Victor Hugo's Heir Unable to Stop Sequel to Les Miserables

Why should descendants of someone who created something have any say about it once it's in the public domain?

This sounds like publicity-grabbing by someone with a famous name and nothing more.

It's in public domain. So what's all the fuss about?

Okay, maybe the laws in France are different. But six years in French courts? I think they should have thrown the suit out in six months.

maestrowork said:

It's in public domain. So what's all the fuss about?

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Money, of course, Ray.

Susan G.

Adaptations, yes. Sequels, no.

It seems to me a very lazy way of writing, for the same reasons I am against fanfic. Invent your own characters, dammit! Stop building your own writing career on the back of someone else's success!

IF this story is any good, why not write it as an original? Why spend all that time, effort and sweat-of-the-brow writing a book which should only have been written by Victor Hugo, if he'd ever so chosen?

Yes, it's in the public domain and there's nothing to be done about that. But there seems something dishonest about writing sequels to classic literature. They don't need sequels. And if anyone was going to write one, it should be the original author - only they knew what their original vision was.

Legally, we have the write to compose sequels to the classics, but morally, do we? Are they necessary? Isn't it incredibly arrogant to suppose we know what happens to characters another author invented?

For the same reason I'm angry Scarlett was ever written, or Perfect Happiness, or Heathcliff. If the original writer didn't see the need for (or live long enough to write) a sequel, leave it be.

Write your own characters instead of stealing someone else's.

People have been doing that for ages, though. Maybe not in books, but certainly in movies -- Tarzan, Frankenstein, Dracula, James Bond... and the list goes on and on and on. Like Susan said, it's all about money. I think Hugo's objection is that the publisher is using Victor Hugo's name, when this "sequel" has nothing to do with Victor Hugo, except for the characters he created over 100 years ago. The Hammer Dracula films didn't say "Bram Stoker's Dracula" for a reason.

I don't like fanfic either. I can see where the Hugos are coming from.

See, Maestro? See? SF agrees with me. That means you have to do a forfeit!

It may involve poles, thongs and loud music.

Oh, and plenty of alcohol.

France has, IIRC, a concept of droit moral which is seperate but entangled with copyright law. Basically it gives greater control of works to the artist. This is probably the springboard for Hugo's descendant's claim. Where is Jaws when we need him? (*drops chum overboard*)

What does Hugo's Boss have to say about all this?

I suppose Victor Hugo's descendants feel they have more right to say about 'Les miserables' than what anyone else does; after all, the people writing sequels are only after making money off of someone else's original work.
Here's Luc Besson't stance on people who send him sequels to his great film 'Leon/The professional'. I've got to say, I agree with him, there again, he's still alive.
http://www.filmwad.com/luc-besson-talks-leon-sequel-679-p.html


Elodie.

My brother went to see Les Miserables on broadway. I asked him what it was about, and he said "It was about a bunch of people who were miserable."

Elodie-Caroline said:

I suppose Victor Hugo's descendants feel they have more right to say about 'Les miserables' than what anyone else does; after all, the people writing sequels are only after making money off of someone else's original work.
Here's Luc Besson't stance on people who send him sequels to his great film 'Leon/The professional'. I've got to say, I agree with him, there again, he's still alive.
http://www.filmwad.com/luc-besson-talks-leon-sequel-679-p.html


Elodie.

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I thank you for posting this Elodie, I went to read it and it's true, just how I feel too. It's not love, it's stealing. Fanfiction might be a little different, mainly because there is no money to be made from fanficiton and this OP is about an established story in public domain and whether or not it's right to do/try to do a sequel for it. I say no, get your own characters and write your own stories. Leave Les Miserables alone.

Leaving French law aside for a moment, I want to talk about the concept of public domain.

Every time we see a re-write or a visual remake of Helen of Troy, are we doing fanfic of Homer's Illiad? Is it wrong to do West Side Story or Carmen Jones? How about all the Inferno epics? You might draw the line at classic literature, but clearly Victor Hugo's descendants are not.

I think it's okay to draw from public domain works - there's a whole series of Jane Austen mysteries, as well as sequels to Pride & Predjudice. There are sequels to Gone With the Wind and nearly all of the Bronte's stories.

My point is that if the characters and settings and stories are in the public domain, and you want to write or re-write how things turned out in your mind, then why not? And why not be commercially successful as well, if your writing is good enough and your continuation catches the public imagination?

Maybe I'd be interested in a sequel to or adaptation of a favorite old book.

I think it would take a great deal of imagination, craft and thought to produce a sequel to a beloved classic and have it become successful.

I would love to see contemporary sequels to some classic books.

The stage play of Les Miserables was really magnificent. I have seen it twice, once in New York and once in Los Angeles. I have actually read the original book, in English translation. It was a grand story. The stage play had stirring music, great visuals and was even more fun than the 10 (yes, 10!) filmed versions which have been produced since 1935.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6317941.stm

Here's the link to the story about the French court ruling against Victor Hugo's heirs - and in favor of Francois Ceresa's book, Cosette. Ceresa has since written anothe sequel, Marius.

As this seems to be the thread for it, I hereby wish to make it known that my characters, ideas and any chance of a sequel I would condone die with me.

Film adaptations, plays and musicals of MY ORIGINAL MATERIAL are allowed but no stealing of intellectual property and forming such into new stories and thence into new media.

Thank you.

But Scarlet, when your work passes into the public domain, it is no longer yours. The only way to be sure you work dies with you is to not have it published.

Intellectual property in the public domain belongs to all, and it may be used at will, including new media - and you never know what types of new media the future may hold.

To interfere with copyrighted intellectual property is a crime - one, I might add, for which I condone the most severe of punishment. But public domain writings are up for grabs by anyone who desires to adapt or perform or make pastiche of.

Fine.

Anyone abuses my intellectual property, I'll come back to haunt you.

Now *that* would be a terrific story!

How about if we abuse your unintellectual properties?

Following scarletpeaches' lead I hereby declare that once I'm dead anyone can do what they want with my intellectual property. I'll be dead, I won't care.

I actually looked into how I could have my work pass into the public domain once I died and the answer was "you can't". Ah well.

maestrowork said:

How about if we abuse your unintellectual properties?

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Deal! But I don't have to die first, right?