BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//InvisionCommunity Events 5.0.18//EN METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN REFRESH-INTERVAL:PT15M X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT15M X-WR-CALNAME:RMCommunityCalendar NAME:RMCommunityCalendar BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London TZURL:https://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20210328T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20211031T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Character Copyright 07/16/2021 DTSTAMP:20250526T183807Z SEQUENCE:0 UID:306-7-c3fe8195a3dde498d013e477e2142422@aalbc.com ORGANIZER;CN="richardmurray":noreply@aalbc.com DESCRIPTION:\n Character Copyright 07/16/2021\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n COMMENT S IN ARTICLE\n\n Fan fiction is a hot button for many professional writers . Broadly speaking\, if the fan fiction is written by a non-professional a nd is non-commercial then it is more likely to be considered fair use\, an exception to infringement. However\, even if the work is not professional and not commercial\, many writers consider fan fiction an infringement.\n \n My purpose in writing this post is to make writers aware that their cha racters can have individual protections. It is a concept that should be co nsidered when licensing the work\, in an option agreement for instance. I have seen requests from producers to option not just the work\, but certai n characters in the work. Writers need to consider how they want to deal w ith those requests when they come. You do not need a multi-million dollar franchise to start thinking about it.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n I will say one th ing first\, lawyers always reveal the most interesting legal battles in va rious subjects. I knew of none of these incidents. Thank you Ms/Mrs Goldma n and as always thank you Jane Friedman for sharing. \n\n I admit I wante d to have my first fan fiction this year and I failed. I like to create so mething I never did before each year.  But this article made me realize I made two errors. \n\n My first error was my inability to make a fan fict ion. I am an original creator and every time I tried i kept making a world or characters that have no plot connection to the source fiction or chara cters. Imagine a story supposed to be set in the same world as harry potte r but is primarily concerned with a magical detective agency in calcutta d uring the mughal era where the magicians don't use wands and the plot neve r goes to europe or the usa or mentions any spells in harry potter or any of the references of the movies or books. Is that fan fiction? or merely f iction that a writer has to say is based in the harry potter world?   \n \n But after this article\, I made a second. I didn't put enough thought i nto the whole activity of fan fiction\, especially to work that is not in a public domain. I am glad I failed to continue the use of the world or ch aracters in the material I wanted to make fan fiction for. I still will li ke to try it. but I will start with a better dialog with the author. that is first \n\n\n\n from\n\n\n\n Richard Murray\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n \n\n Are Fictional Characters Protected Under Copyright Law?\n\n July 14\, 2021 by Kathryn Goldman\n\n\n\n Today’s post is from intellectual property atto rney Kathryn Goldman (@KathrynGoldman) of the Creative Law Center.\n\n\n\n Jack Ryan\, the analytical\, yet charming CIA analyst\, made an appearanc e in federal court in Maryland earlier this year. The heirs to Tom Clanc y’s literary legacy are fighting over him. Unlike in the movies\, he’s not in a great position to fight back.\n\n\n\n It all started when Clancy signed the publishing deal for The Hunt for Red October where Jack Ryan m ade his debut in 1984. In a departure from common practice\, Clancy transf erred his copyright in Red October to the publisher. A few years later\, C lancy realized his mistake and was able to negotiate return of the copyrig ht for the book. He immediately transferred the reverted copyright to his company.\n\n\n\n Here’s the crux of the current court battle: When Clanc y mistakenly transferred his copyright in the book Red October to the orig inal publisher\, did the copyright to the character Jack Ryan go with it? Or did Clancy retain the character copyright? In normal practice\, the sal e of the right to publish a copyrighted story does not stop the author fro m using its characters in future works.\n\n\n\n If Clancy retained the rig hts to the character when he signed the initial publishing contract\, then the rights that reverted from the publisher would not have included the c opyright for the character. The reverted rights Clancy turned around and t ransferred into his company would not have included the character rights. All of which means that the character\, Jack Ryan\, is part of Clancy’s estate and not controlled by the company he set up.\n\n\n\n Jack Ryan is a valuable character with his own copyright separate from the copyright in the book. Everybody concerned\, the owners of the company and the heirs to the estate\, wants a piece of him\, or all of him. And it’s not clear w here Mr. Ryan currently resides.\n\n\n\n Fictional characters are not list ed in the copyright statute as a separate class of protectable work. There ’s no application at the Copyright Office for them. But over the years\, the law on character protection has evolved.\n\n\n\n Courts have held\, i n certain circumstances\, that fictional characters are protectable in the ir own right.\n\n\n\n This is important because characters with independen t copyright can be licensed separately from the stories in which they orig inally appeared. It’s another way for authors to divide their rights to create multiple income streams. That’s the beauty of copyright. It’s d ivisible. An author can keep some rights and license others. It’s what C lancy did and his company/estate is still doing with the Jack Ryan franchi se.\n\n\n\n Not every character can be protected by copyright. Stock chara cters cannot be protected—a drunken old bum\, a slippery snake oil sales man\, a hooker with a heart of gold\, a wicked stepmother\, a gypsy fortun e teller\, and so on. They are essentially ideas for characters\, vague an d lightly sketched. Copyright does not give anyone a monopoly on ideas. Pr otecting stock characters would prevent as yet untold stories from being t old. Depriving the world of new stories is exactly the opposite of what co pyright is intended to promote—the creation of more stories\, more art.\ n\n\n\n A character must be well delineated to be protected.