The Long Room in Star Wars?

paperclip

I was watching the Return of the Jedi the other night with my brother and was struck by the Jedi Archives.


Is it just me or do they look spookily like the Long Room in the Museum building??

feylya

That's not ROTJ!

Moorsy

It is the long room!! Educating Rita was also filmed around campus

BrenC

Yeah I read that they were based on the long room, I think I read that on wiki :S

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

Interesting article: http://www.irish-architecture.com/news/2002/000238.htm

Barry Aldwell

paperclip wrote:

I was watching the Return of the Jedi the other night with my brother and was struck by the Jedi Archives.


Is it just me or do they look spookily like the Long Room in the Museum building??

That's not in the Museum Building.

paperclip

The Old Library I mean. Also, this is in the Revenge of the Clones.

That's what I get for posting in a hurry.

shay_562

...Revenge of the Clones?

(Sorry. I shouldn't mock, but I find it hilarious that your 'correction' post was actually further off than the original, in that at least 'Return of the Jedi' was a real title )

Andrew 83

Yeah the Record did a story on the similarities when the film came out.

As far as I remember there was something like the Star Wars people asked to use the Long Room but were either told they couldn't or it was too expensive so they just did it on computers or something. That could be completely wrong, it's a good few years ago since the story was out.

Barry Aldwell

paperclip wrote:

The Old Library I mean. Also, this is in the Revenge of the Clones.

Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones*

*to include clones of the interior of TCD buildings. The sculpture outside the Berkley makes a brief appearance in holographic form, too. I think the college has a nice juicy lawsuit on their hands!

paperclip

Did they model the Death Star on the sculpture outside the Berkeley?

Also, there are too many nerds in this forum! Do you spend your spare time programming Star Wars games or something??

paperclip

paperclip wrote:

Did they model the Death Star on the sculpture outside the Berkeley?

Yes. Plus they robbed the idea of Yoda from matt the jap. And if you freeze frame exactly 1 hour 24 minutes 35 seconds into AOTC, you'll see a picture of John Hegarty.

The robbing bastards.

Andrew 83

Myth wrote:

Yes. Plus they robbed the idea of Yoda from matt the jap. And if you freeze frame exactly 1 hour 24 minutes 35 seconds into AOTC, you'll see a picture of John Hegarty.

The robbing bastards.

Wonder if that's what he was telling Pacino in those photos.

Jim_No.6

Barry Aldwell wrote:

Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones*

*to include clones of the interior of TCD buildings. The sculpture outside the Berkley makes a brief appearance in holographic form, too. I think the college has a nice juicy lawsuit on their hands!

They did. It was in the paper and everything. This is seriously old news. Not sure what happened though - I've never seen any follow-up

ApeXaviour

Jim_No.6 wrote:

They did. It was in the paper and everything. This is seriously old news. Not sure what happened though - I've never seen any follow-up

IIRC trinity sought legal counsel over the matter and were advised not to pursue any action.

I mean come on, how the hell are you gonna sue george lucas?

Time Magazine

He'd totally use his Jedi to brainwash the jury.

Incidentally, would the case be taken in US jurisdiction, Irish, or both?

Nietzschean

Ibid wrote:

He'd totally use his Jedi to brainwash the jury.

Incidentally, would the case be taken in US jurisdiction, Irish, or both?

given the film was shown here, probally easiest to sue someone here, wheither thats lucas film or the distributor.... though i've no clue of law....


(you'd probally end up trying to argue inspiriation, which as SCO will tell you is a hard battle to win)

Crash

surely easier when its an exact replica though, no?

DemonOfTheFall

I think that even if it would have been a sure win for the college it would look absolutely filthy on the college's reputation. Trinity would become the SCO of Universities.

Nietzschean

&#231 wrote: »

surely easier when its an exact replica though, no?

odds are its not just a picture some guy looked at the tcd picture and went off to autocard or maya or something and made the thing for starwars....

I think that even if it would have been a sure win for the college it would look absolutely filthy on the college's reputation. Trinity would become the SCO of Universities.

Why? , SCO are hated because they sue'd over Linux related free software, Lucas arts made lots of money in the process of ripping tcd off.... there is no comparason there...

Jim_No.6

Personally, I'd be quite happy if Lucas lost some of the bales of money he made off those atrocious excuses for cinema ... and if it all went to an educational institution, then all the better!



Incidentally; what is there to sue over? Now, if we take it for granted that the rooms are identical, with one created entirely in CG - what is the legal issue? (Note - TCD's lawyers advised against action, so they support my question)

Time Magazine

Infringement of copyright.

DemonOfTheFall

Nietzschean wrote:

Why? , SCO are hated because they sue'd over Linux related free software, Lucas arts made lots of money in the process of ripping tcd off.... there is no comparason there...

