When will The Chronicles of Narnia enter public domain?

I highly doubt Pullman would want to touch the Narnia universe with a ten-foot pole. After all, HDM was his response to Narnia. Besides, I don't want him distracted from The Book of Dust.

On the plus side it means we'd have a few versions in their original publication order.
*sigh* I want a nice, hardcover omnibus in publication order and with ALL of the original illustrations, but that's probably never going to happen. Barring that, I'll take a hardcover set in publication order (or at least unnumbered) and with all the illustrations.
 
I have a big problem with modern authors continuing storylines; they don't tend to get the feel of the public atmosphere of the time that they were written. This is best evidenced by the majority the "sequels" to Pride and Prejudice all the ones that continue the story of Elizabeth and Darcy go into all of the bedroom stuff that would have been horrible taboo back in Jane's time. They talk of love-children or a marriage that becomes just as Mr. Bennet fears, unequal and strained, sometime these things happen in the same book. There is a reason why Jane did not put these things in her book and it wasn't wholy because she never married; she did not put them in because no respectable establishment in early 19th Century England would have sold her book (she already struggled to get it sold because of the Wickham incident). But I digress.


Let me just say this, if someone does do something about Narnia after the books go into Public Domain, they better not do it like Linda Berdoll and her cronies.

Actually, if you think THOSE are bad, I saw on amazon that there is a book coming out called Pride and Prejuidice and Zombies, which is basically the book with a few extra chapters added to it dealing with Elizabeth and MR. Darcy fighting off the undead. I'd post a link to it's amazon page, but due to the credintials of the other author ( Seth Grahame-Smith) Well, I dont' want to get banned.


This is as great an argument against a work of classic literature entering public domain I mean would any of us really want to read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and the Zombie Slayers?
 
The copyright protection on the Chronicles of Narnia serves a VERY important purpose above and beyond the money. It gives the Lewis estate the right to strike down vulgar or blasphemous stories and parodies that spitefully militate against the original.

Look at what Pullman did with "His Dark Materials", written specifically to strike back against the religious references in Chronicles of Narnia. Imagine what he could have done if he had been able to sabotage the series directly...Aslan messing about with a talking lioness and his half breed children eventually fomenting revolution against the Emperor Across the Sea only to discover that he was actually just a powerful alien from a nearly dead race who generated his powers from bending subspace.... You get the picture?

We may not always agree with the CS Lewis Estate, but it's a heck of a lot better than having NO oversight.
 
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In the unfunny and downright stupid parody film Epic Movie there's a sickening scene involving the "Aslan" character and the children. I guess you can get around copyright protection by altering the names somewhat.
 
Well, first, let's be honest.

A story leaving copyright and entering the public domain IS a good thing. Much of the stories we read nowadays have their historical roots in the classics, and those classics are all in the public domain. The purpose of copyright was to allow the initial author of a work and his immediate family to profit without risk of someone else coming in and reprinting their work.. and thus stealing their money.

It wasn't put into play to "control characters" or "give Disney / others a vault to pull things out of every 20 years."

We suffer, as an artistic population, by things remaining in copyright. Look at Snow White. Disney has it under a form of copyright. They can , and have, gone around and sued people for putting up things that MIGHT be construed as "their story."

So I have to disagree. I don't want things kept in copyright in perpetuity as it's been done. It goes against the initial purpose of copyright, which was to protect the initial author and his direct family. Now it's all about protecting businesses.
 
Oh!

And Epic Movie was doing something called Parody.

Parody , making fun of, what have you.. cannot be seen as a copyright infringement. It's a fair use exception.

For what it's worth, simply writing fanfiction is technically illegal.
 
Epic Movie was a parody in more than one sense of the word. It used the novelty effect of being done in the form of a comedy but none of the jokes were funny. Which I guess should make it a critical success at the Bravkapunkha Film Festival in Bhutan as long as they don't include subtitles...
 
Something ELSE worth noting is that parody oftentimes becomes more famous than the work it's parodizing.

Don Quioxte, for example, is a parody. Gulliver's Travels is a parody. Ways and Means by Lewis Carroll is a parody.

And all those things, if placed under current copyright law and the fact that it extends seemingly forever, would be challenged. Yes, you can do parody, but the area for derivitive works is slowly being eroded.

As for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.. well, I think that's a hilarious move. It's that kind of thinking that we need more of in writing, instead of just rewriting Romeo and Juliet with sparkling vampires.. but yes, not something fit for here.
 
