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Old 08-03-2009, 06:09 PM   #9
K-Thom
The one and only
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Posts: 3,302
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Berlin, Germany
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Quote:
You can do anything with a public domain work, it doesn't matter how long ago the copyright expired.
Ahhh, not quite true, depends on what you intend to do. Some public domain novels still are protected by trademark, which means the commercial use still needs a licence from the holder of rights.
And even an uncommercial use may (!) cause problems due to the trademark rights but this will differ in each individual case.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Some of the trademark rights to "Sherlock Holmes" belong to the "The Sherlock Holmes Memorabilia Company Limited" in England. Tough to find out which ones are active in the US and which ones not.

Best example right now is Robert E. Howard, creator of "Conan", among others. In public domain since 2007, but a lot of his popular characters and even the name of the author himelf are trademarked.
And the Conan property is one very much alive in media, games or merchandising. So these holders of rights may take any infringement (deliberate or accidential) more seriously.

No, I don't like this concept either, circumventing public domain by the use of trademarks.
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