What would be the rules involved in using images in banners/manips? I know that unless you took the image yourself, it's copyright to somone else, but could any random image still legally be used if no profit is being made on the manip? Do most people just use stock images?

 Hello, I'm new and I have an issue/question. Recently an author deleted their fic from LJ and FF.net by deleting their accounts. The author cannot be reached. I've saved said fic as a PDF and don't know if I can distribute it.

In *my* opinion, this should be fine. After all the author posted the fic to the public. I'm not saying by doing so that they gave up the rights. I'm saying by doing so, they acknowledge the risk of doing so. In addition since posting it to the public, doesn't that mean they wanted it to be seen? That they didn't care if it was to be seen? With that in mind, why wouldn't it be ok to distribute said fic? It has the old author credited. Like I said, just my opinion.

Can I or can't I? I've looked up LJ TOS and FF.NET TOS and they pretty much, to me, say, if you post on our site, we are not responsible for whatever happens.

I've been wondering- what would be the legal situation if one were to write an AU fanfiction taking place either in the real world or a world of the fan's creation (or maybe an in-verse fic for a series that takes place in the real world), and then change the names?

Could they then claim it was original? Could they sell it as their own work? Would it change the situation if the original fanfic, with the names unchanged, was still available online?

I ask because I've read a lot of Twilight AUs with all werewolf or vampire characters as humans, and the characters are often so changed it seems they might as well be original.

EDIT: Also, what about real-person fiction (RPF) AUs, or fics that don't mention whatever real thing the people are a part of (their band, or the show/movie they acted in, etc)? If the names were changed, what would that mean? Could it be called original, and would having the fic with names unchanged online affect that?

Even though most of the Canon is in the public domain (except the Casebook), the characters of Holmes, Watson, et. al. are protected by copyright. At least, I think they are, but it's very hard to tell because the Web site that purports to be the Conan Doyle Literary Estate refers to Andrea Plunket, whose copyright over the Holmes characters is not recognized by US law. Jon Lellenberg is the American literary agent for the Arthur Conan Doyle estate, according to this New York Times article about the Holmes copyright.


I'm confused because many people are publishing Holmes pastiche without getting licensing or permission. Last weekend I spoke to an editor at Quirk Books who had several Holmes pastiches for sale, and none were officially licensed. He told me it is not necessary because the stories are in the public domain. But if the characters are still protected by copyright, how can publishers print so many pastiches without hesitation? And if publishers can do it and profit from it, can I, a solitary author who would probably self-publish my pastice, do the same without breaking the law?

I've wanted to write a Holmes pastiche for years and only the copyright issue has held me back. Any advice you have would be appreciated!

I am an admin at the Supernatural Wiki, which is a wiki site for the TV show Supernatural that covers both the show and the fandom. For each fan convention we have an entry where fans link to their reports, pictures and videos taken during the Conventions. Many conventions have prohibitions on videotaping, but it happens anyway and is usually posted on You Tube. No Supernatural Convention has ever requested fans remove material posted after the Con. Until now.

There was a convention in Australia over the weekend which was very strict on only "recording devices" and disallowed even cameras after the first 5 minutes of each guest's panel. To date only a few videos have been posted.

I have been contacted by the Convention organsiers and asked to remove links to the fan videos and an audio recording, and would like advice on where I stand on this. Obviously if the fans remove the material the question is moot.

Not necessarily a factor, but at this Convention they did play an illegally downloaded episode of Supernatural (it even had the CW watermark on it!) and they played a number of fanvids which they hadn't obtained permission to use. Hence my added level of annoyance.

Any advice appreciated.

Hi, I'm Marauder; I'm a second-year law student and I've been in Harry Potter fandom since 2002. Could somebody do me a huge favor and evaluate this, specifically this?

Sam Cushion had a twirock band called Midnight Sun; his songs were all electronic and instrumental. He was advertising the albums as "the unofficial scores" to the various books in Twilight. Apparently Summit Entertainment not only had an issue with people believing that Midnight Sun was officially associated with Twilight, and with Sam making money from his albums, they claimed that the word "twirock" itself violated copyright, and demanded that Sam remove all of his music from the Internet.

I can see the issue with the confusion over who was behind Midnight Sun, I can see the issue related to Sam's making money, but it really bothers me that Summit is claiming the right to shut down anyone who comes up with an instrumental song and calls it "Death of Rosalie Hale" or "Arrival In Volterra" (two of Sam's song titles - others, like "Papercut" and "I Should Infuriate You More Often", were less obviously Twilight-related). I don't know Sam Cushion at all and he's not asking me to do this; he seems depressingly resigned to the fate of his music.