To be honest, that's a load of crap. Can you copyright how a room looks ? It's a long room with lots of bookshelves, I hardly think how that looks is deserving of a patent/copyright whatever.

"Patent no 353-123-123-123 :
An inventive means by which to create a long room which is full of bookshelves in an inventive way"

I don't think so.

I would resent SCO more for their crap about claiming patent/copyright a lot more than it being Linux/FOSS they're attacking.

Time Magazine

It's not a patent, and you're clearly a science student .

The architecture of a room is as artistic and important to copyright as a painting, a poem or a song.

If Trinity owned the copyright to a song and then Star Wars went and used it in a film, improving the film and presumably making money from it (i.e. the same effect as releasing the film) would you object to Trinity getting royalties? What if it was your copyrighted song?

Nietzschean

he also quoted the wrong person, he quotes me and rants at you?....

SCO were resented because their case was attacking linux, the big fear at the time was if they won it could effectively destroy linux.

Most people (me included) don't hate companies for exercising their intellectual copyright's and/or patents, I'd exercise them if i had them.

SCO had a pretty odd case to begin with, they couldn't assert IBM copied their code(which under licence IBM had access to the SCO unix source) since it was different, so they asserted that the IBM programmers got inspiration/idea's from the SCO code and use them. The reason SCO were hated is that most of linux is built upon this code so it would cause all sorts of problems for them.

DemonOfTheFall

Ibid wrote:

If Trinity owned the copyright to a song and then Star Wars went and used it in a film, improving the film and presumably making money from it (i.e. the same effect as releasing the film) would you object to Trinity getting royalties? What if it was your copyrighted song?

What I'm saying is can you copyright how a room looks though ? I don't think so.

DemonOfTheFall

Nietzschean wrote:

SCO were resented because their case was attacking linux, the big fear at the time was if they won it could effectively destroy linux.
Most people (me included) don't hate companies for exercising their intellectual copyright's and/or patents, I'd exercise them if i had them.

Fair enough, I personally have a problem with the fact that it's software patent related and that they have no proof. I couldn't care less that it's linux they're attacking. I don't think linux deserves any special treatment. Would you stand by all those other shell companies who own patents and sue non- F/OSS companies for "infringing" on their IP or do you only care when it's Linux under attack ? I think that's a terrible double-standard.

Time Magazine

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

What I'm saying is can you copyright how a room looks though ? I don't think so.

Ibid wrote:

The architecture of a room is as artistic and important to copyright as a painting, a poem or a song.

.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

The way I see it, the Long Room is an old part of Trinity, in its present form it's nearly 150 years old, I think it would be unreasonable for them to sue because it's an historic building, any hold they had on the building (copyright? IP? what's the correct legal terminology here) should be passed into the public domain, if say Lucas ripped off the appearance of the Lloyd Institute (har) it would be a different story.

xeduCat

Ibid wrote:

The architecture of a room is as artistic and important to copyright as a painting, a poem or a song.

Saying it twice doesn't make it legally true, do you have a reference for that?

Stargal

xeduCat wrote:

Saying it twice doesn't make it legally true, do you have a reference for that?

Yeah I'm not sure about that either Ibid. I'd imagine it's very difficult to 'copyright' (for want of a better word) the design of a building, when the trends/style of the day will often determine the architecture, and lead to many similar designs. I can think of loads of buildings that look very similar, even though they were designed by different people

Further, the main reason that the Jedi room looked so like the Old Library was because of the interior - the way that all the shelves were stacked up on either side of both rooms. My legal knowledge may be a little shaky, but I'm pretty sure you can't sue over similar interior decoration

And as far as I remember, Trinity never sought to take legal action about it. A newspaper asked if they were going to, and they just laughed it off. I'll Lexis-Nexis this in the morning to get a reference for it.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

stargal wrote:

Yeah I'm not sure about that either Ibid. I'd imagine it's very difficult to 'copyright' (for want of a better word) the design of a building, when the trends/style of the day will often determine the architecture, and lead to many similar designs. I can think of loads of buildings that look very similar, even though they were designed by different people

You could say the exact same thing about a pop song though...

xeduCat

Sorry, only had time for a smart-assed answer yesterday, here's a more thoughtful version.

To clarify one particular issue, it's not possible to 'copyright' something - I know this sounds petty and lawyerly but stick with me. Although at times in the past this may have been necessary, current law is very clear on the point that something is either 'protected by copyright law' or 'not protected by copyright law' - this does not depend on assertion or a (c) symbol* or on ringing up a copyright office and 'taking out a copyright' or anything like that. Under European law there are no formalities for copyright protection, it exists or it doesn't.

