Hi Chicken, No, I don't think it works that way. We're talking about a CC share alike license. The specifics of the share alike part are that all derivative work must be licensed in the same way as the original. But the entire book is not derivative. Just presumably the world build. What you're suggesting would be massively inequitable and the law has to be equitable. I mean consider a Trek novel. Say I've gone, written one, gone to Paramount, been granted a license to publish based on certain conditions - I assume a fee, and compliance with the Trek bible etc. So now I publish and someone steals my book and republishes. What you're suggesting is that the entire work is the property of Paramount ignoring the fact that Paramount and I have a deal / contract. I complied with their conditions, they allowed me to publish my book which uses their material. Paramount has no deal with publisher three so presumably they can then sue etc. (This clearly doesn't matter in relation to a CC license.) But as their deal with me does not include any non world build or derivative material in the work then I can sue too. The license cannot cover work that is not derivative or taken from their world build. This is no different to software. You write a programme / an app etc, and write it on some sort of base programme that you are licensed to use. The owners of that base programme are not entitled in any way to your personal work product. If they were then Microsoft and Apple etc would have rights to every piece of software ever written even though they didn't write them. Still not a lawyer, but I'm fairly sure I'm correct here. Cheers, Greg.
I think ChickenFreak's way of explaining things may help solve some of the misunderstandings in this thread, but it doesn't quite match the situation in the OP. This is how I see it: The original CC work contained A1, A2, A3 as well as many other elements. The OP came along and expanded this work, adding B1, B2, B3. So, we have something that has all of A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, and more. As the OP has used A1, A2, A3, this expanded work has to be released under CC due to the sharealike clause. The OP would like to now take more copyright control over the work. There are two ways this could be viewed. 1] First, the OP tries to assert copyright control over the A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3 work or a derivative that includes at least one of A1, A2, A3. The OP cannot do this as they don't have ownership of any of A1, A2, A3. Hence, if they want to use them, they must abide by the terms of the CC licence. Or: 2] The OP creates a new work containing none of A1, A2, A3, but as many of B1, B2, B3 as they like, and also additional new elements B4, B5, B6, and so on. As the OP created B1, B2, B3, they don't need the CC licence to use them, and hence are not bound Even if the OP does create a new version of the work as in 2], anybody else can use B1, B2, B3, but not B4, B5, B6 under the terms of the CC licence. This is what it means by the CC licence not being revokeable. It doesn't bind the OP to release the work created in 2] under the CC because there is no material in 2] that the OP needs a licence for. Nobody else apart from the OP can use any of B4, B5, B6, etc. because they were never released under a CC (or other) licence. Hence, the OP now has a copyrightable work. TL;DR: Releasing something under a CC does not reduce the author's rights. It only gives other people permission to use the material under specific licence terms. As mentioned before, I am not a lawyer. But, this is my understanding of the situation.
This would depend on the terms of your deal with Paramount, just as the CC situation would depend on the terms of the CC agreement. I strongly suspect that the Star Trek books are work for hire, in which case full copyright likely rests with Paramount. - I just checked, and based on the Amazon look inside for the most recent novel, CBS holds the copyright and Pocket Books is publishing under exclusive license from them. So you should stop using Star Trek as an example - it's a totally different situation. The issue here is a Creative Commons license, and what happens under the terms of that license. In relation to the idea that the law must be equitable - I think that would be lovely, but people are generally considered competent to determine their own best interests when entering into a contract, so the contract will likely be enforced as agreed to, not as some judge feels is equitable. In this situation, I think we're a bit confused by different interpretations of the facts (how much of other people's work the OP was thinking about using, how much publishers would care about not all material being copyrightable) but at least we should be able to avoid confusing ourselves with different interpretations of the law, shouldn't we?
