Board Thread:Inclusion debates/@comment-9435571-20130603130040/@comment-9435571-20130603161851

Thing is, every copyright holder will say it when asked when their story only has rights to specific non-BBC owned characters. They would be in a legal hell if they didn't.

"It's completely... the universe is completely their own. It has no points of reference at all. I think the expectation was that because they were linked to The Key 2 Time that this is some sort of spin-off from that. And it really isn't. This is completely... This universe has its own morality."

It's just as explicit as the statement for Vienna. And it's being made purely to cover their asses legally, as Graceless is very much narratively linked to The Key 2 Time. It references characters, including the Doctor (although Abby only says she was taught cricket by "the Do.." before being interrupted, and the Time Lords (although, again, Abby only says that she went to "the Academy" and that it was run by people who don't like meddling with time etc.) It's being done in a way that people who don't actually deliberately look for this would assume that they're making direct references.