User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Tales from the Tardis/@comment-188432-20130325173913/@comment-188432-20130408163242

I would imagine he'd do the same sorta dance that Spragg is doing. Yes, they had to pay Holmes' estate (and maybe Griefer's, I dunno) to use it and the Osirians as a whole. So in that sense it's the same. But I don't think he would say that his usage of them added to the narrative of the DWU. He was using them in his own universe, in exactly the same way that Death's Head was used by the Marvel Universe for Marvel UK's purposes.

The Death's Head analogy is a bit closer to the Vienna situation overall, because there you have a completely creator-owned character that's floating between different fictional universes that are owned or licensed by the company for which the creator works. So whatever happens to that character in whatever universe is carried through to the next universe. Death's Head starts big, Transformer size, but is shrunk by the Doctor in the pages of DWM. That new size carries on to the character's solo title. Then the Doctor visits that solo title and takes DH to one of the Marvel Earths. Then he goes on to have adventures with the mainstream Marvel US characters, like Reed Richards and many members of the Avengers. But we're not having an article about Reed Richards here, because that's a different universe—even if the Doctor did briefly visit it.

By contrast, Miles is using someone else's character, and can't directly refer to the story in which that character originated. So is it the same name and basic concept? Yes, cause Holmes has those rights to sell? Does Miles want to vaguely imply that it's the same character? Sure he wants to hint int hat direction, to get the DW fanboys to buy his stuff.

But can he actually, directly say that? Not really, because Holmes has no rights to the TARDIS or Time Lords or Sarah Jane or the Doctor. And let's not forget that he created the FP series because he was disgusted with the BBC. Although he might see the marketing need for licensing some DWU-originating characters from Holmes, he's not trying to build an adjunct to the DWU. He's trying to tell the story of The War the way he wanted to tell it. And he is trying to create something of his own. He is not playing in the DWU as it is. He's creating something he finds creatively more satisfying and interesting. He's creating something quite definitely apart from the DWU.

At the end of the day, the authorial intent is to create an alternate, close-but-not-cigar version of Sutekh.