I don't think you'd be able to separate the book into pieces that are derivative or not, as the entire book is a single work. Derivative works, by definition, include original creative content. If they don't have original content of their own, they're not derivative works. For example, the definition in 17 USC: A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work. And here is what the Copyright Office says: A typical example of a derivative work received for registration in the Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published material. This previously published material makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law. What @ChickenFreak says is what the CC-by-SA purports to do. If work if others you're using under the license "contaminates" your otherwise original work, the license you are relying on to use that original material requires you to release under the same terms. If you don't, you're violating copyright for the licensed material you used (there was a big case out of the Federal Circuit a few years ago that found failure to comply with the terms of an open source license can give rise to infringement of the copyright on the open source material). The way these licenses are set up, they're described as viral because on the face of the license they contaminate downstream works as described above. There is no inequity, arguably, because you don't have to use the material released under the CC license, and presumably you know the terms of the license when you decide to use that material. This all depends on the enforceability of the license in the first place. As I noted above there are potential issues there. There are cases currently going through the courts that should illuminate this. It also depends on the licensed material under the CC being protectable by copyright in the first place.
I don't know. This is a different subject to what the original authors rights are. Unless you've changed your mind on that, we don't. But if you haven't changed your mind on it you should. Then we can agree and both be correct.
This isn't analogous to that situation. If you're using a tool like Visual Studio to write software, then Microsoft does not have any rights to your code. However, if you use Microsofts actual code within your program (say it is code released under GPL or something), and you lock up your resulting software as proprietary, then you're in violation of the GPL and, according to the Federal Circuit, if the underlying material is protected by copyright, then you're violating copyright. That's true even though your software may be mostly original but just includes the underlying GPL-licensed material. All, again, presuming these licenses are enforceable with respect to their various terms.
Hi, Look if you guys are right then this is so inequetable that it amounts to theft. If any part of a work that could shown to be based on another copyrighted work renders that entire work as derivative and thus completely subject to the rights of the original copyright, then what has essentially happened is complete transfer of title. The creator of the new work actually has no title at all to what he created. And in fact he can't even profit from his work unless the holder of the original copyright and hence title, allows him to via a license etc. In which case my advice to the OP would now be - don't even consider writing anything based on the CC - SA. Because it belongs now and forever to the original licensed world build. Don't even include a name or a sentence from it. Especially don't include a quote! It reminds me of a quote by Anatole France: "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." New disclaimer by the way - thank God I'm not a lawyer! Cheers, Greg.
Well, it depends what you mean by "based on", obviously... but, yeah, in general, the law discourages people from using other people's copyrighted work. That's kind of the whole point of copyright. Maybe instead of drawing analogies from intellectual property, we should draw some from physical property. If I have a bar of gold, and someone takes it and melts it down and uses it to form the components of the electronics of robot, and they didn't have my permission? They can't just say "well, all the plastic and other metals and stuff came from me, so it's my robot." They aren't allowed to just take my gold and use it without my permission, no matter how much of their own stuff they add to it. This analogy gets a bit shakier when I try to extend it to a creative commons license, but... let's say I give my gold to someone to make a sculpture with, on the condition that not only that sculpture but all subsequent work using components of that sculpture be freely available in a public park, forever, to be enjoyed by the people for free. And the sculpture is a collaborative effort, and everyone who contributes parts to that sculpture signs the same contract. So the sculpture is created and displayed, and then it's time for another sculpture to be created and there are some spare parts, and someone takes one of the parts that has some of my gold in it, and makes a new sculpture from it. They're totally allowed to do that. But the new sculpture has to be put on display in the public park. It can't be sold to a private individual to be displayed in their home. That wasn't allowed in the contract when I donated my gold. It doesn't matter if my gold is only a tiny, tiny part of the new sculpture. It doesn't matter if all the parts of the original sculpture that are used are only a tiny, tiny part of the new sculpture. If the artist wants to sell the work to a private collector, she needs to build it without using any component parts of our original sculpture. And what if I want to pull my gold back and use it to make my own sculpture? No. I already gave it away. (This is where the 'consideration' issues seem most relevant to me). I can use it, like anyone else can, to build a new sculpture for public display. But if I want to use it for a private collection? Nope. It belongs to the community, now. Creative Commons is obviously a pretty new concept and the wrinkles are still being worked out. But I don't think there's anything intrinsically unfair about it, as long as everyone understands the terms of their original contract.
