Puppet not public sorry

No of course not I'll let you have the public in front of you it's very difficult to duplicate a puppets even one that's amore simplistic style. Look at Kermit he is one of the most basic puppets out there but very difficult to replicate effectively without alot of trail and error

Yes, I agree. But obviously for Avenue Q purposes, hiring outside work is far more palatable for a local group's budget. Plus I think a lot of people just want to try their hands at making the puppets themselves, much like how Audreys are built for Little Shop of Horrors. I think it probably adds something new and fun to those performing the show - it's not just sets and props and costumes you get to find and make but also puppets! It gets possibly old hands and new to try something that they usually wouldn't get to try.

I agree completely!

I'm coming in to this discussion a bit late, but Rick actually addressed this issue at a talk he did last year at the PofA National Festival.

He does apparently own the rights to the character designs as part of his overall deal for Avenue Q. My understanding from his comments was that you can legally rent from him, or build your own as DrPuppet mentioned, BUT without a licensing deal you cannot use the original designs and have to redesign the characters from scratch. At least a few professional productions that didn't rent from him seem to respect his rights and do that. Most apparently don't.

Since the show rights and character rights appear to be separate, a production that rented or built derivative puppets without rights for the character likenesses is technically committing copyright infringement...even if they have a paid license to perform the show. Whether it would result in a lawsuit is another matter entirely of course (also, I am not a lawyer).
 
There are similar issues with a lot of other popular shows, like the Little Prince (although technically in the public domain, the famous character designs are international trademarks owned by the publisher who aggressively protects them), anything based on Beatrix Potter (ditto), The Wizard of Oz (MGM owns many elements from the movie like the Ruby Red Slippers that did not originate with the original book) and the Hobbit (you can make a Smaug if you stage it, but your Smaug can't look like Weta's).

This is why a lot of companies will rent a character puppet like Audrey II using their own original design. Even then, the rental market for shows like "Little Shop" and "Avenue Q" is a bit of legal grey area. In fact, just using the name "Avenue Q" to market rental services could possibly be trademark infringement (although, surprisingly enough, there doesn't seem to be a trademark for "Avenue Q" on file with the UK intellectual property office).

I hate to say it, but Eddie's puppets are clearly derivative so unless he's made some kind of licensing/royalty deal with Rick, this is probably a clear cut case copyright infringement, unintentional or otherwise.

Thanks Andrew, that's ve-ery interesting. Two thoughts come to my mind: I assumed that both character and performance rights would have been automatically linked together and I was apparently wrong to think that; and I am now wondering how many rental companies out there are verging on or outright infringing on copyrights because of the confusion involved with how rights are licensed, and are quite possibly only getting away with it because it goes unnoticed and it's expensive to police.

I wonder also if it's one of those things where it becomes a cultural thing. Think of the Coca Cola santa. Red suit and white beard is totally their invention, and yet it's now so ubiquitously associated with Christmas that it's possibly reached a tipping point where copyrights are not entirely a feasible concept. That is, it's so well-known and used within society that there's almost no point in attempting to keep the copyrights to yourself. A double-edged sword of design. Make something so it becomes synonymous with an event/whatever, but once it does you kind of lose all ability to control how that image is used.

... Just some thoughts out loud.

I think the difference with the famous Coca-Cola Santa ads by Norman Rockwell are that they were at least partially inspired by pre-existing folk traditions. Also, under the U.S. copyright laws of the `20s and `30s, if they were not properly registered with the U.S. copyright office they may very likely be in the public domain (I believe a lot of Rockwell's work is, but again, I'm not a lawyer). Coke wouldn't enjoy trademark protection either if they never filed for it.

Of course, that's why companies like Disney will sue a Daycare Centre that uses Mickey Mouse on their wall, and Toho Studios aggressively goes after people making commercials with Godzilla-like monsters. I think it's trickier for American works made before the 1970s because copyright protection didn't used to be automatic. I'm not very familiar with the European or Australian laws.

I think the difference with the famous Coca-Cola Santa ads by Norman Rockwell are that they were at least partially inspired by pre-existing folk traditions. Also, under the U.S. copyright laws of the `20s and `30s, if they were not properly registered with the U.S. copyright office they may very likely be in the public domain (I believe a lot of Rockwell's work is, but again, I'm not a lawyer). Coke wouldn't enjoy trademark protection either if they never filed for it.

Of course, that's why companies like Disney will sue a Daycare Centre that uses Mickey Mouse on their wall, and Toho Studios aggressively goes after people making commercials with Godzilla-like monsters. I think it's trickier for American works made before the 1970s because copyright protection didn't used to be automatic. I'm not very familiar with the European or Australian laws.

True, I didn't think of that. I think overall copyrights are the same here or in Europe, in that there is a lifetime-of-artist + X number of years before it goes into public domain. The X is what is usually different, anywhere from 50 to 100 years or so. The average IIRC is about 70 years. So yeah, a lot of the early works will be in public domain due to age, or slow release due to those X number of years. It's also why copyrights over countries is tricky: a work can become public domain earlier in one country than in another.

Another reason why talking to a lawyer is always better. It's just far too complicated otherwise.

Exactly. I looked in to doing something based on the Little Prince a few years ago. The problem I discovered is that while the book is in the public domain here in Canada and many other countries, it isn't in Europe, the U.S. or Australia. The famous illustrations by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry are technically in the public domain, but you cannot exploit them commercially because they have been trademarked by the publisher. You also have to be very careful which English translation of the book you use; the original translation is public domain, but most of the current editions have a newer translation that is copyrighted.

There is actually an approved stage adaptation of the Little Prince that can be licensed. Presumably you can use the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry designs for that since with that property (unlike Avenue Q) all the rights are held by the same party.

Yep, had the same problem myself a while back:
http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php/topic,7191.0.html

I will admit that copyrights could do with some reforming so it's less confusing, but at the same time I'm not sure how that would work in keeping with the idea that copyrights are used with the artist's wishes: here in Aus. we even have a concept of 'moral' rights, where a creator can argue that a license should/not be granted depending on whether the work is going to be used in a manner in keeping with the moral concerns of said creator. Ie. in the case where you may not want to have your work used by a political organisation you don't support.

It would be really great if there were a copyright lawyer out there who could occasionally pop by for these discussions

We have something similar in Canada. There is a famous sculpture/installation in one of Toronto's malls, The Eaton Centre, of Canadian Geese in flight. One year the mall thought it would be cute to put wreaths around their necks. The artist sued because he said it destroyed his original intention and won.