\n\n It must h ave consistent and identifiable character traits and attributes so it is r ecognizable wherever it appears. Think James Bond and his distinctive char acter traits: his cool demeanor\; his overt sexuality\; his love of martin is “shaken\, not stirred”\; his marksmanship\; his “license to kil l”\; his physical strength\; and his sophistication. Bond is protected b y copyright. The Bond character is identifiable regardless of who depicts him.\n\n\n\n Defining the well-delineated character can be difficult. Char acters that are central to a story tend to change. They evolve. They are b uilt up throughout the book until they are fully formed in the mind of the reader. Without character transformation there is no hero’s journey\, n o story. Characters can become more delineated and more protectable over t he course of a series of books. Bond developed over the course of 14 books written by Ian Fleming and continues to develop on film.\n\n\n\n Characte rs that are less developed are less likely to be protected. Those characte rs are less expression and more idea. There’s a gray area that needs to be navigated when balancing the protection for original characters but lea ving character ideas in the public domain free for all to use.\n\n\n\n Pub lic domain characters cannot be protected\n\n But new characters created f rom public domain works can be protected. Consider Enola Holmes\, the youn ger sister of Sherlock. The Sherlock Holmes stories have been slipping int o the public domain for years now\, to the chagrin of the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle. The creative elements of Sherlock Holmes stories that are in the public domain can be used by others to build new stories.\n\n\n\n Eno la Holmes was introduced to readers in a series of young adult books writt en by Nancy Springer. Enola does not exist in the Conan Doyle canon\; she was created by Springer. She has distinctive traits (high intelligence\, k een observational skills and insight\, skills in archery\, fencing\, and m artial arts\, an independent thinker who defies Victorian norms for women) that combine to make her well delineated and protectable.\n\n\n\n Another wrinkle: “The story being told” test\n\n The “well delineated cha racter” is the most widely accepted legal test used to decide whether a fictional character is protected by copyright\, but it is not the only one . The other is “the story being told” test. Sam Spade is responsible f or this test.\n\n\n\n Dashiell Hammett created Sam Spade when he wrote The Maltese Falcon. Hammett licensed the exclusive rights to use the book in movies\, radio\, and television to Warner Brothers. Hammett later wrote ot her stories with Sam Spade. Warner Bros. complained that it owned exclusiv e rights to the character and Hammett couldn’t write about him anymore.\ n\n\n\n Ironically\, the court protected Hammett’s right as the creator to use Sam Spade in future stories by deciding that the character was not protected by copyright. Sam Spade is just a vehicle for telling the story and is not the story itself. He is the chessman in the game of telling the story. It was the story that was licensed to Warner Bros.\, not the chess man.\n\n\n\n A character is protected under the “story being told” tes t when he dominates the story in a way that there would be no story withou t him. This test sets a high bar for character protection. To protect the character\, the story would essentially have to be a character study. The Maltese Falcon is not a character study of Sam Spade.\n\n\n\n An example o f character protection using the “story being told test” is the Rocky franchise. A screenwriter wrote a story on spec using the characters Rocky \, Adrian\, Apollo Creed\, and Paulie. The work was considered to be an in fringing use of the characters. The characters were protected because the movies focused on the characters and their relationships\, not on intricat e plot or story lines. The characters were the story being told. The write r could not avoid the infringement touchpoint of substantial similarity wh en he took the characters and used them in a new storyline.\n\n\n\n In sum mary\n\n Fictional characters can lead a new and independent life complete ly separate from the original work in which they appear. They are an addit ional creative asset in a writer’s intellectual property portfolio. Ther e is no straight forward way to register for character protection with the Copyright Office other than as part of the larger work. Authors will be w ell served to think about protecting the rights in their characters when s igning publishing contracts and licensing agreements.\n\n\n\n Kathryn Gold man\n\n Kathryn Goldman is an intellectual property attorney and Editor-in -Chief at the Creative Law Center. She represents\, writes for\, and teach es creatives and entrepreneurs about copyright and content protection\, tr ademark basics and branding\, and business building. She can be reached at Kathryn@creativelawcenter.com.\n\n\n\n ARTICLE LINK\n\n https://www.janef riedman.com/are-fictional-characters-protected-under-copyright-law/\n\n\n\ n  \n\n\n\n COMMENT ON FACEBOOK POST \n\n Wiley Saichek\n\n Jane Friedma n My client Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (we ran an excerpt from her book on writi ng a few years ago) is one of those writers who are extremely protective o f her characters and does not grant anyone the usage of her characters in fan fiction\, even in amateur publications\, not for profit outlets. From her point of view and her lawyers at the times\, distribution is a key fac tor\, not whether the infringing fan writer makes any money off of it.\n\n My personal suggestion is if anyone wants to use a character they did not create\, ask the copyright holder's permission and respect their decision . I.e. Quinn has written stories in the Holmes universe but got permission from the estate and had rules to follow.\n\n Quinn's most serious case of infringement happened in the 1990s\, she wrote two essays about it in a S F publication in 1992. In her case she was asked and said no\, and the fan writer wrote it anyway and it ran in a fanzine with a note acknowledging CQY declined permission but they were going to run it anyway and hope she will forgive them. I think they actually used three of her recurring chara cters.\n\n Many fans and writers disagree with how she handled it\, but sh e has zero sense of humor about it.\n\n\n\n FACEBOOK Link\n\n https://www. facebook.com/jane.friedman/posts/10159604823112417?__cft__[0]=AZXv6tqLEho3 qt9e6ECOp5g8Bm4JmEefiGUqUC07rvEpR6crPews6VYpt6oZ--49mda_yRlyZRU7ZZzwkjlNy5 dcdppQGrPoVf3IqR2fe0CYcoVHMDkNisftkhyxdUO_YtU&\;__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R\n\n\n \n  \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Original Post\n\n\n\n https://aalbc.com/tc/profil e/6477-richardmurray/?status=1572&\;type=status\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n  \n \n DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210716 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR