Sorry to add to rgis, but I rgink is is a bit relevant to fanfic
writing.


oshua_D_Trujillo wrote:

Okay boys and girls, here's where it gets messy. I am a copyrighted
(written?) author of my own material and I can tell you what a hassle it is
doing the process, so any author who goes through the process REALLY wants
to protect the work.

As a professional writer, I can agree somewhat, although the more
complicated process is in essence, inneccessary. At least in the US. The
way ro copteight your work is very simple... wrute it. Trademarks must
be registered, copyrights do _not_.  I feel it neccessary to point this
out because I once encountered a case where a fellow grad student in the
creative writing dept. had a short story stolen and published and
thought that she had no legal ground to stand on. In fact, she had a
dated first draft and a graded copy from using the story as a class
assignment in her undergrad. More than enough to prove her case. There
are several groups out there, most notably the Screenwriter's Guild that
make it seem that it is neccessary to register your work with them or
another similar group (for a nominal fee, of course) in order to have
your work oddicially copyrighted. This is not true. Registering your
work is not a bad thing, but doing so is a tool for covering your bases
in the event of a legal action rather than a required element of
copywriting. Personally, I mark all of my work with a copyright message
and rge date I started the work and I keep an original draft on my hard
drive and my backup. I also usua;;y register evetything with the US
Copyright Office ($20 filing fee) befpre submitting. 

More info can be found at:

http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/reg.html

http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/copy1.html

The messy part is, or rather was, brought into court by none other than the
king of parody "Weird" Al Yankovic. Remember him and the court case with
"Michael"?
The decision, and it is a landmark one, says that so long as the work is a
parody, it does NOT fall under copyright infringement. Parody is a legal
artform.
Now to cover our own butts we always include a little disclaimer
saying...well, you know...but that still doesn't cover us, unless our work
is parody.

Yep, if your work could be said to be a parody, you are protected,
otherwise, you are taking a risk without a consent form.

However, before anyone panics and gives up the wonderful world of
fanfics, the odds of some irate anime artist taking all of us to court
is highly unlikely for several reasons.

1. It is kinda pointless and expensive to go after a fanfic writer that
obeys the rules (no profit, and any rules that the author may have set
down). If a writer is the sort to do this, then it is likely that he or
she will have already "banned" fanfics in their public statements.

2. If an author is irate about fanfics and wants to stop them, any
decent lawyer is going to advise them to make announcements and to
formally inform/warn early violators of possible litigation. This
establishes a prevedent and just generally looks favorable in front of
jydge and jury when and if neccesary. A good example of this is the
recent, and very unpopular letters sent by Disney and Paramount to
various Webmasters who's pages used copyrighted and trademarked
aterials.

3. I think that the Anime/Manga artists out there are intelligent enough
to realise that the fanfic culture is a large and enthusiastic part of
their fan base and is likely to increase the popularity of their work.

Anyway, that's my spiel on this subject, if you take exception to
anything I said, please respond on private e-mail unless it is really
neccessary for the rest of the list to read. I decided to share this
because a couple of budding writers of my acquaintance who I have been
trying to get into fanfiction writing read a bit of the discussion and
came to me nervous about "taking the risks" of writing fanfics. 

BTW if anyone is interested and has never heard of it, there is a
newsgroup alt.books.valdemar.fanfics, it seems deserted at the moment,
but I thought the other Misty fans on the FFML might be interested.


Later all,

C-chan