I think that you're misunderstanding this in two different ways: You're generalizing the use of a specific license, to the operation of copyright law in general. The behavior that we're talking about is due to the specific license that we're talking about. With no license, if you create a work based on another work, you can't publish that work at all. Well, if he just stole someone else's work, he can't profit from his part of the work, no. Theft works that way. If he got that work under some specific license, then he can do what that license allows. In this case, this specific license does let him publish, modify, sell, give away, do anything he wants with that work. It also lets ANYONE ELSE publish, modify, sell, give away, do anything they want with that work. That's what that license is about. That's its PURPOSE. It's not a bug, it's a feature. If you don't like that feature, don't use material under that license.
Returning to add: I don't actually know how the license works in the case of someone who doesn't consciously intend to use that license. If you use somebody's work based on their CC-by-SA license, and include it in your own work, I imagine two possible outcomes. - If you don't explicitly release your work under the CC-by-SA license, you are treated as a normal copyright violator--that is, you still own your portion of the work, but you are subject to whatever penalties apply for stealing the other person's work. - If you don't explicitly release your work under the CC-by-SA license, the law assumes that you consented to the license anyway, since you took material that was released under that license, and your contribution to the work is treated as if it had been explicitly released under the CC-by-SA license. So your contribution to the work has been contaminated by that license, without you ever making the decision to release your work under that license. Which would happen? Or is it fuzzy?
I'm just looking through this marveling at how long this thread got. All really good stuff. For now obviously I'll focus on my primary project, which is the main one I want to sell anyway. The "Selknamoverse" is something I only work on when the main project burns me out anyway - so I'll tinker around in it privately and then talk to a lawyer if I ever need to know where the exact line is. At the end of the day, the real Selk'nam actually existed (and sadly that's in past tense), so they're public domain. No one can stop me from writing a Selk'nam based alt-history world, and if the proverbial excrement hit the fan, I'm sure I could make enough creative tweaks to get to that point where Hollywood films always assert "any similarity to people, real or imagined, is coincidental"...which is total and utter BS but legally binding BS. I'm also pretty sure that if I ever actually sold this thing (which is way far down the line from thinking about maybe putting in the time to write it), I could probably talk the creators of the page into releasing it into the public domain somehow.
Keep in mind that this whole question assumes you need a license in the first place. If you are in a situation contemplated by Greg, where the work you're creating doesn't rise to the level of a derivative work in the first place, then you don't need a license for it and the CC-by-SA is irrelevant. However, assuming your use would not otherwise be allowed by copyright law (e.g. it rises to the level of a derivative work), then the CC-by-SA license allows you to create your work anyway, free from fear of copyright infringement, so long as the end product you create is also released under the same license.
I'm going to assume it probably rises to that level, seeing as the work would essentially be a sequel to my contributions to the game, any flashbacks would be dramatizations of my contributions to the game. I mean - to use the whole A, B, C terminology from above. Let's say the webpage contains Work A. I add contributions B1, B2, and B3 - which are original and contain original characters but exist on the same page as A and reference a few minor details in A. Other players then add content C1, C2, and C3 - which include content from B1, B2, and B3. I then add Content B4, which responds to and references C1, C2, and C3. (All of which is still hosted on one page started by the author of Work A) The novel, Work D, exclusively references B1, B2, B3, and B4. It does not reference Works A, C1, C2, or C3 directly. However, is does include responses to events written in C1, C2, and C3 which may be contained in B4 - as well as occasional characters generated cooperatively with the author of Work C. And the arrangement of the world (namely the borders of countries outside the country detailed in Works B1, 2, and 3) is derived from A. For now - I'll file this under "stuff to talk to future lawyer about in case of emergency".
