interesting variation of an old idea. I read somewhere that the settlement with Ellison cost them $70K. (locus?) There is a strong difference between reusing and idea and rehashing a story. What is and isn't plagiarism is a very nebulous point, but there is a big difference between building a new story around an old idea (as Gerrold did with Trouble With Tribbles) and what seems to have happened here. This isn't the first time Hollywood has ripped off Harlan -- he and Ben Bova got a settlement a number of years ago for a TV show that ripped off their short story 'Brillo' about a robot cop. The reality is that SF authors get ripped off a LOT, mainly because they seem to be afraid to fight back, either independently or through their agents or SFWA. The Mystery Writers group, on the other hand, has relatively little problem because they DO tend to police their work. Harlan, who has been around that industry for a long time and isn't known for his timidity, is also not afraid to go for what he believes is his. If other authors or the SFWA took a more active stance in hollywood, perhaps hollywood would take SF a bit more seriously... -- :From the misfiring synapses of: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA The offices were very nice, and the clients were only raping the land, and then, of course, there was the money...
root@trwatf.UUCP (Lord Frith) (06/11/85)
In article <2818@nsc.UUCP> chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: > off their short story 'Brillo' about a robot cop. The reality is that SF > authors get ripped off a LOT, mainly because they seem to be afraid to > fight back, either independently or through their agents or SFWA. The > Mystery Writers group, on the other hand, has relatively little problem > because they DO tend to police their work. Harlan, who has been around that > industry for a long time and isn't known for his timidity, is also not > afraid to go for what he believes is his. If other authors or the SFWA took > a more active stance in hollywood, perhaps hollywood would take SF a bit > more seriously... How do you differentiate between rip-offs and coincidence? The idea of a robot cop doesn't sound so obtuse to gaurentee another writer won't think of it again... and invent story lines around it. Harlan's stories may have been inovative in their day, but that doesn't mean that they are inovative now. Thus it seems presumptuous for him to conclude that he was ripped off. Terminator is somewhat more unique than a robot cop story. "The sun never sets on this child...." -- UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!trwatf!root - Lord Frith ARPA: trwatf!root@SEISMO "Give a man a horse... and he thinks he's enormous"
hsu@cvl.UUCP (Dave Hsu) (06/12/85)
> In article <2818@nsc.UUCP> chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: > > off their short story 'Brillo' about a robot cop. The reality is that SF > > authors get ripped off a LOT, mainly because they seem to be afraid to > > fight back, either independently or through their agents or SFWA. The > > How do you differentiate between rip-offs and coincidence? The idea of a > robot > cop doesn't sound so obtuse to gaurentee another writer won't think of it > again... and invent story lines around it. > > UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!trwatf!root - Lord Frith > ARPA: trwatf!root@SEISMO > I seem to recall that OMNI mentioned this case 4 or 5 years ago. Ellison was apparently approached by (was it CBS?) a network for a storyline, and the 'Brillo' concept was the one they presented, only to be deep-sixed. Imagine your surprise if somebody produced something remarkably similar to a design of your own AFTER you've shown them how it works. Gee, we'd all go out, solicit inventions, turn them down, and then mass market the good ones for free. -dave
crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (06/12/85)
In article <981@trwatf.UUCP> root@trwatf.UUCP (Lord Frith) writes: >In article <2818@nsc.UUCP> chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >> off their short story 'Brillo' about a robot cop. .... > >How do you differentiate between rip-offs and coincidence? The idea of a robot >cop doesn't sound so obtuse to gaurentee another writer won't think of it >again... and invent story lines around it. In the Bova/Ellison case, the network had bought Brillo with a creative control clause for ellison and bova -- ellison and bova came to realize that the network was making crap from a pretty good story, and couldn't get them to stop, so they withdrew the story. The network made the show anyway, trying to use just this argument. And lost. -- Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (06/14/85)
> == Lord Frith >How do you differentiate between rip-offs and coincidence? How do you describe color to a blind man? That isn't as facetious an answer as you might think, because plagiarism is one of the great grey areas of literature law. >The idea of a robot >cop doesn't sound so obtuse to gaurentee another writer won't think of it >again... and invent story lines around it. The best way to look at this is through example. If I were to write a SF series set in a bar, I wouldn't have a lot of problem except having publishers return it as being derivative. Spider Robinson has done a bar series (Callahan's Bar) but doing another bar story doesn't mean I'm plagiarizing him. Now, if I decide to make one of the Bartenders Irish, and one of the Bartenders an ex-minister, and maybe one night a week we have a joke-a-thon and aliens keep wandering in after saving the world I'm sure I'd hear from Spider's lawyers. Bar stories aren't illegal. Bar stories that look like they have been borrowed from already published bar stories are. >Harlan's stories may have been inovative in their day, but that doesn't mean >that they are inovative now. Thus it seems presumptuous for him to conclude >that he was ripped off. It is also presumptuous for you to assume it otherwise. Whether or not his story is still innovative is beside the point. Harlan owns the copyright to Brillo, and the copyrights to the Twilight Zone scripts, and that gives him the right to market them as he sees fit. If someone infringes upon the marketability of his work by borrowing from them without paying him, then Harlan is out money and is within his right to try to get it back. If you decided to rewrite Unix, you could do so without any problem. If you decided to rewrite Unix, however, with any of the materials the AT&T considers proprietary, then AT&T would have your office 18 deep in lawyers. The laws are different (copyright vs trade secret/contractual) but the concept is the same. Harlan owns Brillo, AT&T owns Unix. Neither is unique, but if you use the protected resources to create another resource without paying for them they you are equally in the wrong whether that resource is software, a SF story, or the patented formula for Valium. -- :From the misfiring synapses of: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA The offices were very nice, and the clients were only raping the land, and then, of course, there was the money...