Especially where Romeo and Juliet as vampires commit suicide by her hammering a stake through her own heart and him running out in the noonday sun.

Hark, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the moon... :p
 
Especially where Romeo and Juliet as vampires commit suicide by her hammering a stake through her own heart and him running out in the noonday sun.

Hark, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the moon... :p

Well, now,my Badgery friend.. you know we can't have it END like that. It wouldn't be a good message to send to the kids. No, instead, we'll just have them sulk and listen to alternative music.

And sparkle. As Vampires are wont to do nowadays.
 
Well, now,my Badgery friend.. you know we can't have it END like that. It wouldn't be a good message to send to the kids. No, instead, we'll just have them sulk and listen to alternative music.

And sparkle. As Vampires are wont to do nowadays.

Exactly! Oh, wait but can Mercutio and Tybalt slay each other with stakes?
 
As for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.. well, I think that's a hilarious move. It's that kind of thinking that we need more of in writing, instead of just rewriting Romeo and Juliet with sparkling vampires.. but yes, not something fit for here.

I totally want an semi-serious retelling of R&J with vampires (one that gets the point and has the real ending). Since the modern conception of the vampire is a broody emo-kid (much like Romeo) it would be perfect!

On copyright, I mostly agree with you, Pardine. It's nice to have the classics in pubilc domain, and being able to work freely with them has made novels like Wide Sargasso Sea and Phantom possible (both of which I have yet to read). If the royalties from Peter Pan weren't all going to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, I'd be THRILLED for PP to be in public domain, because I really want further adventures.

At the same time, having classics in the public domain is scary because anyone can do anything with them -- and they do. I'm very unimpressed by 90% of the Jane Austen sequels, and I was horrified to find an erotic version of Phantom of the Opera on Amazon.com: besides being unnecessary, it had her being IN LOVE with the Phantom, which just...NO!

So, while on principle I agree that public domain tends to be a positive thing, I'm also glad that things like LOTR, our beloved Narnia Chronicles and (hopefully) Harry Potter won't enter public domain because even if good things could be written about them, at least we know the bad ones won't be.

Well, the horrible things will still be written in fanfic, but at least they won't be published and no money can be made from them.
 
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On copyright, I mostly agree with you, Pardine. It's nice to have the classics in pubilc domain, and being able to work freely with them has made novels like Wide Sargasso Sea and Phantom possible (both of which I have yet to read).

At the same time, having classics in the public domain is scary because anyone can do anything with them -- and they do.

I agree, mostly. Wide Sargasso Sea was fantastic, I thought, and I am incredibly happy we were able to get it--and more recently, Ursula Le Guin did a retelling of the end of the Aeneid which was just breathtaking. OTOH we wound up with Wicked, which is just sloppy work and doesn't ring true for the Oz books at all. But I'm less worried than you are, I think--Randall's The Wind Done Gone horrified the Mitchell estate, but she was able to greatly expand the definition of "parody" to cover her work, and Gaiman pulled off "The Problem of Susan" anyway--if someone really wanted to do a serious unraveling of a book still under copyright I think they'd be able to pull it off; it seems to be the mainstream-for-canon books that get stalled.

I also think that the more published fic is acceptable the less it'll be seen as ruining the creator's story--after a while you get to realize that canon is still canon, and nothing is going to change that. And I have some hope that maybe then authors would be more likely to stick within the limits of canon--but that's probably wishful thinking.

I think I would love to see more Narnia adventures (although we get them online), but I don't want any authorized sequels. Only canon can be canon!
 
I think I would love to see more Narnia adventures (although we get them online), but I don't want any authorized sequels. Only canon can be canon!

Yes! I think we fans of Narnia ( and for that matter LOTR) should be spared the massive headaches that Star Wars and Star Trek fans have to endure in terms of what books are part of the canon. ( I suffer from those myself...)
 
L Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz books are in Public domain and they are still loved by many, despite all the weird sequels being made. But don't count on the CON being put on public domain in your life span. I think it couldn't happen no earlier than the 2040's. :eek:
 
Maybe some story merging Aslan with the Lion of Oz as the same character if they were to go to the drastic change area

But it might be a story if Aslan and Tash get depicted as Brothers in a sort of Bionicle Inspired Theme of Story and even with the Emperor beyond the Sea also being Tash's Father

By the time Narnia itself gets in Public Domain
 
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