SFXB Forum

Hi allJust had a quick check on Ebay as it's been a while since I had a random look for Star Fleet stuff. It seems that some people are still making a killing out of flogging bootleg copies of our fave series. What cracks me up is the blurb used to sell it!"THE BEST QUALITY, THE BEST PRICE, THE BEST COVER DESIGN, AND THE BEST SERVICE ONLY COMES FROM ME!FOR THE ATTENTION OF EBAY, THIS LISTING INFRINGES NO COPYRIGHT, IT IS WIDELY AVAILABLE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. PLEASE DO NOT CANCEL THIS AUCTION!"DISCLAIMER"Anything that is NOT protected under copyright law, this includes ALL works published before 1923 AND under certain conditions, works published up to 1978. A ‘work’ can be anything; a book, a play, music, photographs, movies, instruction manuals poster, etc…….Re-published and re-packaging Public Domain information & other creative works is not illegal. The reason is fairly simple. If you acquire, re-package and sell information that has fallen into the public domain you do not have to pay royalties or copyright fees on that workattention buyersplease be aware that as this material is in the public domain, and has had no official release on dvd, that these are home produced copies, supplied on unprinted, quality discs. i am stating this due to some buyers lack of understanding about material in the public domain, or their failure to read the listing properly, and to make sure you know what to receive."Is this guy for real!!?

Well, this is actually a more interesting question than you might think. In terms of the UK, he is of course wrong - if only because we don't have the concept of public domain when it comes to copyright works. Works can, eventually, fall out of copyright but that takes a long time.But, in the US the situation is more muddled. As I understand it, and I've seen this claimed for Star Fleet over there, if something didn't get registed on the register they keep of copyright works during a particular time period then apparently it is possible for it to be public domain, which is a valid concept in US law.But in this country, this just isn't so, and US law would now track with international copyright convention. However, there are plans to allow people to deal in what are called "orhpan works" - which might include Star Fleet - here in the UK. Just have to wait and see.