Does anyone know the laws regarding the publishing a book of trivia questions? I was thinking of having a side project of Horror trivia Questions on kindle but I don't want to violate any laws of copyrighted material. an example question would be something like " In the Friday the 13th did Jason Vorhees first put on a hockey mask?" or "What famous scene was first left out of The the exorcist?" Those are easy examples but all questions would be, as far as I can help it, be original.
I don't think there would be any probs with (c) but if you want constructive crit, those questions are a bit vague.
First, why would you want to do it and who would bother buying it? Second, there's no legal issues publishing questions. Third, there's extreme legal issues publishing answers. Fourth, secure a team of experts and lawyers prior to starting. Fifth (and most important) . . . there's a reason why zillions of people aren't doing this already and making trillions of dollars - research why.
I'm slightly confused by your answer Jeff. 1) People you like trivia and horror films would buy it, why would he bother? Because he finds it enjoyable I'm guessing. 3)I presume your joking. 4) Ditto. 5) I doubt he is expecting to make trillions of dollars, the same as I am not with my grubby little short stories. If extreme wealth is the only reason people ever do anything then that will no doubt explain why zillions of people are not writing horror trivia books.
I don't agree with Jeff's analysis either, in particular regarding providing answers. Facts are not protected by copyright. There was even a lawsuit against Trivial Pursuit that went up to the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in which a guy was able to show they were taking some questions and answers from a trivia book he'd written. The Court noted that there was no copyright protection for facts and the guy lost (was more complex than that, but you get the idea). Having a book of trivia, with questions and answers ranging broadly over a subject matter like Horror isn't likely to cause you any trouble. Where you run into issues is if you focus on a specific IP - like having a Harry Potter trivia book (which, depending on how it is marketed, could cause you trademark problems as well). There was a case out of the Second Circuit (bad decision, but still its out there) where a guy did a Seinfeld trivia book. The Court there decided that the content, both questions and answers, effectively lifted so much of the content of various Seinfeld episodes that it was a copyright violation. A trivia book about Horror generally, with questions spread out across a wide variety of books, games, movies, or what have you, combined with a statement of fact as an answer, isn't going to provide copyright owners which much basis for a lawsuit. Which is why there are plenty of general trivia books and games on the market.
Thanks for the help, I am not looking to make a lot of cash on this ( if any at all). I love horror and thought it would be fun to have a side project where, if my other writing gets slow, I can switch over and work on it. What got me wondering about the legal end is something else I saw on Kindle. Someone had collected a bunch on those meme's that are all over facebook and created a e-book with just found meme's. He did not create them just copy and pasted into a book and has even made a few bucks as far as I can tell. That to me, seems wrong. I doubt anyone will bother calming an image but still... anyways side rant over, thanks again for the help