Of course, the far-reaching implications are that Summit Entertainment can shut down any little fourteen-year-old who sings a song about Edward Cullen on YouTube, and any company with the copyright to a fictional work can shut down anyone who creates a song about that work. They didn't just tell Sam to stop selling his albums and be more clear about his lack of any official tie to the series.

Claiming that the word "twirock" is a copyright violation struck me as really absurd. Do they have a right to do this?

I'm working on a website (still beta, not publically announced yet) that has a slightly complicated rights situation. I'd like to license half the site under Creative Commons and keep the other half under normal reserved copyright. Not only is it a site about fanworks, with a lot of fair use material, but it's also a wiki, which means there'll be multiple authors, including drive-by editors who might not be findable to contact about permissions later. As a frequent drive-by wiki editor myself, the idea of doing a wiki under anything but CC makes me twitch -- but I also understand that not all of our potential users are going to straddle the fandom/writing and copyleft communities as comfortably as I do, and that the ambivalent legal status of fanworks means muddying the waters further may be unwise.

Would anyone be willing to glance over my draft copyright policy? I hope this doesn't edge too close to the "legal advice" line. I'm really just hoping that someone can spot any blatant problems I've overlooked, either legally or in terms of non-geeky fen going "WTF is copyleft!?" I'm expecting that I'll be writing most of the CC material myself, but of course, since it's a wiki I can't guarantee its future. So I'm trying to write a policy that anticipates and minimizes potential problems.

The draft is here. Thanks!

Greetings, all--some of you may know me, I'm one of the archivists associated with The Gossamer Project (Deirdre).

In recent months, there seems to have been a major upswing in the material plagiarized from old XF fiction into stories posted on Fanfiction.net. And a corresponding complete silence/non-responsiveness from FFN in regards to reports of that plagiarism. Despite explicitly stating in their content guidelines that copying from previously published material is not allowed, it doesn't seem like anyone over there gives much of a damn (not unexpected, really).

Up to this point, the community pile-on behavior has almost always eventually served to at least get the plagiarized material taken down. But we've got a couple of "authors" on FFN who have realized that they're perfectly welcome to blow raspberries at the outraged original authors and continue on their merry way; or have just ditched the account and left the plagiarized stories posted.

Do you think that pointing some of the original authors at information about writing a valid DMCA complaint and sending it to FFN would be an appropriate response here? I'm at the point where I'm out of less-legal suggestions to make. Also, my understanding is that a DMCA complaint is going to require some type of formal contact information for the person filing the complaint--exactly how much is required under law?

I need some advice and a friend pointed out me to here.

I have a blog, that is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License, where I post articles.

I was approached by a person from a non-profit organization that does a magazine of special interest topics that I write about, and was asked by this person to submit an article to the organization for the magazine.

So I sent an article to that person via email. There were no contracts, waivers, or anything other than the request and stated interest that the organization is interested in my articles and my writing as being contributing material.

It may be a minor detail, but the article has been, so far, not published in the magazine, and I'm not entirely sure that anyone other than the initial contact person even has a copy of it.

The organization is now having difficulties, and I have been told that I am not allowed to publish my article anywhere else, without the organization's permission.

I am confused, since the article was originally published on my personal blog, and I don't know whether the organization can actually tell me where I can and can not publish that article.

Can anyone here help me?

clarifications:

1. Yes, the organization is fully aware that the article was originally published on my blog. When they contacted me, they specifically asked whether I'd like to submit one of the articles on my blog to be published in their magazine.

2. No where on the site is there information about submitting articles to be published in the magazine. Only the general contact information, and definitely no small print. The website is also mainly under construction as well.
And nothing about contracts, copyrights and/or waivers were mentioned when I was approached.

3. I heard about the organization claiming copyright over my work by the person who first approached me. To be honest, this person was very confused as well whether the organization could do this.

4. Also, I'm in Canada. The organization is supposedly international, but based in the States. The magazine they publish is online.

we created a supernatural fanbook this year as gifts for jensen jared and eric kripke to show how much their fandom love them etc.
we then sold them to people who took part in the book as keepsakes for the memory of taking part and so they knew how the books turned out. we did not make any profits from these books what so ever the costs were purely the printing costs of the books from the website we used that would postworld wide

we are looking into making a vol2 again and yet again selling them again at no profits price pureply printing costs. for the fans that took part in the 2nd one to keep again as a keepsake. as were are printing a few to give to cast and crew again next year.

we include fanart, fanfics and photos from show and the stars.
we did put a disclaimer in the book saying that we dont claim any of the pics and characters are our own etc. and that we made no profits from the books what so ever. so that they knew that we would no make profits from the sales of the books at all and they understood why we added fanfics and pictures etc.

ive never heard back any complaoints from the 1st book and wondering will we end up getting into trouble making these books even tho we are putting disclaimers in and that we make no profits what so ever!??