It's of course possible to refuse to enforce your 'rights' or to assert that work is available for unlimited copying, editing etc - but this is a voluntary step by the work's 'author' so the default position is that the law protects the work, if it comes within the category of copyright-protected works.

What these are depends on national legislation as well as case law. The obvious thing is books - but the term 'copyright' is actually a bundle of rights (e.g. relating to translation, physical copying, making new works based on part of a previous work, putting it online, etc). The same rules (and in particular, the same interpretations by judges) don't apply equally to all works - so for example, you might be able to do something with a book without permission from the author but not able to do the same thing for a painting.

In the case of buildings, it's a very grey area - yes a building CAN be protected by copyright and yes architectural plans etc CAN be protected by copyright but there are lots of exemptions (e.g. a traditional one in British law has been that taking photographs of a building isn't a violation of copyright, while if you photographed every page of a book it probably would be!) and also there are requirements (mostly in caselaw, rather than statute) on things like 'originality' (in terms of protection) as well as for subsequent works (i.e. how much copying - physical or otherwise - is OK before the law is involved). The old conundrum of copyright law being about "expressions but not ideas" is especially troublesome when it comes to buildings or building-related features.

So in summary the question of whether the reproduction of certain architectural/design features in a movie is a violation of the exclusive rights of the author of said features is VERY MUCH an open question. It depends on the following questions:

(1) is the original protected by copyright?

(a) is it an original work etc etc in accordance with the act and the cases? (a question of law but also of fact that a court must decide)
(b) is the author still entitled to avail of the protections (e.g. there are time limits for all these rights, normally life + 70 years but it depends on the work and the right) [incidentally that's a big issue in the context of this thread]
(c) is the bit that's been copied/used protected by copyright?

(2) does the movie's representation violate any of the rights that the copyright law gives to the author?
(a) is it a copy/translation/whatever for the purpose of the law? (not an easy question - the question is 'does it violate copyright law' rather than 'does the person on the street think it's a copy' - while 100 years ago it would have been a simple copy/nocopy issue, now there are things about incorporation, secondary rights, etc that make it a legal rather than a popular issue
(b) does the copier have any defences (fair dealing, not substantial, etc) - e.g. certain things that would be technical violations of the law and thus the rights of the author are exempted under the copyright act.

In answering said questions one must have regard to not just the facts of the situation but the history of cases and of course the Copyright and Related Rights Act (click here but for what it's worth, it's 205 pages long and hell to read), the directives issues by the European Union, and of course the services of many expensive intellectual property lawyers!

* this pretty much has no meaning; its origin is in an older treaty and in US law but both have changed. In some countries it's helpful for damages etc but it's not that much of a big deal.

Time Magazine

xeduCat wrote:

Saying it twice doesn't make it legally true, do you have a reference for that?

The sister-in-law.

Smartarse.

xeduCat

Stargal

Ibid wrote:

Smartarse.

That's personal abuse. Someone smack Ibid down.

Time Magazine

stargal wrote:

That's personal abuse. Someone smack Ibid down.

Less with the left conspiracy against the economists. First you go after my beloved Right_Side, then you try take out my D4 friend b.ie_curious by acting all ghetto with him, now you try sabotage my chances of rebutting Dáithí abruptly.

Europerson, stay out of the kitchen; Andrew_83's girlfriend's got her knives out.

Stargal

Ibid wrote:

Less with the left conspiracy against the economists. First you go after my beloved Right_Side, then you try take out my D4 friend b.ie_curious by acting all ghetto with him, now you try sabotage my chances of rebutting Dáithí abruptly.

Europerson, stay out of the kitchen; Andrew_83's girlfriend's got her knives out.

Wow. You know, I never realised until you pointed it out, but isn't it strange how the most contrary people on this forum are all economists?

Andrew_83's girlfriend x

Not being intentionally contrary here but we're graduand economists..

Don't want the qualified ones going on strike - the market might collapse!

Nietzschean

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

Fair enough, I personally have a problem with the fact that it's software patent related and that they have no proof.

No its not, its copyright related, software patents didn't exist way back when the infringment is supposed to have occured.....

I couldn't care less that it's linux they're attacking. I don't think linux deserves any special treatment.

Well thats where me, IBM and most of the world disagree.... a free OS that people arn't directly profiting from, IBM own several patents on linux technology but don't enforce them, its not just a concidence its open source related...

Would you stand by all those other shell companies who own patents and sue non- F/OSS companies for "infringing" on their IP or do you only care when it's Linux under attack ? I think that's a terrible double-standard.

And your entirely misinformed, the SCO case is copyrights and contract breach. And i agree completely with copyright IP infringment enforcement. You have copyrights and patents entirely confused...

faceman

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,56346,00.html

If they really believed they had infringed copyright, they should have pursued. How many libraries in the world look simliar to that? Alot I would expect.

