If you read the US Copyright Office site, you will find it explicitly stated. Note that the word is copyright, not copywrite or copy write. There is such a thing as copy writing, but it refers to writing advertising copy, and has nothing to do with protecting intellectual property.
Cogito, Here is the exact text of the quote I mentioned and it is copyright. I said I have to look up every big word. I missed one. I spelled it right but used it wrong, sorry and thanks. The title of a book is the first thing a person reads, whether at the library, bookstore, or online. The cover of the jacket is important, too, of course, but the title should stand on its own. Titles are not copyrighted so try not to use a title that's already been used more than once. I've searched for titles my patrons requested and sometimes came up with three or more exact titles written by various authors. You want your title to be unique, if possible. Try googling your title online; you may be surprised with the results... or not. Does this mean titles are in fact unable to be copyrighted? If so good. Do you like the title, really? Thank you... Jack the Knife
Jack: As others have noted above, titles cannot generally be protected by copyright. In some cases, they may be protected by trademark law. In your case, I don't think there is much to worry about.
Hi, I was having a burger and realized that since there are hundred of other books with the same title that using it should not be too much of a problem, duh. Thank you... Jack the Knife
Hi, No they aren't copyrighted, and in celebration of that fact my next book has been provisionally titled Lord of the Rings! (Oddly enough it has nothing to do with lord's or rings, its a book about crop circles and Lord the alien busy tramping them out every night!) Cheers.
The whole intellectual property area is fraught. As others have pointed out, you have trademark to worry about as well as copyright. And even if you are in the right you could end up in a world of pain when you try to market the book. Companies have been known to issue DMCA take-down notices and report downloaders for copyright infringement based on title alone. I note that one of the movies called "Visions and Miracles" is distributed by Fox, who are highly litigious (so much so that one division of Fox once threatened to sue another division of Fox). If you have the time and resources to defend yourselves against Fox then you should win, but wouldn't you rather be doing something else? For some informative light relief, have a look at how the Marx Brothers handled a similar case in more innocent times.
If your book is accepted by a publisher, they will probably have their own ideas regarding the title.
"God spoke to me with a beautiful vision and I killed five bad cops with my keyboard" is a much more interesting title than "Visions and Miracles." Pretty awesome, actually. The fact that "Visions and Miracles" is everywhere on the net should be a clear indication that it is not unique, thoughtful, or interesting in any way whatsoever.
Jack Elliot, I'm glad you like that version of the title even though it is sort of long... It's the contrast thing isn't it? Actually V & M is not only rotten, it's so old and over used it is meaningless. The first title you liked is a good title, I like it too but it is way too long. And I am sure it can be improved on. I have a while till the trial. And I forgot that I didn't report this to the D.A. and Texas Rangers for a year as I was trying to get the evidence from the two cities, to no avail. So it has only been reported three years and not four since the crime took place, and it takes two years to get to small claims court if you want to go! Visions and Miracles is out as a title. {Reminds me of Bishop Fulton Sheen on T.V. back in the 50's}. I feel much better about the timing and it was your response that somehow reminded me. I was beginning to worry, so I owe you a cold home brew. Thanks... Jack the Knife
Here's a golden one for you... I just tried running the title "Visions and Miracles" through one of those online translators, translating it back and forth between many different languages and then back into English... The resulting title? "Images of a future unexplained" Not a bad title, in fairness!
After having a talk with my brother about the structure of my book, he raised an interesting question. On the beginning pages of this book (and ever subsequent book in the series thereafter) I'm going to open up with a quote from the bible as a subtle hint to the story's undertone. He then asked "can you use a direct quote from the bible in your story if you're going to sell it?" Sadly, I did not have a good answer for him. So I turn to you my Writing Forums friends for the answer. Also, I have one other thing to ask. In my book, I paid homage to one of my favorite movie quotes of all time. The character does not state the quote exactly but is still fairly close to the original. Would it be alright to use that quote as well or is that considered copyright infringement? Oh, before anyone asks, the quote I'm using comes from the 1994 film Street Fighter starring Jean Claude Van Damme (so it's fairly unknown but still memorable).
