Re: Scanning books into electronic format

On Sep 15, 2006, at 8:40 AM, Karl-Erik Tallmo wrote:

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

Not in the US. Trademark infringement would be another sort of IP infringement.

A character copyright can extend to the character without the name or two or three dimensional image. Hard to imagine such a thing being enforceable outside the visual arts or in literature without using the name, but it surely could exist under the US law as it is.

If I wrote a book about a school for magicians, calling it Dragonwings, with a headmaster who is an old, wise, strong wizard named Magiti who takes a neophyte student who is a potentially strong but young wizard-in-training named Solay Suran under his wing -- I would be ok. If I used the names Hogwarts, Dumbledore, and Harry Potter, the copyright infringement would be easier to prove.

But if my character Solay Suran had the same situation (muggle uncle and aunt caring for him), the red-headed family of friends, could talk to snakes, and most of the things that make Harry Potter Harry Potter, then I would be copying a copyrightable character, even if I used a different name.

I'm not familiar with those cases.

It is generally not easy to tie up a character or the name of a character or a fictional place name or description in copyright. Trademark is generally the superior way to go to tie up a name.

Steve

>
> 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
>
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-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar                               vox:  202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law                     fax:  202-806-8567
2900 Van Ness Street NW                   mailto:stevenjamar[_at_]gmail.com
Washington, DC  20008	                         http://iipsj.com/SDJ/

"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but  
also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man,  
but you refuse to hate him."

Martin Luther King, Jr.