Nietzschean

original_psycho wrote:

graduand economists..

Arn't you's only graduand's once you qualify for your degree's? i.e. post passing yer finals?

original_psycho

original_psycho wrote:

Not being intentionally contrary here but we're graduand economists..

The term you are looking for is wannabie. Say it with me... wannabie.

Or trainee, whatever floats your boat.

Time Magazine

stargal wrote:

Wow. You know, I never realised until you pointed it out, but isn't it strange how the most contrary people on this forum are all economists?

Andrew_83's girlfriend x

. Good comeback.

Myth wrote:

The term you are looking for is wannabie. Say it with me... wannabie.

The Spice Girls spell it 'wannabe'. I prefer the term 'undergraduate' myself.

Stargal

Lil Ol 3-Chord Me wrote:

You know, I never realised until you pointed it out, but isn't it strange how the most contrary people on this forum are all economists?

original_psycho wrote:

Not being intentionally contrary here but we're graduand economists..

Not to out-pedant a pedant, but I don't think that you necessarily have to have a degree to call yourself an economist.

Now I know it's 4.30 in the morning and I'm writing this in bed, but bear with me on this:

I wouldn't call someone studying medicine or social work a doctor/social worker, as they haven't yet attained the qualification that they need to practice.

However I can think of a few people I know studying at undergraduate level who I would class as economists or sociologists or political scientists, simply by the scope of their knowledge and their abilities in their subject. It's not like there's a certain level which you need to achieve to class yourself as a social scientist of any kind; it's about being committed to the subject, having an aptitude for it, forming your own opinions rather than simply accepting conventional wisdom and working hard at the discipline.

Now obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, but there are people who are going to go on to work in their field, and I don't think you can say that there's one set point where you can say that they 'became' an economist.

HOWEVER, since I don't think anyone wants this to turn into yet another social science debate, let's just agree that we're both right and possibly fabulous too.

That guy from Lucan or Lexlip or some other anonymous culchie backwater/hellhole that's pretending to be in Dublin wrote:

Good comeback.

Thank you.

ApeXaviour

stargal wrote:

That guy from Lucan or Lexlip or some other anonymous culchie backwater/hellhole that's pretending to be in Dublin wrote:

Good comeback.

I resent that. Lucan first of all is in Dublin, it's full of Dubliners, it's closer to the city centre than killiney, ballybrack, swords, malahide and portmarnock. And unlike the last three mentioned it's not an island town, it's connected by suburbia right to the city centre.

While Leixlip village is almost geographically as close to my house as lucan village, I almost never go there. Nor do I know almost anybody from there even though many would live closer to me than a lot of my Lucan dwelling friends. I'm not saying leixlip people are bad people (that would just be stupid) but I would associate myself as being closer to blanchardstown or tallaght etc.

ApeXaviour

ApeXaviour wrote:

I resent that. Lucan first of all is in Dublin, it's full of Dubliners, it's closer to the city centre than killiney, ballybrack, swords, malahide and portmarnock.

Plus it's part of 'South Dublin'.

Time Magazine

stargal wrote:

Good stuff that like, totally like, agree like totally with

You know after you posted this I was going to actually agree with and compliment you for once! (Incidentally afaik we agreed on most things CSC, so I don't know why I think we never agree). But then...

Stargal wrote:

<Disgusting, horrific jibe>

My town may be anonymous - after all you can't spell it - but as Apex says we are as far from Dublin as Boston.

Stargal

ApeXaviour wrote:

I resent that. Lucan first of all is in Dublin, it's full of Dubliners, it's closer to the city centre than killiney, ballybrack, swords, malahide and portmarnock. And unlike the last three mentioned it's not an island town, it's connected by suburbia right to the city centre.

While Leixlip village is almost geographically as close to my house as lucan village, I almost never go there. Nor do I know almost anybody from there even though many would live closer to me than a lot of my Lucan dwelling friends. I'm not saying leixlip people are bad people (that would just be stupid) but I would associate myself as being closer to blanchardstown or tallaght etc.

Sorry Apex, I didn't mean to diss your hometown, I just wanted to slag Ibid and couldn't remember which one he was from so just went for both of them. I do actually know where Lucan is, and I know it's not that far out. And I think the fact that I didn't even managed to spell Leixlip correctly tells you everything that I know about that area

Ibid: Je ne regrette rien.

Time Magazine

Du bist saugen.

Stargal

Ibid wrote:

Du bist saugen*.

No darling, youre ma sucks. Hoho!


*And incidentally, my German may be a little non-existent, but doesn't that mean 'You are sucking' or 'You are suck'? If that's what you were going for then bravo, I applaud your audacity but otherwise it's just a little odd