[Web4lib] Disney films based on public domain fairy tales are not derivative works

[Norma Jean Hewlett]

I asked my friend Eli Edwards, who is both a librarian and a lawyer. Here is
what she told me:

1. It's not possible to copyright a public domain fairy tale. For example,
you can't copyright the basic story of Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs,
including parts of it such as her meeting seven dwarfs.

2. It IS possible to copyright any original material that your retelling
adds to the tale. For example, while you can't copyright generic dwarfs, you
definitely can copyright the characters of Dopey, Doc, Sneezey, etc.

3. You can also copyright other original features of the work, such as the
musical score.

4. Therefore, Disney has no problem establishing copyright on their version
of Snow White.

Jean Hewlett
University of San Francisco

On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:46 PM, D.H. Mattison <dmattison at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Thanks for asking about that Alan. I'm not a lawyer nor do I have a legal
> background, but I had invested a lot of time in studying copyright when I
> was working in an archives.
>
> I think the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse has used derivative in two
> senses. If you look at other sources that come up through a Google search
> of
> "define:derivative work," you'll see that, from a legal perspective, a
> derivative work has to contain material that's under copyright protection.
>
> For example, this is the Wikipedia definition:
>
> A derivative work pertaining to copyright law, is an expressive creation
> that includes major, copyright-protected elements of an original,
> previously
> created first work.
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work
>
> But you can still derive a work from a public domain source (I'm thinking
> of
> literary works in particular), it's just that legally, IMHO, that doesn't
> make any sense because copyright protection has expired. People may say,
> aha, you derived that from Hamlet, but a copyright lawyer might say, so
> what.
>
> I think there are two issues at play, the question of what constitutes a
> derivative work under copyright law and what kinds of works can be
> protected
> by copyright.
>
> My understanding is that in order for your "new" work to be considered
> original and protected by your copyright, you would have to make creative
> changes to the public domain work. Those mashup novels based on Jane
> Austen's novels such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Sense and
> Sensibility and Sea Monsters are a perfect case in point.
>
> David Mattison
> Aloha Fact and Image Finders
> Victoria, BC
> dmattison at shaw.ca
> cameraworkers at gmail.com
> http://www.google.com/profiles/CameraWorkers
> http://davidmattison.wordpress.com
> http://digitalarchivist.wordpress.com
>
>
>
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