Big Sister ???
Posted on 03/28/2007 1:26:02 PM PDT by Borges
WASHINGTON -- The rights to George Orwell's novel 1984 -- the inspiration for an Apple computer ad pirated by a Barack Obama supporter who remodeled it into an attack on Hillary Rodham Clinton -- are owned by Gina Rosenblum, a West Rogers Park resident who is president of Rosenblum Productions Inc.
A reason Apple probably did not complain about the Orwellian spot appropriated by Philip de Vellis -- a Democratic political operative -- is that the company didn't have the right to use it in the first place. It ran only during the 1984 Super Bowl because Rosenblum sent a "cease-and-desist" letter to Apple. On Tuesday, she sent a warning shot.
Rosenblum attorney William R. Coulson -- whose wife is state Rep. Beth Coulson (R-Glenview) -- said they have not taken any legal action -- "yet" but are "monitoring" the situation, serving "notice to the world the Orwell novel is still under copyright."
Big Sister ???
A copyright on the novel isn't going to cover the ads. A copyright on the Apple ad might or might not cover the Hillary ad.
1984 was written when? I'd really love to see a lot of these copyrights blown to pieces some day.
I don't see how either (Apple's or Obama's) add infringes on her copyright.
You can't copyright ideas, only their expression. It doesn't use the words "Big Brother" or any dialogue or action from the orginal work.
Certianly, Apple could sue the Obama add since it lifted their original work.
I think the (C) on the novel will cover the ads. Its a derivative use.
75 years is the current limit I believe. 1984 was published in 1949 so it isn't up yet.
I believe it is good for 50 years after the author's death.
I thought Apple also ran it for the 20th anniversary.
In 1948. Orwell transposed the last two digits.
It's a political parody. They can't touch it with all the lawyers in Manhattan.
I was involved in a similar parody with a campaign in 2002. The best legal minds in the country all said we were safe, even the attorneys for the people upset at us eventually admitted there was nothing they could do and basically resorted to "pretty please" in their requests for us to quit.
What anybody willing to bet Gina Rosenblum is a liberal, contacted by the Clinton campaign, to put up a fuss over this O'bama inspired hit piece.
She probably didn't give a hoot - until Hillary & Co. paid her the compliment of calling her.
I agree. Copyright law as it exists now (esp. the Digital Millenium Copyright Act) is prima facia unconstitutional: it impedes progress in science and the useful arts, and does not secure rights to authors and inventors, but to commercial interests and 'literary executors'.
What bullshit. The SCOTUS long ago ruled that satire is exempt from copyright law. This loser needs to get a life.
1948; he simply transposed the last two digits.
You can use someone's work to satirize them. It's not clear to me you can use someone's work to satirize someone or something else.
"the inspiration for an Apple computer ad"
I don't think inspirations can be copyrighted...
You are spot on.
Parody was also litigated in the USSC in the famous Two Live Crew cases.
However don't look for the incompetents in the MSM to report this accuratly.
They will report it as a horrible thing in order to try and prevent more ads.
A Harvard Law blog points out that the courts found for Ralph Nader, when he parodied a MasterCard commercial.
BTW, what about this
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