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Author
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Comment
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Mansemat
Unregistered User
(11/17/03 3:27 am)
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Question
Who owns the rights to the fairy tales and it's characters such as little red, snow white etc?
Thanks
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kpiper
Unregistered User
(11/18/03 12:12 am)
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No One!
I am currently taking a class called "Fairytales and the Fantastic" in which we have explored this question. If you really think about it, no one can truly own the tales (folktales to be more precise). These are stories and characters that have been passes down from generation to generation in oral tradition by peasants long before the Grimm's and others collected them. Other's such as Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson, and Disney among others have created their own versions of the tales. Those versions, found in copywrited books, are that of the author. However the tale type and characters are "owned" by everyone.
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MSutton
Unregistered User
(11/24/03 11:37 am)
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A word of caution on copyright
Actually, you might want to be careful before you assume that no one owns the rights to a certain version of a character or a variation on the tale.
Although it is technically correct to say that no one owns the concept or idea behind a fairy tale or the core story itself, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of copyrighted versions of the tales.
For example, if someone planned to draw a comic book version of Snow White and depicted the main characters in the same (or virtually identical) outfits as the Disney film's outfits for those characters, you'd better believe you'd be hearing from Disney -- and not with words of praise.
Hope that helps,
Michael Sutton (a.k.a. someone who does a LOT of research in intellectual property issues)
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selkie
no
Registered User
(12/4/03 5:25 am)
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Re: A word of caution on copyright
Each storyteller has the copyright on hers or his printed version for about 60 years (that will vary according to each country's laws regarding this matter). The same thing goes for translations. If you translate a tale with no copyright attached to it, that particular translation belongs to you for the length of your country's copyright period.
The copyright issue is more difficult regarding versions that are not written or fixed in some other form. In most cases there is probably no copyright, but I presume a person who makes a living from a tale definitively can put you in deep trouble with the help of the right lawyer.
But who wants to steel someone else's versions anyway? If you haven`t changed a tale so much that you have made it your own - don`t go public with it! Now one wants to hear a bleak copy of someone else's art anyway.
If you want to tell someone else's tale orally for some scientific or pedagogic purpose, just make a clear statement about who is the author of this version. If you want to print a tale for the same reasons, you will have to ask the author or his publisher. And do this even if that version isnīt previously fixed - it`s the only honest thing to do.
Selkie
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Michael Sutton
Unregistered User
(12/10/03 11:40 pm)
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...also..
Actually, the copyright length is much longer than 60 years. In most countries, including the U.S. and the European Union, the length of the copyright term is the life of the author plus 70 years (or 95 years for "works made for hire" like Disney movies). This can be quite a long time if an author creates something when he or she is young and lives to be a ripe old age -- there will be 70 more years to wait even after that.
There are some (rather limited) ways around copyrights if you want to create a scholarly work or a parody, but a cursory look at the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act shows that there is no way to ever be sure when the use of a copyrighted work will definitely be a "fair use."
In the end, it's best to just be creative, write what you like for your own purposes, and then -- if you later decide you want to publish something -- consult a copyright lawyer, or get permission from the copyright owners themselves (if possible).
Michael
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