Dear Mr. Hickman!
We are a small art-group from Russia, who would like to seek your approval for an original musical project inspired by your novels set in the world of Dragonlance. There are two principal members in our group: myself, Anton Kruglov, a 35-year old professional sound producer, a composer and a music arranger, and my co-author Elena Khanpira, a talented 36-year-old lyricist. Long time ago, back in 1998, we got acquainted with your wonderful series of Dragonlance novels, which left a deep and lasting impression on both us and moved us to compose several songs dedicated to the subject. These songs became a big hit with your fans in Russia, which inspired us to continue working in this direction. Gradually our amateur project developed into a full-fledged audio musical based on your novel "Test of the Twins". We've been working on it for almost a decade now. What has originally began as a labor of love had "grown up" with us over the years, as we continued to develop professionally. At present, our work nears its completion and most of the musical had now been recorded at a professional sound studio with participation of professional singers and musicians.
Which brings us now to a rather embarassing question of copyright. As far as we know by the letter of law we have to contact the copyright holder and negotiate a deal licensing a derivative work. Our musical is inspired by the book, but we didn't use any of its original text. Moreover, we've substantially changed the plot in the process of adapting it for the musical. Therefore we're not sure whom we must now contact in this regard: the publisher who owns the rights to distribute the novel "Test of the Twins" in Russia or yourselves, the authors of the novel in question. Since we do not use any of the original text and merely borrow the setting of your novel and the general outline of its storyline, we thought we'd contact you and Margaret Weis first (the copy of this letter was sent to Margaret's e-mail found on her official site). Please, consider our case and advise us on what further course of action must we take.
To help you to form an opinion of our project's level of quality, we're ready to supply you with the demo-versions of the main songs of our musical, along with their line-by-line translation into English. And, of course, any other information or data pertaining to our work. Were you and Margaret Weis to develop an interest in our musical, whether to distribute it in your country or for any other purposes you could think of, our group would be very happy to translate it, adapt it or do anything else that would be required.
Thank you in advance for any advice or help.
I can be reached by e-mail at anton_kruglov@bk.ru.
With warmest regards,
Anton Kruglov.
We are a small art-group from Russia, who would like to seek your approval for an original musical project inspired by your novels set in the world of Dragonlance. There are two principal members in our group: myself, Anton Kruglov, a 35-year old professional sound producer, a composer and a music arranger, and my co-author Elena Khanpira, a talented 36-year-old lyricist. Long time ago, back in 1998, we got acquainted with your wonderful series of Dragonlance novels, which left a deep and lasting impression on both us and moved us to compose several songs dedicated to the subject. These songs became a big hit with your fans in Russia, which inspired us to continue working in this direction. Gradually our amateur project developed into a full-fledged audio musical based on your novel "Test of the Twins". We've been working on it for almost a decade now. What has originally began as a labor of love had "grown up" with us over the years, as we continued to develop professionally. At present, our work nears its completion and most of the musical had now been recorded at a professional sound studio with participation of professional singers and musicians.
Which brings us now to a rather embarassing question of copyright. As far as we know by the letter of law we have to contact the copyright holder and negotiate a deal licensing a derivative work. Our musical is inspired by the book, but we didn't use any of its original text. Moreover, we've substantially changed the plot in the process of adapting it for the musical. Therefore we're not sure whom we must now contact in this regard: the publisher who owns the rights to distribute the novel "Test of the Twins" in Russia or yourselves, the authors of the novel in question. Since we do not use any of the original text and merely borrow the setting of your novel and the general outline of its storyline, we thought we'd contact you and Margaret Weis first (the copy of this letter was sent to Margaret's e-mail found on her official site). Please, consider our case and advise us on what further course of action must we take.
To help you to form an opinion of our project's level of quality, we're ready to supply you with the demo-versions of the main songs of our musical, along with their line-by-line translation into English. And, of course, any other information or data pertaining to our work. Were you and Margaret Weis to develop an interest in our musical, whether to distribute it in your country or for any other purposes you could think of, our group would be very happy to translate it, adapt it or do anything else that would be required.
Thank you in advance for any advice or help.
I can be reached by e-mail at anton_kruglov@bk.ru.
With warmest regards,
Anton Kruglov.
