Firefly Animated Screen Saver

POSTED BY: Amni
UPDATED: Sunday, September 23, 2007 05:59
VIEWED: 14546
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AMNI

Friday, June 8, 2007 8:01 AM

I'm in the process of making a free, animated screen saver for firefly fans.

However, somebody warned me that using images, sounds and video from the movie and series is liable to get me sued.

I'm terrible with this legal stuff - can anyone dumb this down for me? Or advise me on how I can get my hands on some royalty free images, sounds etc.?

Any advice on where I could put it up for download would be a bonus.

GORBISHUN

Friday, June 8, 2007 8:09 AM

Oh, no idea about the legal stuff but a Firefly screen saver would be so awesome. There's got to be some way you can do it--legally, that is.

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«°-:-°»Also... I can kill you with my brain.«°-:-°»

ODININFINITY

Tuesday, June 19, 2007 5:36 PM

Legality wise you should be fun as long as you do not charge for the screensaver. It may be bending the law to some extent, but it is hard to trace, and is never prosecuted.

I don't play God...

SOUTHERNCHICKIE

Sunday, September 23, 2007 3:34 AM

It's no more illegal than fanfic, wallpapers, music vids....

go for it. as said above, so long as you're not charging for it, nor taking credit for firefly you should be fine.

ETA: I'd love to have it!

SIGMANUNKI

Sunday, September 23, 2007 5:59 AM

Contrary to what others say the real answer is it depends. It depends a lot on where you physically are and if there are official "whatever you want to make."

Whether or not the images, etc are fan produced or not, the original IP is not there's nor will it be yours. This is the reason why fan vids get taken down. Though typically because attribution was not given. This is the real thing that you have to keep in mind; giving credit.

Now, I'll assume that you're going to make the screen-saver for windows. So, I'm not sure if there can be some sort of "about box" in the setting panel or some such. IF there is, put something there.

Regardless of if you can or can't do that, put a readme file in the downloadable zip/rar/whatever that gives proper credit. And also put it on the page where you are making the file available for download.

If you do all that, then and not charge any money you should be fine (at least legally). What I mean by that is the worst that historically would happen is getting a take-down notice. If any money changes hands, then the lawyers come into play (for an example of this lookup the whole t-shirt 11thhour fiasco - I think it was about a year ago).

Please note that "it's free" certianly does NOT mean that you can "do whatever you want." Keep the above in mind, and you should be fine.

EDIT: Just thought that I'd add that the reason why you need to explicitly give credit is that by omission, you'd be taking credit. And it doesn't matter if "it's obvious" because lawyers don't care about such things. No explicit attribution = taking credit yourself.

Sorry if that was obvious. But, in my experience (and as a buddies old prof said), common sense isn't necessarily all that common. Just covering the bases.

Take it easy and have fun :)

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