Writing a sequel based on another authors old work

[SimonDoom]

Yes. But, as I already showed, copyright does NOT protect the idea behind your story. It only protects you from people actually copy & pasting your written text and then claiming it as their own.

It's true that copyright doesn't protect ideas, but a well-developed character is not just an idea; it's an original creative expression of an idea, which IS protected by copyright. The difference between expression and ideas is not always clear, but expression encompasses much more than just the words themselves. Judge Learned Hand discussed the protection of characters by copyright almost a hundred years ago in his opinion in Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1930). American courts have found the characters of Superman, Rocky, and James Bond to be sufficiently well-delineated to be protected by copyright law. See Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. American Honda, 900 F. Supp. 1287 (C.D. Cal. 1995).

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Anybody that want to pick up my stuff is free to do so. No charge.

Of course, I've killed everybody off, so ....

Well, almost everybody.

 

[SimonDoom]

And.....

Drink!

Gotcha beat. I loaded up on a refill before I weighed in on this thread.

 

[lovecraft68]

Gotcha beat. I loaded up on a refill before I weighed in on this thread.

Good idea, between this topic and underage, we should always have something on deck and at the ready.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

American courts have found the characters of Superman, Rocky, and James Bond to be sufficiently well-delineated to be protected by copyright law. See Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. American Honda, 900 F. Supp. 1287 (C.D. Cal. 1995).

I'm not sure this is a fitting example. Unless I missed something, that ruling was mainly based on the extrinsic test, which showed multiple scenes copied from Bond movies for a Honda car commercial and then failed to prove they came up with those scenes independently.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm not sure this is a fitting example. Unless I missed something, that ruling was mainly based on the extrinsic test, which showed multiple scenes copied from Bond movies for a Honda car commercial and then failed to prove they came up with those scenes independently.

My point is just a broad one--that copyright protects more than just the words. Other elements, like characters, are protected as well. There are limits to the protection, but it's still protected to some extent.

 

[Otto26]

There are a lot of issues to consider on this question.
-Copyright applies. Fanfiction is technically a violation of copyright if you don't have the permission of the author. You'd be in violation of the law if the author cared to make a stink about it. Which is unlikely.
-Literotica allows fanfiction. You'd be in compliance with the site rules.
-I think that most amateur authors would be tickled that someone cared enough about the material they wrote to write fanfiction. I have, for at least one of my stories, granted permission for people to write fanfiction because I'd love to see their take on the material.

I suggest you attempt to contact the author to seek their permission and offer to remove your material if they request it, credit them heavily in the foreword to your material (including a URL link to their original work), and publish your fanfiction.

 

[SimonDoom]

Good idea, between this topic and underage, we should always have something on deck and at the ready.

One of the advantages is that it helps you forget that we've already covered all this stuff a million times over. We can be the old drunk guy at the bar: "Sonny, did I ever tell you the one about the guy who wrote the incest story?"

 

[WindAndFlame]

The concept of intellectual property violates common sense. Stories are ideas. Ideas are free (in the "free speech" sense). They are memes that will continue to survive on their own and will succeed to the extent that they are good.

Everything you create is already influenced and enabled by thousands of ideas that came before it. It basically makes no difference whether this influence is a specific idea or a broader concept which originated in somebody else's mind. You are always expanding on the ideas of others when you think you are creating something original.

Once you share your idea it begins its own life and your hold over it will be fleeting. Your ability to maintain legal ownership of it will be proportional to your power to lobby the government to create (or extend) copyright law and to your ability to propagandize the public into accepting the concept of intellectual property in the first place. You will do these things to the extent that you stand to profit from your idea.

If you don't want to add your idea to the meme pool, don't share it in the first place.

 

[alohadave]

The concept of intellectual property violates common sense. Stories are ideas. Ideas are free (in the "free speech" sense). They are memes that will continue to survive on their own and will succeed to the extent that they are good.

Everything you create is already influenced and enabled by thousands of ideas that came before it. It basically makes no difference whether this influence is a specific idea or a broader concept which originated in somebody else's mind. You are always expanding on the ideas of others when you think you are creating something original.

Once you share your idea it begins its own life and your hold over it will be fleeting. Your ability to maintain legal ownership of it will be proportional to your power to lobby the government to create (or extend) copyright law and to your ability to propagandize the public into accepting the concept of intellectual property in the first place. You will do these things to the extent that you stand to profit from your idea.

If you don't want to add your idea to the meme pool, don't share it in the first place.

Copyright is a government granted monopoly on the work that you create. It is intended to allow you to monetize your work for a set period (which has been bastardized over time) after which it becomes the property of society to use as they wish.

What you are seeing is decades of large corporations lobbying for and governments extending the time frame due to financial interests and moral rights arguments. This is the opposite of the intended outcome, where works would enter the public domain after 14 years (or 28 years with one extension).

If the original terms were still intact, everything in the US older that 1996 would be in the public domain, free for anyone to use.

As to your first point, a story is a particular expression of an idea, and is unique. That uniqueness is what is protected. Cinderella as made by Disney is protected under copyright. A peasant who becomes a princess when Prince Charming comes along and selects her as his bride is an idea, and anyone can build off that idea.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Good idea, between this topic and underage, we should always have something on deck and at the ready.

Only if you want cirrhosis.

 

[SimonDoom]

The concept of intellectual property violates common sense. Stories are ideas. Ideas are free (in the "free speech" sense). They are memes that will continue to survive on their own and will succeed to the extent that they are good.

Everything you create is already influenced and enabled by thousands of ideas that came before it. It basically makes no difference whether this influence is a specific idea or a broader concept which originated in somebody else's mind. You are always expanding on the ideas of others when you think you are creating something original.

Once you share your idea it begins its own life and your hold over it will be fleeting. Your ability to maintain legal ownership of it will be proportional to your power to lobby the government to create (or extend) copyright law and to your ability to propagandize the public into accepting the concept of intellectual property in the first place. You will do these things to the extent that you stand to profit from your idea.

If you don't want to add your idea to the meme pool, don't share it in the first place.

The rationale of intellectual property is that it incentivizes people to invent things and to create artistic works, and that by incentivizing people to do so the world is better.

It's a plausible theory, so I don't think it's fair to say that it "violates common sense." Its assumptions are debatable, but not obviously wrong.

In the case of copyright, it does not protect "ideas." It protects the unique original "expression" of ideas. There's no intellectual property in a TV show idea about people being stranded on an island, because that's just an idea, but when the show creator has gone to the trouble of creating a unique expression of the idea that involves specific characters, plot concepts, personalities, setting, etc., such as in Gilligan's Island, then it's fair to say it's more than just an idea. Granting limited exclusive rights to profit from the particular expression incentivizes other show creators to invest time to come up with new shows.