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Post by jeffwaynefan on Nov 17, 2006 11:25:43 GMT
Jon, doesn't Paramount own the rights to the title of 'War of the Worlds' & Jeff owns the rights to ' THE War of the worlds'. Im sure I heard somewhere, on the de-construcing dvd i think, that there is a difference between having the ' THE' at the beginning, & not, with regards the rights? It baffles me that this myth keeps getting repeated again and again. Perhaps Jeff Wayne and Paramount do distinguish their adaptations by using or not using the initial "The". But if someone really did claim this had something to do with rights to the property, they were talking thru their hat. If you think an initial "The" makes any difference, I suggest you try to market a soft drink called "The Coca-Cola" and see how far you get. To repeat: You can't copyright a title, you can only trademark one. And trademarks must be distinctive; adding or subtracting a "The" isn't enuff to make it distinctive. However, too-similar movie titles (i.e, "Star Trek: The Revenge of Khan" vs. "Star Wars: Revenge of the Jedi"*) may result in an unfair competition lawsuit, or the threat of one. This is related to the so-called "common-law" trademark, which is not well established in law, but again whether or not there's an initial "The" is not enuff of a difference to matter. *Of course, in the end *neither* movie used "Revenge" in the title, so Star Trek needn't have changed their title after all! Jeff has always maintained that he uses "The" WOTW because this is how H.G used it for the title, where as others just use WOTW. |
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Post by Killraven on Nov 17, 2006 14:38:31 GMT
Yeah - FS, surely you remember that divine slice of British kids sci-fi-sleuth piece of cheese? ;D KR |
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Nov 17, 2006 20:26:14 GMT
Yeah - FS, surely you remember that divine slice of British kids sci-fi-sleuth piece of cheese? ;D KR Unfortunately [ or fortunately by the sound of it ] that's one tv prog that passed me by. I did a Google search and I see what you mean - all that dubious 80s blue screen stuff! ;D |
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Post by FALLINGSTAR on Nov 17, 2006 20:30:54 GMT
It baffles me that this myth keeps getting repeated again and again. Perhaps Jeff Wayne and Paramount do distinguish their adaptations by using or not using the initial "The". But if someone really did claim this had something to do with rights to the property, they were talking thru their hat. If you think an initial "The" makes any difference, I suggest you try to market a soft drink called "The Coca-Cola" and see how far you get. To repeat: You can't copyright a title, you can only trademark one. And trademarks must be distinctive; adding or subtracting a "The" isn't enuff to make it distinctive. However, too-similar movie titles (i.e, "Star Trek: The Revenge of Khan" vs. "Star Wars: Revenge of the Jedi"*) may result in an unfair competition lawsuit, or the threat of one. This is related to the so-called "common-law" trademark, which is not well established in law, but again whether or not there's an initial "The" is not enuff of a difference to matter. *Of course, in the end *neither* movie used "Revenge" in the title, so Star Trek needn't have changed their title after all! Jeff has always maintained that he uses "The" WOTW because this is how H.G used it for the title, where as others just use WOTW. This is still confusing. I read that Jeff Wayne had the rights to THE - WOTW as a title too. |
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Post by the Donal on Jan 2, 2007 22:18:15 GMT
Ah- we're all stepping back into that legal speculation minefield again- reminds me of when I was back in N-N-NNN-NNNN-N-Nam! ;D
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