I was actually thinking about this just today! I am in the middle of a WIP, but I am dying to read a good book. Problem is I don't even want to start a book if it means that I may get "inspired" by what is written already especially if its in the same genre. I mean I understand being unique and new but it is very hard in my opinion to find new ways to describe something old or that has been talked about to death in literature.
A lot of my inspiration came from outside my genera, so it doesn't matter what you read. Just relax and enjoy yourself.
Hi guys, My question is this: I like the idea of using something from a Max Brooks book, he had the idea of creating an order XXXVIII which was distributed to all Roman Legions to counter zombies. If I use the order in my book in that context is that plagiarism? The reason I ask is if you look at science fiction a lot of people refer to warp drives for fast travelling and this seems to be accepted.
I think referencing a warp drive is something that's been baked into sci-fi writing for generations. The Roman Legion device you speak about may not qualify technically as plagiarism, but I think it sits squarely in the box labeled "stealing an idea."
The idea of having an order in place for them to use if they encounter zombies isn't really protectable, and that's general enough that I wouldn't have a problem using it. I wouldn't call it by the same order # though, unless you're making an allusion to the Brooks work itself.
thanks for the replies, I think I'll keep the idea but not the name as you say Steerpike, Brooks does mention an attack in Scotland around the time of the building of Hadrians Wall which is again the area and time I want to use but for a specific reason, in his book the whole section is no longer the 2 pages and is added as a filler not a key point.
Using and expanding on an idea is one thing, making something new and different of something old is the way life goes. Westside Story was done to the basic plot and theme of Romeo and Juliet; Jerome Robbins was never accused of plagerism. Taking an idea and doing the exact same thing is not only boring but when you can't see any real change or improvement, then you start looking at plagerism.
Thanks Nobody Special, I just like the idea that Hadrians Wall was built to repel zombies and would like to make a historically accurate, zombies excluded, story based on the accounts and research around the time period.
I find that the best way to "steal inspiration" is to spend ten minutes or so literally copying some of your favorite text to learn the way they write and think and feel. It's a great solution to writer's block and it's a great solution for imitating professional content.
'May the force be with you.' 'I'll be back!' 'Houston, we have a problem.' 'Elementary, my dear Watson.' 'Hasta la vista, baby.' 'E.T. phone home.' 'Here's looking at you, kid.' The list of such quotes is endless. They're used by the young and old (sometimes slightly modified) day in day out, in fact, my son text me the other day with...'HR phone home.' And the guy that came to fix the boiler last Wednesday sort of looked at me with a knowing smile and said...'I'll be back.' Seems there was a part missing from the repair kit he'd brought with him. On Sunday morning while standing in the reception of my local, over priced, health resort (swimming pool and a box room called a fitness room) I overheard a conversation (polite way of saying argument) between an elderly couple who were standing but a meter or so in front of me. Apparently the gentleman had left his wallet behind and so was receiving a truck load of GBH to his ears from his partner when he suddenly let fly with...'Beam me up for Christ's sake Scotty. And yes, there was meany a smile to be seen. The funny thing is, I kept thinking about that and the fact that we use these quotes so spontaneously. But; what about in our books? Can we be as free? Does...'Fair usage' cover such gems? Do we need to modify in such a way as to hold the theme but not the actual words? Can we call someone 'Yoda' in a way that's meant to show/imply that we think the person we're referring to is somewhat knowledgeable? Just my thoughts while enjoying a Martini the sauna. HR.
I don't think cultural references are threatened by copyright. I've seen many of them in fiction. It's hardly something people seem to be afraid of. So probably not.
Guess for me the fear of being a plagiarist is smaller, as my main inspiration comes from music and the feeling it creates. I've never found the need to take my favourite book, and draw a bit from it.
