BSAP’s CONAN audio dramas and audiobooks threatened by a big corporate monster

August 26, 2008 by Jesse Willis
Filed under: News 

SFFaudio News

The Queen Of The Black Coast by Robert E. HowardOn the 22nd August 2008 Broken Sea Audio Productions, and its chief bottle-washer Paul Mannering, received a cease and desist letter from a law firm representing Conan Properties International LLC (aka Paradox Entertainment).

Sez Paul:

The letter claims that BSAP is selling audio books of Robert E. Howard’s work. BrokenSea have responded by confirming that we do not sell any material, and no income is received by us for making these audio files available to the public. Our production of both audio books and audio drama’s of Robert E. Howard’s work is based entirely on work that is in the public domain (www.gutenberg.org.au)

Out of respect for tangible brands, such as the “Conan” title we are changing the title and logo of our Conan audio drama to “Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Sagas.” We expect this change to be in place by Thursday 28th August.

Here is the |PDF| of Conan Properties International’s CEASE AND DESIST letter sent to Broken Sea.

Here are my $0.02…

For a man who killed himself 72 years ago, with no children and no spouse to inherit his estate (nearly all of which is in the public domain) it’s amazing how spurious vigorous Robert E. Howard’s defense of his lapsed copyright is.

I chalk it up to either the nefarious forces of Stygian evil, or the Black Seers of Yimsha. Either way, R.E.H. has been zombified, and forced to say things – or rather has had his lawyers say things that aren’t true. Time for some barbarians to overthrow the forces of civilization (by ignoring the intended effects of cease and desist chill).

SFFaudio will still be calling spades shovels and Conan stories Conan stories. Long live Broken Sea Audio Productions, long live BSAP’s CONAN!

UPDATE: The ever vigilant Quasar Dragon has a posted a post on this issue check it out HERE.

Posted by Jesse Willis

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Comments

10 Comments on BSAP’s CONAN audio dramas and audiobooks threatened by a big corporate monster

  1. Brad Bowman on Tue, 26th Aug 2008 8:13 pm

    2. Without defending Paradox’s position, I note that it’s not a matter of lapsed copyright, it’s a matter of trademark, which is a very different beast from copyright in most respects.

  2. Jesse Willis on Tue, 26th Aug 2008 8:31 pm

    3. I can absolutely see them trademarking their “conan” logo – that’s legitimate – they’ve got a product that they are licensing, the “conan” brand. Unfortunately, the product (Howard’s fiction) that they are branding is, for the most part, public domain. If I was releasing a The War Of The Worlds audiobook I couldn’t use the logo made for the Tom Cruise movie version – but I can still call it “The War Of The Worlds.”

  3. bill hollweg on Wed, 27th Aug 2008 8:25 am

    4. Thank you Jessee… YOU are a TRUE firend and Barbarian.

  4. Dave Tackett on Wed, 27th Aug 2008 3:34 pm

    5. Good luck with this. The US trademark system has gotten completely out of hand.

  5. Hakan on Wed, 27th Aug 2008 4:24 pm

    6. Yikes! This is pure madness…

  6. bill hollweg on Thu, 28th Aug 2008 10:17 am

    7. Thank you both for commenting. It is driving me mad because I love REH and his works and we just wanted to pay homage to the Genius of REH, heck we don’t sell ANY audio at BrokenSea… We just want people to enjoy and join the fun… sighs…

  7. Seth on Fri, 29th Aug 2008 5:08 pm

    8. What makes me most angry is that Paradox isn’t even selling Conan audiobooks. The only place you can get these great stories in audio is from Broken Seas. I loved the reading of Red Nails and said so in a review on my site. I’ll be cheering for you, Broken Seas.

  8. The SFFaudio Podcast » Blog Archive » The SFFaudio Podcast #001 on Mon, 1st Sep 2008 10:34 am

    9. [...] This week we talked about the most recent of Recent Arrivals, the newest of the New Releases, and the breaking news about the attempt to break Broken Sea Audio Productions‘ productions. [...]

  9. SFFaudio » Blog Archive » Robert E. Howard's CONAN vs. CPI's Conan on Wed, 17th Sep 2008 2:06 pm

    10. [...] To read th first letter chek out our first post about this subject HERE. [...]

  10. SFFaudio » Blog Archive » CONAN and New Zealand's new copyright law vs. Broken Sea on Tue, 24th Feb 2009 9:56 pm

    11. [...] make this all the worse is that its an echo of a fight BSAP had thought it had already won. See, back in August 2008 BSAP received a similar cease and desist letter from the same firm. In [...]

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