13 Mar
2001
13 Mar
'01
10:38 a.m.
Steve said:
I'm not sure if that is true in the UK. The reason I say that is that I am currently reading Chris Boucher's Dr Who novel Corpse Marker in which the character Carnell from B7 appears. Now I understood that the reason Chris
could do
this was that he owned the copyright on the character Carnell.
You can't copyright a character either, but when you copyright a written work you gain the right to control use of the characters of that work in derivative works. The most plausible scenario is that the BBC controlled both the B7 and Dr. Who properties (I'm not sure if Boucher wrote the script in which Carnell appears--if so, he might be the copyright proprietor) and told him to go ahead and have a laugh.
-(Y)