As you are no doubt aware, the current IRTC topic is "A scene from your
favorite mystery story, or anything else recognizably mysterious or
enigmatic."  Lets say your favourite mystery story is still protected under
copyright laws, ie, anything written in the last few decades at least.
Would reproducing a scene from such a work be a violation of it's copyright?
How about the instance of taking a character from an existing work and
putting them in a mysterious context, eg "Detective Chewbacca"?  Is fan art
a violation of copyright?

Sorry to bring up copyright issues, but the last thing I would want to do is
violate the copyright on someone elses work.

Thanks,

-peter

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RDX wrote:
> As you are no doubt aware, the current IRTC topic is "A scene from your
> favorite mystery story, or anything else recognizably mysterious or
> enigmatic."  Lets say your favourite mystery story is still protected under
> copyright laws, ie, anything written in the last few decades at least.
> Would reproducing a scene from such a work be a violation of it's copyright?
> How about the instance of taking a character from an existing work and
> putting them in a mysterious context, eg "Detective Chewbacca"?  Is fan art
> a violation of copyright?
> 
> Sorry to bring up copyright issues, but the last thing I would want to do is
> violate the copyright on someone elses work.

I think, when it comes to copyrights (though I'm no expert) that you may 
be influenced by someone else's artwork, though you may not copy the 
exact maeterial and get the credits instead of the original artist.

Also, remember that you need to be original in the IRTC; I thought of 
doing a Columbo-like mysterious crime scene, but I figured this might 
not be original enough...

If you remember a mysterious scene in a movie you should remake it in 
your own vision, that is, you might want to make it better than the 
original!...

You may also slightly change names of personnages or events...  (I 
remember playing GTA1 in which there were Trance-AM cars!)

Hope this helps,
   Xilo

-- 
Dedicated to audio/visual and interactive artwork.
http://www.geocities.com/simonlemieux/

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I was wondering the same thing, and I can't really answer your question, but
fyi, it turns out that most, 'tho not all, Sherlock Holmes stories are in
the public domain. Well, that's good news for me anyway :)

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RDX wrote:
>As you are no doubt aware, the current IRTC topic is "A scene from your
>favorite mystery story, or anything else recognizably mysterious or
>enigmatic."  Lets say your favourite mystery story is still protected under
>copyright laws, ie, anything written in the last few decades at least.
>Would reproducing a scene from such a work be a violation of it's copyright?
>How about the instance of taking a character from an existing work and
>putting them in a mysterious context, eg "Detective Chewbacca"?  Is fan art
>a violation of copyright?
>
>Sorry to bring up copyright issues, but the last thing I would want to do is
>violate the copyright on someone elses work.
>
Well, I simply wrote to the person involved and got a permission to use his
material as an inspiration. This material is based on real events so this
might be a slightly different situation. And this is private owned
copyrights so it was easy to get permission. I got it within 24 hours. All
I need to do is to mention my source and provide an url to his web site in
my text file.


easiest way is probably to disguise the scene, there is no law against two
people getting a similar idea. If you are in doubt, look at the film
industy. They are making the same kind of movies over and over again, new
names
of the caracters, new actors, but the ideas are almost identical.

And, by the way, I have no intention to copy the situation completely of
this
story, even though I have some reference photos from the scene involved and
the permission. I will also need to add things from my own fantasy, to
spice it up a little bit, if you like, and make everything more
interesting. So you could say: if you base your idea on something already

freedom! Play with it beyond recognition.

Good luck!
Hildur

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On Sun, 18 May 2003 14:12:23 -0400, RDX wrote:

> As you are no doubt aware, the current IRTC topic is "A scene from your
> favorite mystery story, or anything else recognizably mysterious or
> enigmatic."  Lets say your favourite mystery story is still protected
> under copyright laws, ie, anything written in the last few decades at
> least. Would reproducing a scene from such a work be a violation of it's
> copyright? How about the instance of taking a character from an existing
> work and putting them in a mysterious context, eg "Detective Chewbacca"?
>  Is fan art a violation of copyright?
> 
> Sorry to bring up copyright issues, but the last thing I would want to
> do is violate the copyright on someone elses work.

	A copyright deals only with the rendering in fixed form. Only if you
duplicated nearly exactly an illustration in the book could the question
even arise. Creating an image from a printed description is not infringing
a copyright as your form is an image and in the novel it is written.

	Using the name Chewbacca as the name of a character which looks like the
SW character is a violation just as it would be if the character were
Mickey Mouse. It has become a tradition in Hollywood to ignore fan
representation when not for profit but tradition is not law.

	But all is not lost. There was no lawsuit from Jim Hensen over
Chewbacca's uncanny resemblence to the Cookie Monster. It was not the
change of C to W but that the characters were otherwise unrelated.

	Certainly there would be no problem with a Wookie detective for the same
reason but to be save consider another letter like N but as that might
push the PG rating, an R is obvious.

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