UPDATED 28th September
2007
Hi everybody! Well, today has been a very
interesting day!
It seems Stage 2 actually produced a result - obviously
due to my putting a time limit on how long I would wait
for a reply and saying I would contact by other means if
I didn't hear.
However, initially the reply was pretty galling, as
instead of answering my original queries it just
reiterated that I had contravened their copyrights again
- something I had not disputed - and wanting to know just
what it was I wanted 'clarification' of.
However, it also added that if my site had come to the
attention of the publishers Ebury and Penguin, who
distribute the normal BBC books and the BBC Childrens
books respectively, because they pay a hefty fee for a
licence to do so I could be looking at legal action from
them. How that is possible when I am neither using their
material or their characters etcetera was not explained
to me, but nevertheless it seemed to be a veiled threat,
one which I chose to ignore in my reply.
Anyway, I replied spelling out just what it was I wanted
'clarifying' i.e. asking for permission to quote his
e-mail, asking for how and who brought the site to his
attention and asking for a postal address that would get
to RTD. Considering I sent my original e-mail well over a
fortnight before, and his reply to my reminder took a
couple of days to arrive, I wasn't expecting anything
before next week.
However...
I sent that at 14:22 hrs. At 14:28 hrs I got a reply! Six
MINUTES!
Amazing what can happen isn't it?!
This time, I got some answers! Firstly, he gave me
permission to quote his original e-mail as asked for, so
here everybody is the official BBC reason why I cannot
continue:
Dear Martin
I have spoken with my colleagues at BBC
Worldwide. They are in agreement that the
novelisations on your site are an infringement of
copyright. I have noted the text you have written
on the site and whilst I appreciate that they
were not for commercial gain, this is none the
less a copyright infringement. If someone creates
a piece of work, it is their intellectual
copyright (or belongs to the company which has
employed them). It is not for a third party to
use, reproduce or manipulate their work, whether
for commercial gain or not.
We would therefore ask you to cease from
distributing your novelisations immediately and
wish to confirm that you are not permitted to
reproduce copyright material now, or at any point
in the future.
On the subject of unlicensed products being sold
on eBay, we do attempt to have them removed as
much as our resources allow. Thank you.
Edward Russell
Senior Brand Executive for Doctor Who &
Torchwood
Brand Manager for The Sarah Jane Adventures
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Secondly,
as to who brought the site to his attention, he claims "a
friend / colleague alerted me to the website. I have no
idea how he became aware of it." Shame there's
no way of checking this out, but I'll just have to assume
that it *isn't* someone I know that's done it. Frankly, I
don't know whether that's good or bad - I still don't
know who I can trust.
And lastly, the postal address for RTD. This was always
unlikely to get a result, but it was at least addressed
in his reply which was:
"If
you want me to pass a copy of one of the books to
Russell, I'm happy to do this."
Now, I might be doing Mr Russell a disservice here, but I
strongly suspect that if I did send a copy to him to
forward to RTD then it would actually get filed in the
large cylindrical object near the door.
Put it this way - as far as I can tell his office is at
least 5 miles away from the Upper Boat production
facility at Pontypridd, so it's not a case of him handing
it to an on-site messenger to take over. As I say, I
might be doing him a disservice, and if he's reading this
I apologise, but after being jumped on for doing these
books I'm not necessarily inclined to believe that it
*would* be passed on. I will continue to search for an
address for the Upper Boat facility and indeed am working
on information so far gathered by various means towards
that.
So
- where do we go from here?
Well, not a lot further really. As you can see, the
official line from the BBC is I am not allowed to distribute them now
or in the future, and I have to abide by that, regardless
of how galling that might be. I can't afford for legal
action to be taken against me.
However, I would like to hear from anyone who has any
comments on what has happened, especially if you've run
afoul of people at the BBC like this yourself,
particularly the infamous 'Brand Protection Team'.
What really galls me is being jumped on for providing a
free service in my own time that helps advertise the
series. Nothing was ever mentioned by Mr Russell in any
of his e-mails that suggested that I might be bringing
the series into disrepute, which some sites on the net I
could argue are doing (under the guise of expressing
their 'opinions'), nor was anything said that might
suggest the books were below par quality-wise - so
nothing for 'Brand Protection' to have a go at I'd've
thought.
Still, water under the bridge now. But do feel free to
get in touch if you've got any comments, had similar
problems or just want to talk about what might have been
had this not happened. I'll keep the site updated on any
further developments, such as actually getting in touch
with RTD or the Production Office.
Best wishes,
Martin
Please e-mail at martin@artofinfinity.co.uk
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