Hi Nicol, Quote
I learnt something new today. So if I understand the members' correctly, the south African harry potter stories which are different from the original jk rowling books is fan fiction and there's nothing wrong with fan fiction? End quote Generally, as long as the fan fiction material remains free it is generally ok to create and pass around. I've read several Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and other fan fiction stories over the years, and a few of them were really quite good. Fan fiction is very widely spread, and the creaters of Harry Potter, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc generally leave them alone. I guess they figure as long as it is free it isn't hirting anyone. However, the moment someone comes along and creates a product for sale weather it is a book, vidio game, collecter plate, etc you can find yourself in hot water with the copyright owner/owners. When Activision and Raven Software came out with Star Trek Elite Force they had to get special permission from Paramount to create the game and market it. When Hazbro began creating Star Wars figures they had to pay up front royalties to create all the Star Wars action figures we see in K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Toys Our Us, etc... If you want to write a book about Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman, etc you have to pay royalties on your sales to the copyright owner, as well as publish it through their official publishers. It also helps to know someone who is well connected to the copyright owner or owners. That is why almost everytime you pick up a Star Wars book Star Trek book, etc the authors are usually insiders or well connected to those who control those copyrights. Perhaps they write the screen plays for the shows, work on the comic books, or several other anonymous positions, but their position gives them access to getting the authorisation to do it legally, and make a proffet off of it. So for a small time developer the best we can hope for is write a game and put in the relm of fan fiction. To be classified as fan fiction it really should be free. Phil wanted to do something like Harry Potter, but be different enough not to be a 100% full HP game. If he made a 100% HP game and sold it then he would really be in hot water if J.K. found out and decided to do something about it. Though, my guess is J.K. probably will not here about it, and second even if she did there would be little money and lots of bad press going after a blind developer. Finally, I don't think George Lucas, J.K. Rouling, etc are bad people, but they simply surround themselves with big shot lawyers to protect their copyright interests and we small guys have no chanse of realistically speaking to them directly to find out weather or not they would allow for a blind game to be written. _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. [email protected] To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
