PROMPT #14: The Land of Oz (jayvee)

[nolan]

Jayvee initially suggested this one. I had to do some legwork to check on the copyright status.


Dorothy Gale. The Tin Woodsman. The Cowardly Lion. The Wicked Witch of the West.

The land of Oz, originally created by L. Frank Baum have inspired one famous movie (and at least one not so famous one) and an award winning play. A few comic book set in the land of Oz have also been released.

In total, L. Frank Baum wrote 14 books set in the land of Oz, any resemblance to the number of this prompt is purely coincidental.

For this prompt, you are to write a story set in the Land of Oz. It can be an original story or an adaptation of one of the Baum books (lets stick with Baum because I think all or most of the later stuff is owned by someone).

Biographical Information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L_Frank_Baum

The 14 Oz Books in order:
1. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/55
2. The Marvelous Land of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/54
3. Ozma of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/486
4. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/420
5. The Road to Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/485
6. The Emerald City of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/517
7. The Patchwork Girl of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/955
8. Tik-Tok of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/956
9. The Scarecrow of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/957
10. Rinkitink in Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/958
11. The Lost Princess of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/959
12. The Tin Woodman of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/960
13. The Magic of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/419
14. Glinda of Oz: www.gutenberg.org/etext/961

[slim]

Never knew there were so many Oz stories, forgive my ignorance, always thought the story was made for the movie!

I'm new here, so I don't know if you guys have discussed this before, but could you point me in the right direction about the copyrights for Grimm's fairy tales? Much obliged.

[jayvee]

Anything written before the turn of the century is fair game, so long as you don't step on anyone's toes who's already adapted it.

[nolan]

Slim, I was thinking about that too.

Let me check it out. It should seem fine but Imma try to find a public domain etext okay.

Because the translation could be copyrighted even if the work isn't.



Slim--I knew he wrote a lot of Oz things but I was surprised at 14. I thought it was like 8 at first.

I did know it was a book first, mostly because my mom read it to me like a year before I saw the movie.

I have them all in the publication order up there.

[destriarch]

jayvee said:

Anything written before the turn of the century is fair game, so long as you don't step on anyone's toes who's already adapted it.

The official rule is that the author must be 50 years dead, and that the copyright was not bequethed to a family member. I do not know the current status of the Oz books, so it would be worth double-checking. Frank Baum died in the 1920's so he's well out of the time restriction, but I don't know if he passed on the copyright before his death.

Ash

[jayvee]

From: www.eskimo.com/~tiktok/faq02.html

Also, since 1956, when the copyright on The Wizard of Oz expired in the United States and the characters entered the public domain, a number of other authors have written and published Oz books outside of the regular series. There are now even two publishers devoted to putting out nothing but original Oz stories.

[nolan]

Yeah, I've seen a lot and gotten a lot of things from epople that have done other Oz books that its safely in the public domain. If it isn't then the copyright doesn't seem to be enforced at all.

The Baum stuff seems fine but the later stuff probably is still copyrighted.

There are a lot of books I'm looking at in terms fo this and I'm trying my best only to post stuff that I know is public domain one hundred percent.