I found this on the Wikipedia. As it was originally posted on this forum, I
would
think it would be considered a re-post. <g>
Message from discussion Dune Encyclopedia reprint?? No? Yes?
From: wmcne...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Willis E. McNelly)
Subject: Re: Dune Encyclopedia reprint?? No? Yes?
Date: 2000/12/02
Message-ID: <wmcnelly-0212001156040001@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 700533393
References: <3A248F5C.97D3C89C@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
<20001129003236.19654.00001611@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
<3A24C6E7.CA4B4E3D@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Organization: California State University Fullerton
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dune
In article <3A24C6E7.CA4B4...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Niall Young
<ni...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "M. Marston" wrote:
> >
> > >Niall Young wrote:
> >
> > >> And if not, maybe Dr McNelly and his publisher wouldn't be too
afraid
> > >> of opening it up for the community and allowing fans to transcribe
and
> > >> distribute it on the Net?
> >
> > This "debate" over the net transcription of the D.E. was going through
its
> > death throes when I first came back and crops up here from time to
time.
> > But the discussion has only nominal Dune-related merit and belongs on
some
> > other newsgroup that deals more with copyright issues.
>
> Fair enough, I was never here for previous "debate"s, it was a genuine
> suggestion.
>
> > Dr. McNelly has read, and maybe still reads, the newsgroup and knows
about
> > this push to put the Encyclopedia on the net. I am sure if anything
changes
> > regarding this issue Dr. McNelly will let us know. But I wouldn't hold
your
> > breath.
>
> Well in the end it comes down to this - is there any financial gain to
be
> had from reprinting it. If yes, reprint, if no (in my opinion) it
should
> be donated to the public domain. It's too rare a work to just disappear
> into obscurity.
>
> I neither own nor have seen the DE, hence my interest. If I did own it,
> I would personally transcribe it, amongst other works, for my own
fair-use
> to aid in quote-searching and indexing. Being able to grep for every
> instance of "sandworm" for instance ;-) would be extremely useful. The
> logical extension to this would be a markup language to delineate the
> narrator and different characters and text-to-speech synthesis (with
> author's speech patterns as plugins), but I digress..
>
> --
> ni...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> --
> ni...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I do read the news group regularly. So you can now exhale.
Odd as it sounds, I am not repeat NOT interested in any financial gain
from reprinting the DE. I would like to see it in print again because I am
proud of the work done by my many contributors to the volume as well as of
the vast amount of material it adds to the Arrakeen saga. Should it come
out in, say, a Japanese edition, I would of course be delighted for any
royalties, but that is not even a remote possibility, so I do not even
think about it.
Yet I cannot and will not, even if I wished to do so, grant permission for
anyone to post any and/or all of the book on the net. The basic copyright
for all Dune related materials is owned by the Herbert Estate, now the
Herbert Limited Trust as I recall. When the DE was being considered,
Berkley/Putnam paid FH a four figure sum for the rights to use the
materials of the first four books in the DE. The DE was copyrighted, as
is required by law, in my name, and while a considerable amount of
material was "new" in the DE (stories about all of the art, poetry, drama
and so on of the Imperium, to name only a few examples) the FH estate
still owns the basic copyright and safeguards it zealously - as would
anyone presiding over a virtual cash cow. I may "own" the copyright to
the new material, but even that is problematic and debatable, under the
principles of secondary copyright, because the new material would not have
been copyrighted but for the prior Dune material.
This I cannot, ethically, legally, or morally or even practically permit
anyone to use anything from the DE unless prior permission is granted by
the FH estate. And that is as likely as finding open water on Arrakis.
And I strongly - VERY strongly - suggest that you do not risk the wrath
of FH's attorneys in using any of this material in a way not permitted by
the current copyright laws. Frankly, I know of no one in the a.f.d. group
who has the money to defend him/her self against a lawsuit. I know
whereof I speak.
"I am constantly amazed at the infinite capacity of the human mind to
withstand the introduction of knowledge." Woodrow Wilson
--
Fred
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