1984 copyright owner mulls legal action

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

[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.