Wicked Legal Issues

I posted this question/issue on a hijacked thread the other day, but I'd like to know if anyone out there can tell me how Wicked (both the novel & musical) is getting around it:

The book (The Wonderfu Wizard of Oz) by L. Frank Baum was written and published first in 1899. This book is in the public domain now.

WHAT'S IN THE BOOK (AND THEREFORE PUBLIC DOMAIN WITH NO RIGHTS ISSUES WHATSOEVER):
- Dorothy is a farmgirl from Kansas who wears a blue checked gingham dress.
- She melts the Wicked Witch of the West unintentionally, by throwing a bucket of water on her.
- The Witch of the East's magic shoes are silver.

WHAT'S NOT IN THE BOOK (...AND THEREFORE QUESTIONABLE AS TO HOW WICKED IS LEGALLY INCORPORATING THESE SPECIFIC MGM MOVIE ELEMENTS INTO THEIR STORY):
- The Witch of the West is not green-skinned in the book. She's an old hag with one eye, who can't bleed because she is so evil.
- The wicked witches of the East and West are not sisters.
- Consequently, the Witch of the West is not avenging the death of her sister, nor does she desire the Silver Shoes until she sees them first on Dorothy's feet. She sends the flying monkeys to bring Dorothy to her castle, because she is angry with Dorothy for trespassing in her territory. It has nothing to do with the shoes.
- Glinda (the Good Witch of the SOUTH) makes no appearance in Munchkinland right after the Witch of the East has been killed. It is the "grandmother-like" Good Witch of the NORTH (a totally different character) who does this. She is no relation to Glinda, by the way. The two good witches were combined for the MGM movie to make the part bigger.
- Glinda (yes, of the SOUTH) does not travel in a bubble of any kind. Dorothy and her gang have to make a long journey south by foot, after she melts the Witch of the West, to ask for Glinda's help in her castle.

People on this board have commented about legally "questionable" words or phrases from the movie, which I guess were an issue when the show was out of town... They had to clean those up. But these are MAJOR PLOT POINTS in the story, like green skin, bubbles and bad witches who are sisters, and they all come specifically from the MGM movie, not the public domain book.

Hmmm...

The MGM movie, along with its screenplay and visual likenesses, is not public domain material, and is currently jointly owned by Turner and Warner Bros.

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And was it really necessary to make a whole new post? You already posted that exact same thing in another thread.

"They did it, they haven't been sued, they used some things, they didn't use other things. The shows coming up on 2 years on Broadway, plenty of time for anyone to get a lawyer and sue for a slice of that massively huge pie. Hasn't happened; Don't think it's going to."

I also thought about mentioning that, but I thought I'd give the original poster the legal answer. Also, there would be a statute of limitations to bring suit, which I'm sure has been reached by now. "Wicked" is approaching two years on Broadway, but has been around for at least three, even if only on paper.

And I figured that was all taken care of during its pre-Broadway run. I also posted in the other thread. Kristin Chenoweth addresed this in an interview on Seth's Chatterbox. She said something to the effect that they found out there were certain things they couldn't say or do. She found out right before going on, I think it was the very 1st show, and she had to improvise a lot. If I remember correctly, her improvisation at that performance has mostly stayed in the show.

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Well, Toto is a character in the original book. I don't think that was changed for legal reasons...

Kristin said in an interview that she had to change Toto to Dodo for legal reasons...

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Updated On: 8/1/05 at 06:36 PM

Legal issues are the reason that Dorothy is not shown (the dress is under copyright by MGM), why the "Bubble Dress" is blue, not pink, and why Nessa's shoes are silver, but shown in a red light. These things are all under copyright by MGM.

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If I remember correctly, which I may not be--I think that The Wizard of OZ is under public domain. Thats the reason why everyone can use the script from the movie and use it in stage productions. Just a thought-I COULD be wrong, but I remember hearing this.

In the book, Galinda changes her name to Glinda, so that wasn't a name change (ie. to Galinda) for any copyright reasons. Merely adding some depth to the character :)

"MGM's depiction of the witch is VERY in keeping with traditional illustrations in fairy tales. Complete with green skin. It would be very hard to make any type of brand stamp on her image." - Michael Bennett

Actually, no, Michael. I appreciate all your thoughts on this. But MGM is constantly credited with creating the modern "look" of witches they developed for Margaret Hamilton in the movie The Wizard of Oz. Before that one film, witches were depicted usually as old hags, stooped over, or sometimes as sorceresses. Not green-skinned, with a pointed black hat, long black dress and cape. Baum's own illustrator W.W. Denslow added a pointed hat (similar to his Munchkins) in his imaginings, but the hat had stars, moons, etc. more like a wizard's cap. That's as close as they came. After the Wizard of Oz (film) opened in 1939, the look of witches was forever changed, at least in the USA. I guess MGM should have (or could have?) jumped on the ball back then to protect their invented likeness. But I doubt they did it, since there are so many post-1939 witch depictions that look just like Ms. Hamilton. This probably worked in "Wicked"'s favor. Only Disney seemed to jump on likeness protection from the very beginning.

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i have to stand behind mb on this one... you're just not right best 12.

considering Universal Pictures is part producer of the show as per their website, I wouldnt be surprised if the same opportunity was given to MGM and that all legal issues were long ago resolved...