Musical Show Rights?

At the risk of starting something: that's just ludicrous. If the rights can not be obtained, and the legal owner found, then NO ONE should be putting the play on. No, the show does NOT go on. It is remarkably unfair to everyone, including the many (many) thousands of Australian and international playwrights out there who are scratching out a living as a writer. For those people, royalties are the difference between being employed or not in their choice of work. Furthermore, this attitude is EXTREMELY pervasive in all industries; especially the arts. Tell this to the visual artist, who in this country gets the profits from the sale of their art once (say, a couple of hundred dollars), even IF the painting ends up being worth and sold for millions of dollars later down the track. If their work is stolen or copied, like much of the 'carpet bag' area of Indigenous arts, it means a lot of their daily income taken. Or perhaps the puppeteers who spend hundreds of hours developing brilliant designs only to see them ripped off: perfect example is one company in particular who was so brazen about selling fake replicas of Henson copyrighted works that they've been sued for repeatedly doing so. Or perhaps those who think making and selling Star Wars props is ok, because let's face it, Lucas is now a millionaire and who cares if loses a few bucks. Copyright is binary: you either have it or you don't. You either have permission or you don't. There's no in betweens and it sickens me to hear other artists say it's ok to steal what's not theirs. We're all in this together, and unless an artist is specifically happy for their work to be used, we're shooting ourselves in the foot by undercutting someone else's livelihood. (Sadly, in an age of 'creative commons' so many people are confused about copyrights and their responsibilities) It doesn't matter if you CAN get away with it: the fact is, it's still illegal. (I could I suppose, get away with murder. Doesn't mean I should do it) Puppets and patterns at Puppets in Melbourne