The Bible is fair game. The movie, I'm not so sure about. If you plan to copy it exactly, I think there might be a legal issue but I'm not sure. Steerpike is an attorney and would be a better person to ask about this. I think it's safe to make allusions to the quote, though.
Well, the Bible is fair game in general, but recent translations and edits could be copyrightable. I don't know that this would matter for quotes of a modest length anyway, but if for some reason a writer wanted to use a lot of material from the Bible, it would probably be safest to get hold of an edition old enough to be safely out of copyright.
I agree with Mallory and ChickenFreak about the Bible. ChickenFreak's point about recent versions of translations is a good one. If you use a quote from The King James version, for example, then you are well within the public domain. Using quotes from a movie would be subject to a Fair Use analysis. That's a fact-specific analysis, rather than something where there is a hard rule to go by. If you're just having a character in your story paraphrase a line from a movie, I wouldn't worry about it. Most of the Fair Use factors are going to come down on your side.
Not in the UK you're not -- the King James version of the Bible is still in copyright here (it's Crown copyright, so it follows different rules to normal copyright that are not covered by the same international treaties -- http://www.cambridge.org/bibles/rights/).
steerpike... the fair use exception does not apply to fiction as far as i know... only to reviews and critiques, for teaching, scholarly works, etc.... here's the letter of the law from the source: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
Fair Use can certainly apply to fiction. One important example where this is true is in the area of parody. The nature of the work the second author creates is only one of the factors. Any use in any type of work can potentially be a Fair Use. But some are much more likely than others to be found as Fair Use, or if not Fair Use than not infringing. In the case above, dealing with a one-line paraphrase within the story itself, I think the risk is minimal. If a publisher decides to take on this work, and they notice it, they'll make their own determination. There is a question here as to whether there is infringement even outside of Fair Use. But to answer the general question, yes Fair Use can apply to fiction, but it is less likely to be found there than in cases of a scholarly work. The Copyright Office, like the Patent and Trademark Office, is a good starting point for this information, but you won't get the whole picture from them, there's just too much law in the area. A work of fiction is generally going to be considered a commercial, for-profit use, and that will hurt chances of finding Fair Use. Another thing to keep in mind is that even if you're right about Fair Use, if you get sued by a copyright owner it can cost you a lot of money to prove that you're right.
Dang... Now I'm a bit more confused (and slightly worried). For argument's sake, here is the original quote" "This is the collection agency Bison, your *** is six months overdue, and it's mine." Here is the quote featured in my novel: “Greetings Agent. I’m here on behalf the collection agency. Your life is six hours overdue... And it’s mine.”
I suspect that's a healthy view of copyright issues. I wouldn't have thought that would be a problem. But I am not a lawyer. And even if I am (which I'm not), I'm not your lawyer.
Take an old enough translation and it will not be copyrighted. (The best thing about copyright is that it eventually expires.) Otherwise of course you are still allowed to quote from it even if the translation itself is copyrighted.
It ain't necessarily so. As I've already pointed out, the King James version is still in copyright in the UK. The situation regarding Peter Pan is even more complicated (the copyright that never grew old?) Copyright law is a minefield, and anybody getting into that territory really needs professional legal advice (or, I suppose, no assets worth going after, which if you're a writer is probably more likely).
that quote's far from verbatim, so copyright isn't an issue, as even our resident attorney will probably agree... that said, using verbatim lines from copyrighted work that have become a part of the public lexicon, such as 'make my day' or 'we'll always have paris' or 'frankly, my dear, i don't give a damn' isn't considered actionable, since they're easily recognizable as being from another's work and are thus 'paying homage' to a classic, more than anything else...
Yes. As I said above, there is a real question here of whether there could be infringement in the first place. Copyright generally protects verbatim copying of a work, and doesn't even extend to independent creation. There is protection for 'derivative works' but I think that arguing that a paraphrase of a quote is somehow a derivative work of an underlying, protected work is a real stretch.
