Re: Scanning books into electronic format

Doesn't this require that the characters are registered as trademarks?

Wasn't there some recent cases where people had written sequels to Nabokov's Lolita as well as to Lewis' Narnia books? Not web published fan fiction but printed books.

Karl-Erik Tallmo

>Characters -- maybe, if well enough established.
>Situations -- not if generic or types, yes, if specific setting,
>situation, interaction, language, etc. A situation involving
>magicians getting lost in a maze would not be copyrighted, but one
>that tracks with the maze Harry Potter got trapped in, with the same
>traps, in the same order, with the same conflicts would be
>copyrighted. It would be fairly thin such that almost any differences
>would be adequate (mazes being common in fantasy fiction and puzzles
>and traps being scenes a faire), but the precise situation and
>sequence would likely be protected.
>
>Nonetheless, in general situations in its more general or abstract
>meaning is not protected, at least in the US. See the Nichols cae by
>Learned Hand in 1930 for what is still the best exposition of this
>problem, at least in literature.
>
>Steve
Received on Fri Sep 15 2006 - 16:40:01 GMT