Fanfiction Rights
I just found a wonderful site for fanfic authors. The site covers laws regarding copyrights and DMCA as well as many other relevant laws.
I find this particularly relevant for the
deleterius crowd:
Question: What kinds of things are copyrighted?
Answer: In order for a work to be protected by copyright, it must be an original creation set in a fixed medium.
An artist or author does not have a copyright in material borrowed from someone else. Also, stock characters (the sidekick) or plot lines (boy meets girl) are not copyrightable.
The requirement that works be in a fixed medium means certain forms of expression, most notably choreography and oral performances such as speeches, are not copyrighted, (unless they are being recorded contemporaneously). For instance, if I perform a Klingon death wail in a local park, my wail of death is not copyrighted, and someone else may come along and do the same thing the next day. However, if I film the performance, then the Klingon death wail does become copyrighted (since it is now "fixed" according to copyright law). Contrary to popular belief, I do not have to register my copyrighted work for it to receive copyright protection. In the United States, I only need to register if I'm going to sue.
Again, I'm no lawyer. While it doesn't come out and say it this tells me that a fanfic writer cannot completely copyright their fanfic. The characters (except for new ones they create) and setting are owned by the original author. Meanwhile plot lines cannot be copyrighted. This means only new characters can be and falls into somewhat of a grey area given the unusual nature of fanfic.
Even better is this wonderful little gem:
Question: I found something interesting on someone else's blog. May I quote it?
Answer: Probably. Short quotations will usually be fair use, not copyright infringement. The Copyright Act says that "fair use...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." So if you are commenting on or criticizing an item someone else has posted, a court would likely find that you have a fair use right to quote. The law favors "transformative" uses - commentary, either praise or criticism, is better than straight copying - but courts have said that even putting a piece of an existing work into a new context (such as a thumbnail in an image search engine) counts as "transformative." The blog's author might also have granted you even more generous rights through a Creative Commons license, so you should check for that as well.
So, criticism is covered under fair use and as long as it is transformative, it is protected as long as you can show it is, in fact transformative. I would be sure to exclude parts of the original work to be safe, but it seems to be pretty well protected.
I find this particularly relevant for the
deleterius crowd:
Question: What kinds of things are copyrighted?
Answer: In order for a work to be protected by copyright, it must be an original creation set in a fixed medium.
An artist or author does not have a copyright in material borrowed from someone else. Also, stock characters (the sidekick) or plot lines (boy meets girl) are not copyrightable.
The requirement that works be in a fixed medium means certain forms of expression, most notably choreography and oral performances such as speeches, are not copyrighted, (unless they are being recorded contemporaneously). For instance, if I perform a Klingon death wail in a local park, my wail of death is not copyrighted, and someone else may come along and do the same thing the next day. However, if I film the performance, then the Klingon death wail does become copyrighted (since it is now "fixed" according to copyright law). Contrary to popular belief, I do not have to register my copyrighted work for it to receive copyright protection. In the United States, I only need to register if I'm going to sue.
Again, I'm no lawyer. While it doesn't come out and say it this tells me that a fanfic writer cannot completely copyright their fanfic. The characters (except for new ones they create) and setting are owned by the original author. Meanwhile plot lines cannot be copyrighted. This means only new characters can be and falls into somewhat of a grey area given the unusual nature of fanfic.
Even better is this wonderful little gem:
Question: I found something interesting on someone else's blog. May I quote it?
Answer: Probably. Short quotations will usually be fair use, not copyright infringement. The Copyright Act says that "fair use...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." So if you are commenting on or criticizing an item someone else has posted, a court would likely find that you have a fair use right to quote. The law favors "transformative" uses - commentary, either praise or criticism, is better than straight copying - but courts have said that even putting a piece of an existing work into a new context (such as a thumbnail in an image search engine) counts as "transformative." The blog's author might also have granted you even more generous rights through a Creative Commons license, so you should check for that as well.
So, criticism is covered under fair use and as long as it is transformative, it is protected as long as you can show it is, in fact transformative. I would be sure to exclude parts of the original work to be safe, but it seems to be pretty well protected.