1984 copyright owner mulls legal action

Digit Online ^ | 03/29/2007 | Gregg Keizer

[Swordmaker]

The copyright holder of George Orwell's classic novel 1984 may sue over the video that used Apple's 23-year-old Macintosh advertisement to jab at Senator Hillary Clinton, a lawyer for Rosenblum Productions said Wednesday.

"We're not filing [a lawsuit] at this point; we're monitoring the situation," said William Coulson, who represents Rosenblum Productions. "But we certainly reserve the right to do so in the future." Coulson did not specify whom Rosenblum might sue -- the video's creator, YouTube or both.

The 74-second video, a mashup that substitutes the droning Big Brother of the original Apple television ad with images and words from the New York Democrat, has been extremely popular on YouTube's video sharing network. As of today, the video had been viewed more than 3.8 million times.

Clinton is a rival of Senator Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Last week, the video's creator stepped forward. Phil de Vellis, who was fired from his position at Blue State Digital, a Washington-based technology firm that specializes in political campaign support, said he made the video on his Mac in a single weekend afternoon.

On Tuesday, Gina Rosenblum, president of Rosenblum Productions, rattled a legal saber. "The political ad copies a prior commercial infringement of our copyright," said Rosenblum in a statement. "We recognize the legal issues inherent under the First Amendment and the copyright law as to political expression of opinion, but we want the world at large to know that we take our copyright ownership of one of the world's great novels very seriously."

Rosenblum acquired the copyright to 1984 from the Orwell estate and Sonia Orwell, the widow of George Orwell, in 1981. The novel remains in copyright until at least 2044.

Her firm has defended the 1984 franchise at least twice before. After Apple aired its Mac introductory ad during Super Bowl XVII, Rosenblum sent a "cease and desist" letter to the computer maker, she said in Tuesday's statement. "When the Apple 'Big Brother' television commercial was aired during the 1984 Super Bowl telecast, we immediately objected to this unauthorized commercial use of the novel, and sent a 'cease-and-desist' letter both to Apple and to its ad agency," Rosenblum said. "The commercial never aired on television again."

In 2001, Rosenblum settled out of court with CBS Television and Viacom Inc. over copyright and trademark infringement charges against the reality program Big Brother. The financial details of the settlement were not disclosed, said Coulson, who also represented Rosenblum in that case. "But it was mutually satisfactory to both parties," he said.

Apple has ignored requests for comment on its position over the de Vellis video.

[antiRepublicrat]

Besides there are plenty of other works from which Orwell borrowed consciously or unconsciously. For example: Fritz Lang's 1927 film classic Metropolis. Or Bellamy's futuristic fantasy of 1881 "Looking Backward". Many others.

They all want to create works based on earlier ones, such as most of the Disney classics. They don't want anybody to base anything on their works -- ever.

[Silly]

The original Apple ad and the new Hillary ad are absolutely brilliant.

And no amount of kvetching by some attorney is ever going to change that.

Hurray for great advertising. More production value per second than any other medium.

[SunkenCiv]

I'm afraid I have some devastating news for the copyright owner...

http://sami.is.free.fr/Oeuvres/orwell_1984_1.html

[supercat]

Neither is Animal Farm

Given its placement on mega-cheap DVD racks, I would guess that the animated version of Animal Farm (very nicely done, btw) is regarded as public domain. I would be surprised if those cut-rate DVD companies are paying royalties to the Orwell estate.

[steve-b]

Given that the ad uses, at most, a tiny snippet evocative of 1984, that evocative snippet is an element that is rather similar to the look and feel of earlier works (e.g. Fritz Lang's Metropolis), and that the anti-Hillary version is clearly a parodic use, the only rational judicial response is something along the lines of, "Baliff, whack his pee-pee."

[zeugma]

Given its placement on mega-cheap DVD racks, I would guess that the animated version of Animal Farm (very nicely done, btw) is regarded as public domain. I would be surprised if those cut-rate DVD companies are paying royalties to the Orwell estate.

Not in the US. Copyright is pretty much perpetual in the U.S. now because Disney has enough money to buy all the congrescritters they need to keep it that way. 

[af_vet_rr]

They pretty much sidestepped the Obama ties to this. Started to, but stopped well short of it

That's the first thing I thought.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Copyright of the visual arts does not apply to the literary arts and vice versa. A visual work entitled "1984" is in itself a copyright work. If it incorporated text from the "1984" novel into the visual work, there would be grounds for copyright infringement, but as that didn't happen, their "cease and desist" letter is nothing more than idle smoke.

Additionally, copyright is for the life of the author PLUS 70 years. George Orwell died in 1950. 1950 + 70 = 2020. 1984 will become public domain in 2020 and there ain't nothing they can do about it.