Copyright issues?
POSTED BY: smiletenshi
UPDATED: Friday, November 18, 2005 13:17
VIEWED: 3994
PAGE 2 of 2
Quote:
Originally posted by vermin:
Bottom line: Fanfiction, by definition, is a copywright infringement. By using characters Joss created, a writer is infringing on his intellectual property. Unless someone has express consent from Joss (like the guy who did the novelization or the screen writers who worked on the show) they cannot use his characters.
Yup, this is pretty much the case. I'm on the board of our local Public Relations Society of America, and last month's guest speaker was a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property. Here's a direct quote from her presentation:
"You may not claim copyright in any material borrowed from another source. By the same token, the unauthorized use of copyrightable materials that were not generated by you or your company may give rise to a claim of copyright infringement....Copyright may be transferred from one party to another only by an express, written assignment." (I'm not a lawyer, so please don't take this as legal advice from me...I'm just passing along what she told us.)
And you don't get "charged" with copyright infringement, you just get sued. And if you're found to have infringed, the penalties can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (if I'm remembering correctly).
However, it's the copyright owners option whether or not to initiate legal action against an infringer. Oftentimes it's not worth their time or money to pursue little infringers. And sometimes, I'm convinced, copyright infringement (like the kind that happens on websites like this) is simply accepted as "volunteer marketing."
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It's my job to incite powerful yearning in the hearts and loins of my clients. No, silly, I'm not a Companion...I work at an advertising agency.
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As someone who works in the book industry.
Don't go there.
You want to print up a fanfiction newsletter for fun, go for it.
But charging money (above and beyond printing costs) for it means you're making money off of someone elses intellectual property.
I write in the Highlander genre, as well, and we tried some years back to get a fanfiction anthology published and failed to get permission from Davis/Anderson. The closest I can come to the mess it was is to quote Wash; "It's all these twists and culdesacs - it's wild."
Do a newsletter type printing to share with friends. Far less legal hassle.
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Well, no, that isn't the point.
I'm not looking to make money off of this. I'm planning on getting one print of each as a christmas present for the friend who wrote them... because nothing's cooler than seeing what you wrote in an actual bound edition.
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