This article from The Hollywood Reporter has some new details about the lawsuit filed by PKD's Estate. You can even read the lawsuit here. Aside from some bad "adjustment" puns, the real news I found digging around in there involves the possibility of an Adjustment Bureau TV show. I still can't figure out why nobody is suing Isaac Asimov's Foundation series where this whole planning-the-future trope comes from. Or more to the point, I can't figure out why Isaac Asimov's trust isn't suing everybody. But I suppose that's neither here nor there.
Anyhoo, did I tell you PhilipkDickfans.com is back up and running? It is!
And the Exegesis is coming out soon! Holy Mackeral I've kind of been putting it out of my mind, but it's really going to happen.
5 comments:
Great news about philipkdickfans being up and running again.
Haven't visions of a totally planned future (and just as many critiques of such visions) been around for at least five hundred years? Since when is this major theme of modern civilization the invention of Isaac Asimov?
I still don't understand why the story is said to be in the public domain. I'm getting lost trying to read up on the byzantine copyright laws. Has anybody written a clear explanation of why the PKD Estate shouldn't deserve the royalties according to the legal system?
As for the plundering of Asimov, sure it may be an Asimov idea but it's the PKD *name* that was being exploited by the filmmakers. (if only the name Asimov sold so many movies!) Seems to me that the PKD Estate has a point about that, but I must be missing something.
Hope this helps Mr. Hand understand the context of the lawsuit. Under the old copyright laws, there was the original copyright law that protected works for 28 years from first publication. To gain an additional 28 year protection, the copyright had to be proactively "renewed" with the Library of Congress by the author of his heirs. Failure to renew in timely fashion resulted in works entering the public domain after the initial 28 years of protection.
Mr. Hand,
The Wikipedia article on "Adjustment Team" has a section about its copyright status with citations to the relevant law. At least it does between times when that section is vandalized, which it has been many times since December, 2009. If it isn't currently visible, look through the article's History for an earlier version that does have the Copyright Status section.
I know the Trust's Complaint says this section first appeared in January 2010 but the History of the article shows it was December 17, 2009 (UTC or whatever). I seem to recall the editor who created that section refers to doing it on December 16 by the editor's local time because that was the aniversary of PKD's birthday.
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