George Lucas defeated by Stormtrooper helmet man Andrew Ainsworth, the man who designed the Imperial Stormtrooper uniforms, has won the right to sell replicas. George Lucas has been suing Ainsworth since at least 2008 and the case finally ended up in London's Supreme Court. Ainsworth made the original helmets in 1977 – the legal action treated the helmets as the paradigm …
You must have missed the bit about the copyright on art being much longer than functional designs.
If he proves they are a functional design (which he did) then the copyright has expired. If they are deemed to be art (which I agree, they aren't) then the copyright has not expired.
>and tell him I maintain the copyrights on the designs which he can't have.
Lucas didn't do this bit.
I know this wasn't what was argued in the case, but if you start making up facts to support your case then your whole post is... doomed (last word said in a generic voice, def not sounding like a slightly depressed android, sorry droid)
What you missed was what was missing: A written contract.
You also missed another important point: The props were out of copyright by the time they were being sold.
So, in your analogy above: You weren't ripped off as the guy didn't just bugger off immediately and make as many copies as he wanted. He had to wait until your rights had expired before doing so. So you had time to capitalize on your design before he could make a penny outside of sales to you. Oh, and you didn't issue him with a limited license that restricted sales of your design to you so you can't stop him from producing genuine copies from your original design, either.
The winners here were the lawyers. I'll bet if it was up to Mr. Lucas the man he would have said, these are a great niche product that harms our brand not one bit, just ask for $25 an individually made helmet, and we're good to go.
But sadly Lucas the corporation would rather have 25c a helmet on a cheap manufactured product that sells in millions and is thrown in the bin after six months, because one will make maybe $10 thou. at most, and the other $20 Million.
Sad really.
Are you mad.
This is George "let's make another figure of floppy hatted Luke" Lucas, the world's premiere money grabbing bastard. Star Wars special editions, another reissue of the films on dvd, this time with 3 minutes added fluff, the fecking prequels, STAR WARS IN 3D FFS.
They sold a lit sabre figure of ObiWan Kenobi with a green lightsabre instead of a blue one because a blue LED cost 0.02 cents more than a green one. The man is an souless accountant (my apologies to accountants everywhere)
I would go on but my bile cup has run over
Signed
an ex-Star wars fan
depends how the contracts were done. remember that when star wars was first created, it wasnt a huge thing. lucas might well have looked at various helmets different people were making, sent specs to a few places, that sort of thing. lucas didnt, at that time, have the power to dictate terms to people. i'd guess it was only after the films were so succeful that he decided that he shouldve got the rights on all the imagery and items and such, by which time its a bit late really - but hey, if you've got billions you can try to shout louder and longer than your opposition.
...and you can make 3 prequel movies (that you 'planned to make all along, honest') that have less 'essence-of-star-wars' to them than do the 5 minute videos made for SW:TOR :P
"depends how the contracts were done."
No, it doesn't. It depends on the copyright law that said that these are out of copyright and therefore ANYONE can make them now. This guy, since he was the original maker, was in a prime position to do so, but you or I could have done so too. Possibly, he could have been restrained from making them even once copyright had expired but that would not bind anyone else and, given that no one else would be bound, a court would probably strike out that clause in his contract anyway if he asked.
Same way as if you hire a wedding photographer, they keep the copyright on the pictures they take of you.
It's the difference between saying to an artist, "design some scary helmet" and saying to an employee "make the mold curve exactly this way at this point and put an eye hole this shape at that point"
It's particularly disengenous of Peter Jackson to chime in. They were very careful to do all the designs for their creatures and costumes at a design house they own - so they (Weta) rather than New Line (the film producers) would own the designs
"You mean the same way that Lucas' various companies ended up owning everything Star Wars related rather than Fox?"
Due to the belief of Fox that it would completely bomb, Lucas specifically took a risk on getting very little pay for his work, to ensure it got made at all, on the proviso that he got to keep the 'worthless' merchandising rights. Fox were laughing all the way to the bank with that deal... for a few years anyway.
"Same way as if you hire a wedding photographer, they keep the copyright on the pictures they take of you."
That's a bad example for two reasons.
Firstly the photographer may retain copyright, but that's not the same as reproduction rights. Unless you sign a release allowing the photographer to publish the images then s/he has no right to do so. The laws relating to photographs are not the same as those relating original designs.
The second reason is even simpler. The copyright on the helmets expired many years ago.
The phrase, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away is slightly redundant - what we percieve travels to our eyes at the speed of light so everything is in the past. The further away the older it is. For ir to be in someones future they would have to be even further away.
Paris, becuase she loves physics...
.
Those of you going on about contracts have missed an important point. The law will always override what is contained in a contract. So it doesn't really matter what was contained in the original contract, if such a contract existed at all. If the helmets are out of copyright (as the court decided they were) then anybody has the right to manufacture and sell them. It would be ridiculous if a contract could restrict the original manufacturer from selling the helmets while the law would allow anybody else to sell them.
BTW I agree with the court that the items are not art. They were built to fulfil a function, that function being props in a film.
Contracts are for clarifying rights/responsibilities under the law. They are not accepted to replace the law or any parts of.
Same reason most click-through EULAs are not worth the paper they are printed on - they are either re-iterating existing law or contradicting it, neither of which means much in a court.
The judgment references the 1988 copyright designs and patent act.
Section 52 of that acts reads that any use under license of an artistic design through an industrial process renders the design applicable for public use 25 years after the end of the calendar year it was first marketed, so long as it was marketed in the UK.
Unless all those toys in the late 70s were hand made then most of the prime star-wars designs now go to public domain in the UK.
From what i am reading here the court ruling was that because it was classed as a functional item and not work of art the copyright expired after 15 years.
Does this therefore mean that its not only Ainsworth who can now reproduce copies of the stormtrooper helmet but any one else can start making and selling them outside the US because its out of copyright?
Thanks to the state of modern IP laws and their related legal precedents, it is now easier than ever for a company to rob one of its employees of his life's work. Now you can own the patents for everything he invents, own the copyrights for every creative work he produces, and generally screw him over if he ever does anything with those ideas that doesn't involve giving you money, because you can tell him he can either sign this contract or get a job elsewhere (where a similar contract awaits).
Half a century ago, it might have required a bit more effort, or at least have been considered immoral. Now and then, one of the people who gets screwed over wins a protracted court battle at enormous personal expense, and we like to think it means things are getting better.
Do mechanisms for the legal recognition of the ownership of ideas really benefit society, or just the people with the money to stuff those ideas in a safe and sue the crap out of anybody who objects?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
