Marc Schimmler wrote:
> 
> Jerry Anning wrote:
> >
> > Sorry Ken, Nathan.  That *is* considered a copyright infringement.  If you
> > create an image of, say, Callandor in the Stone of Tear (nudge, nudge), even
> > though you create the image yourself as you imagine it, you are infringing the
> > author's copyright.  Incidentally, most of what I have been saying is not just
> > US based, but a matter of nearly universal international law (the Treaty of
> > Berne).

> 
> If Nathan wouldn't give this image a name connected with the book and if
> he wouldn't mention it in the txt-file would there be room for a law
> suit?
> Is the similarity with an existing book enough to justify a law suit?
> This would prohibit a lot of pictures. Showing a strong barbarian hero
> in my rendering, would this allow the owner of the Conan copyrights to
> sue me?
> If I remember my patent and copyright course there is some room left for
> creativity.
> It's a term hard to grab but I think it is connected with the
> originality of the idea.

Don't call your barbarian Conan and don't make him look too much like Conan book
cover art, Arnold in the movies, Conan calendars etc. and don't tell a story
that is an obvious pastiche of an actual Conan story (i.e. "Spire of the
Mammoth" (looking like the Conan story "Tower of the Elephant"), and it is OK. 
As you say, this can be a gray area.  Note that the Disney people made Marvel
make physical changes in "Howard the Duck" so that he wouldn't look too much
like "Donald Duck" even though the stories were completely different and aimed
mainly at different audiences.  For irtc purposes it is my ***OPINION*** that if
you don't use actual character names, look too much like existing art or quote
or too closely copy an existing and identifiable story, you will be ok.  Of
course, most scenes, from a visual standpoint, are generic enough to be no
problem.  A woman on a balcony isn't necessarily Juliet and the man below
doesn't have to be Romeo (incidentally, they themselves were "borrowed" from
older material!).

Jerry Anning
cle### [at] dholcom

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