hi, some of you may have seen my litle WAr of the Worlds series of images, well i thought i might chance my arm and wrote to the H.G.Wells license holders (UK) A. P. Wyatt and see if they would be interested in printing an issue of the book with some new illustrations, (well anythings worth a try) However when i got the letter back i found that it started with the inevitable we are sorry but...., which i had half expected. what i didnt expect was the, you must also remove any images posted on the interenet, breach of copyright etc etc. so a short word of warning to us all when paying homage to our favourite themes.

yeah, it's extremely annoying... copyright sucks : unless someone's stealing my stuff. then i'd be annoyed. but sorry to hear about it, dude. Drac

They hold the copyright on the text and any images contracted by the authors or authorized agents. How can they control images inspired by that text (non-visual reference) when such are not "Work for Hire" pieces? As long as you are not close to any of the authorized published works in your design you should be fine. IANAL (std disclaimer) but it sounds as if they are just trying to intimidate.

If your images have a reasonable amount of 'imperfections' compared to the original War of the Worlds text and imagery then you haven't broken the copyright isn't it? I mean there's sentinel models from the matrix in the store and those do not violate any copyrights, because they have some differences from the original material.

Yikes! I guess I'd better take down my "Matrix Lobby" images before the Wachowski brothers sue me...

Or if you have a different visual interpretation of the text than any authorized image, then you (I believe) have not violated their copyright. You might have an issue with titles using "War of the Worlds" though.

You might want to re-name them. BTW those are really nice work!

I seem to recall another issue, I think for them to stomp on you they would have to show how you have harmed them commercially. Any lawyers out there with an opinion?

One thing in the US the copyright for War of the Worlds ran out. Apparently it hasn't in Europe.

I don't think rj001 hurt them commercially, somehow. In fact... I havn't read that series... I'll be back in an hour or so...

its a shame--those are some great images, alot of my images in my gallery are inspired from movies, books etc--apperently im stealing! oh well good luck to you.

thanks for the support, i'm gonna leave the images until they acually get legal on my ass, but i'm dissolutioned from doing any more.... it just shows how some petty peolpe can spoil the fun of others. Guess i'll have to come up with an orginal idea that's bigger than W-O-W....

This sucks. Keep them up... you have the right to be "inspired" by a work. Inspired is the key word, here. Short-minded asses.

I thought they were excellent as well! Quite sorry to see you stop.

Damn, Sorry I said anything now. Remember these are Lawyers. Before you get too upset a few points: The Bondwire server is located in Nashville TN USA. The copyright is gone here. As long as you are not quoting paragraphs or text you have not posted the book without permission. I didn't see paragraphs from the book under your gallery pictures. Your images bare no resemblance to recent copyrighted works. I'm referring to the George Pal Universal Movie from the 50s or the Marvel Comic of the 70s. They appear to be entirely your imagenings from reading the text. Dilution of revenue is a condition for damages. Full text of the story is already available at: http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext92/warw12.txt http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/warworlds/warw.html Abundant Images are available at: http://www.war-of-the-worlds.org/ This site contains scans of all the illustrations from the 1900 editions and covers from 126 books. http://drzeus.best.vwh.net/wotw/wotw.html It seems to me the Genie is already well and truely out of the bottle.

Regardless of what som elawyer wrote to you in a letter. War of the Worlds by HG Wells is in the public domain. You can find the book listed on the Project Gutenberg website (http://www.promo.net/pg/), and if you have any further questions you can write them and I am sure they would be more then happy to answer anything for you.