No need to replicate "his" book, Ramiel could draw new pages with the suggestions from us. Throw in some edited Da Vinci dissectomi drawings, some odd and strange symbols and text...:thumbsup
Artists have always been touchy with their creations. I have never seen any of the pages from this book , but from what everyone has been posting if it's original artwork it is his property . BUT if you create anything similar and change it with additional drawings, style or even different materials it's YOURS. Even if it is close to the original.[/QUOTE]
As the BOOKBINDER of the dead, Similar works are are a violation of copyright, it has to be 90% different from the source material to not violate rules regarding copyright.
Most prop work is done as work for hire so the artist never own their work, but in the case of EVIL DEAD, Sam had no money to pay Tom so Tom's contract gave the rights for all the props he created for the film to him.
On EVIL DEAD II Tom got the same deal, created a new book and dagger as well as the winged deadite Ash shoots at the end of ED II.
Tom Sullivan and Bob Mees had a company called Illusion Engineering that made all the stop motion armatures for both films.
Shortly after ARMY OF DARKNESS started production Tom was in a major accident and as a result he received a head injury and could not work on the film so when they decided to do the big book in AOD some work for hire guy created his version of the ED II book and the pages are almost all just cut and paste of Sullivan's art.
Being the person that did all the copyright paperwork for Tom, I know he holds 6 individual copyrights just on the EVIL DEAD BOOK Of The DEAD that include Army of Darkness and EVIL DEAD The Musical.
I built the BOOK Of The DEAD props for the off Broadway Production of EVIL DEAD The Musical, worked on the Anchor Bay BOTD DVD's and also did the photo gallery on the BOOK Of The DEAD version of EVIL DEAD.
I currently build the replicas of the first film version BOTD that contain all the original artwork from the film plus many pages not seen. The cover is made of Dragon Skin and is heavy and feels like a slab of raw meat. (note: the first fifty book replicas are cast in self-skinning polyurethane foam.)
Tom also has restored the Kandarian Dagger from ED II and we are getting ready to take molds from it. He plans to sell many versions including cast in bronze and as a resin model kit.
Last thing here, if Tom doesn't go after copyright violations he looses control of his copyrights and if they make ED IV or the remake of ED they could screw him out of his rights to his work.