User blog comment:LordTBT/Essay:A Primer on Copyright/@comment-67.158.133.174-20110928171947

To LordTBT: I think legality isn't the issue here, at least not for most of us. From what I've seen of the argument (and I've been following it), most people knew the issue of the rights, and so forth. Even the people of the fan Mossflower movie knew this, and KNEW they were running a risk, and could be shut down at anytime, and their work in vain. They knew, and readily acknowledged, that what they were doing was technically illegal.

But a few points I feel the need to stress.

The fan Mossflower movie would NOT have been allowed to be sold or have had any profit from it, or probably even distributed, by it's makers without those rights, and would've forever remained a fan project (and thus would be equivalent to the fan art you host on the site).

And second, they were trying to get the rights from day one, BEFORE they were doing any real work on the project. But The Redwall Abbey Co. wasn't really taking them seriously. So, to PROVE that they were truly serious about this, they started in on the work they did. If it hadn't been for that, they probably wouldn't have done it the way they did.

Furthermore, I refuse to believe that The Redwall Abbey Co. didn't know what they were doing and how much progress they were making before now. Since the group behind the fan movie was routinely trying to contact them to arrange to get the rights proper, they've probably known what they were doing for a long while now. And they let them continue. They could've shut down the Mossflower movie long ago, easily, but they DIDN'T...until they went into talks with other moviemakers looking for the same rights. From there, I'm presuming that because the rights couldn't go to both, The Redwall Abbey Co. made a choice, opted to favor the legit company, and notified the fan movie project to cease and desist BUT in so doing, acknowledged their hard work, and also indicated that should the talks with this other movie company should fall through, the fan movie project could possibly gain the rights instead, and if so, THEN work could resume LEGALLY.

But that's not my real point.

My point out of all of this is that YES there were a whole slew of legal issues...and yet the project was allowed to continue anyway until there was a conflict of interest. Were it not for that, the movie could've still come to be, and there's a chance (a small one, yes) that it could still come to be, and no matter HOW you look at it, these guys got the attention of not just the Redwall Abbey Co., but a large majority of the fanbase, and were making some good progress nonetheless, and deserve at the very least SOME credit for the work they did.

Which is where the issue truly lies. With ALL due respect, you, LordTBT, seem insistent that you aren't going to even acknowledge they existed. You seem you'd rather pretend that it didn't happen at all, and people are getting offended by this apparent stance and can't understand WHY you are doing this. You keep citing legality issues, but the legal issues aren't covering it. It's as if you're trying to use the legal issues to hide a bigger issue you have against the fan movie project.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to believe that for a second. I want to believe that this is all just a huge misunderstanding on our part, and that we're all reading in too much into what is really a trivial matter.

But you've acted very bitter and cold towards the fan project nonetheless, and people, even people not even involved in the project (including me) are being offended by it, and worse still, we can't understand why you are so bitter. I, for one, WANT to understand why you're being so bitter, if you're really as bitter as you seem about it at all (I'm hoping not), but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

Whatever it is, I can't accept that it's just because of the legal issues. Something tells me it goes deeper than that. And if I'm wrong, then TELL me, IN detail, and stop trying to avoid the issue. I'm willing to listen, and I hope I'm not alone. I want to get this resolved for, at the very least, the record.

I await your reply.