[mabster]

I thought derivative works were okay if they were "transformative"? That lawsuit sounded like he had copied text verbatim.

I'm not in the US, so I could easily be off base.

I really enjoyed The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, which is a sequel to The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. He's a UK author, so maybe it's different.

As a society I think we are better off with this kind of remixing so I'd hope that's the direction we head in.

[bazoom42]

Copying text verbatim is copyrigt violation. Plagiarism (copying ideas) is a different issue and much more of a gray zone. In general ideas are not protected, but it can be prosecuted in blatant cases. The described case seem to be a bit of both.