User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-5253713-20150518174430/@comment-5253713-20150604052219

There's a difference between "shared concepts" and "using characters you don't have the full rights to". As examples, the novels Campaign and Time's Champion, as well as the video Time Rift or the Audio Visuals audios all have shared concepts with the DWU.

Yes, Paul Cornell owns Bernice Summerfield. But, how is that relevant? Lawrence Miles own Faction Paradox. What Paul Cornell, and Virgin Books, and Big Finish Audios do not own are concepts like "Time Lord", "TARDIS" etc., the building blocks of the DWU.

From the Cloister Library review of Oh No it Isn't (novel):

Pg 5 "The Galactic War, in which the humans and their allies struggled with an alien species that fundamentally disagreed with them" These aliens are the Daleks, as mentioned in several NAs. We see the effect the Dalek war had on Earth in The Sword of Forever.

Pg 72 "She dreamt of when she was very young, in the house of her mother and father, before her world was invaded by aliens" These aliens are the Daleks, as mentioned in Love and War.

(but note how they can never actually refer to them as "Daleks", because,,,,)

Pg 224 "'A vessel which would actually be bigger on the inside than the outside -' She stopped and glanced at Wolsey, as if to make sure everything was OK. He nodded impatiently. 'I think you got away with it.'" This is a sly reference to the new state of affairs in the Virgin novels, which couldn't directly reference Doctor Who elements.

Meanwhile, the Ahistory section makes this clear(pg. 526):

Terminology in the Benny Books and Audios:

The New Adventures continued after Virgin lost the Doctor Who licence in 1996. They were unable to use characters and concepts from that originated in Doctor Who, but those created for the new Adventures(Benny, Jason Kane, Chris Cwej, Roz Forrester, the People of the Worldsphere from The Also People, Irving Braxatiel etc.) were fair game. For legal reasons, a number of new terms were coined when referencing characters or concepts firmly lodged in Doctor Who.

The Dalek Wars that were so influential to Benny's background were more generically referred to as "the Galactic War". Braxatiel in both the NAs and the Big Finish audios broadly has "time technology" or "owns a time machine", although his timeship's inter-dimensional nature - as prominently seen in Tears of the Oracle and various audios - leaves no doubt that it's a TARDIS, a notion reinforced by Big Finish's use of TARDIS-like noises. The Time Lords, who were still involved in the new Adventures, unnamed, as the signatories to the treaty with the People(Walking to Babylon), as Irving Braxatiel's race and as Chris Cwej's employers(Dead Romance), were occasionally called "the Watchmakers". Big Finish was similarly coy about naming the Time Lords, even though the status of "Braxatiel's people" mirrors developments with the Time Lords in the "Gallifrey" mini-series, and the Time Lord Straxus appears in both the BBC7 aduios and The Adventures of the Diogenes Damsel. While the Benny stories frequently refer to the Time Lords as "Braxtiel's people".

In Dragon's Wrath writer Justin Richards introduced the recurring character of Commander Skutloid, whose description(p109) leaves no doubt that he's an Ice Lord in all but name.

And according to Valid Sources:

2	A story that isn't commercially licensed by all of the relevant copyright holders doesn't count.

The Benny stories are using properly licensed characters like Benny, Roz, Chris, Braxatiel. But they're using characters and concepts they don't have the proper licence to, such as Time Lords, TARDISes etc.

and again from Valid Sources:

A rose by any other name is not as sweet. If the story consistently uses alternate names for DWU characters, places and situations, it's probably not allowed.

Which is exactly what the Benny stories do. They consistently use alternate names for DWU characters, places and situations.(eg. "Braxatiel's people").