3) Universal used the artwork in question on their Serenity prepublicity material for SERENITY. Also, without permission from the designer. It's also visible on the SERENITY DVD. Without permission.

Kevin's wrong on this point. Anything you did on the Serenity site you were giving Universal permission for its further use. For that matter, did you attend one of the screenings? Just going in the door you gave Universal permission to use your likeness. There were big signs and everything.

Not in the UK, Mikey. I should know - I helped organise and sold the screening tickets in the UK for Universal. Also, I helped them run the US website, and I don't think they claimed copyright on posts - I'll check.

Okay, there's no copyright claim, but the T&Cs state:

Anything you transmit or post may be used by Universal or its affiliates for any purpose, including, but not limited to, reproduction, disclosure, transmission, publication, broadcast and posting.

So, anything submitted to Universal they could reuse, but 11th Hour's stuff was not submitted on the site, as far as I know.

I wouldn't know about the UK. My assumption was you were talking US. I also don't recall mentioning posts being covered specifically, but I do recall having to check off on a user agreement that seemed unusual in no way before being allowed to create an account. The usual being, you do it, we can use it.

What I don't understand - and this is for my own edification; I'm not defending either party - is what's legally wrong with creating and selling for profit a work that is inspired by a copyrighted work, as long as the work itself does not include copyrighted images, characters, or text.

Art inspires art, and artists make profit of their art. How is Susan making a t-shirt that says "I find Serenity in Jayne's guns" with a picture of a Vera-looking gun and a couple Chinese characters (she didn't, as far as I know) and selling it illegal? She complied with the C&D, so why can't she continue to sell Serenity-inspired work?

All that seems to be the sort of thing that'll keep lawyers employed. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. At least it's not more talk about some fan-financed Serenity sequel.

Mikey: hey, I'm just setting up the website for that as it happens. It's going to be called doingtheimpossibler.com. Paypal your money now to scam@doingtheimpossibler.com, folks!

I still can't believe Universal are on about doing Doom II. My soul weeps.

what's legally wrong with creating and selling for profit a work that is inspired by a copyrighted work, as long as the work itself does not include copyrighted images, characters, or text.

Well, there's trademarking too, which covers a lot of logos and images, and trademarking works in the "it looks kinda like" fuzzy areas where copyright law does not.

Here's an illustration of trademarking: say you want to put out a cheap, abbreviated guide to the Chicago Manual of Style. It's not the actual manual, just a quickie guide to how to use it in your classes. That's perfectly legal: you're not violating copyright law if you write it all yourself and make up all your own examples and nowhere claim to be the Real Actual Chicago manual.

But if you put out this booklet with an orange cover, the Chicago people might sue. (That shade of orange, in the context of The Chicago Manual of Style, is trademarked, I am pretty sure.) An orange booklet with "Chicago manual" on the cover could be confused with the real McCoy, and might interfere with the real McCoy's ability to make a profit. Never mind that the real McCoy is 1000 pages and your little booklet is 100 pages. If the real McCoy people someday want to put out their own little mini-Chicago booklet, which they have every right to do, your published booklet with an orange cover could be confused with theirs.

So publish your booklet with a green cover, that can't be confused with the real McCoy in any way, and you'll be safer from lawsuit.

Similarly, these t-shirts sound like they're virtually indistinguishable from what Universal might put out, and if Universal has trademarked the Serenity logo and the characters' names, then the confusingness alone is legal basis enough to inspire legal action.

I'm looking at a design that has the ship in "let's moon 'em" position. In a corner it has a symbol (something more like @ than ©, but not quite either) followed by "2005 11th Hour."

They don't hold any trademarks on Serenity stuff, for info. (I did a search on the Trademark Electronic Search System).

However, they do sell licenses for these things, and the license holders are within their rights to sue Universal if they allow, for example, shirts which should come under the official license to be produced.