Adopting Characters?

[HandsInTheDark]

This may be true in some jurisdictions for all I know, but not for the USA. 17 USC 107 states that one factor to be considered in determining whether copyright has been violated is "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." If the market value is zero, then that makes it harder to establish infringement..

As pilot and others have noted, there's no money to be made if a story gets stolen from here.

However I've successfully done DCMA notices and gotten my stuff pulled from other sites, and did it while providing a bare minimum of personal information. (That is, I've done it twice and it worked both times.)

You satisfy the "value" issue mentioned above because your reason for publishing here is to establish a market and do market research (both of which have "value"), and for that you need control over your content, and access to and control over any comments that are made. Yes, it's a flimsy argument and could be torn to shreds in court, but you aren't going to court. All that maters is that you can legitimately claim copyright, and that means you can file a DCMA take-down.

In my limited experience, these rip-off sites would rather take down your story than spend a single second arguing with a DCMA notice. They have no idea if they'll get in trouble if they ignore it and they don't want to find out. They get their income from a trickle of advertising, and advertisers drop sites that make any trouble.

tl;dr: your hammer may be made of soft rubber and squeak when you hit things, but to them all hammers are scary. So go for it.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

So this statement isn't true?

Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

 

[ChloeTzang]

So this statement isn't true?

I've only ever read of them going after people copying music and movies and that was a while ago. Do they even bother now? When I was at college I used to buy all my movies from a chinese store that sold pirated dvds for a buck each. Nobody ever bothered them.

 

[KindofHere]

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[sr71plt]

However I've successfully done DCMA notices and gotten my stuff pulled from other sites, and did it while providing a bare minimum of personal information. (That is, I've done it twice and it worked both times.)

Yes, but that's what's called a successful bluff. Fine, if it works, but authors shouldn't fool themselves that just because a bluff works occasionally doesn't make it something they can count on or is a good reason to try to trot off to court with.

 

[sr71plt]

So this statement isn't true?

That only has relevance in the United States if you hold a formal copyright. Yes, requiring that was the sneaky way the U.S. got around (finally, after a hundred years of foot dragging) signing the Berne Convention but still not wanting its court flooded with she wrote/he wrote minutia.

And this is only over and above all the reasons why it would be spinning wheels at too high a cost in several dimensions if you tried it with a dirty story you slapped on an open and free-read Internet site under a fake name.

How many times does this have to be repeated before it sinks in?

 

[ChloeTzang]

The celestials are a secretive and mysterious people. Everyone knows you can find anything from firecrackers to monkey meat in their shops. If Chinatown had to obey the laws, there'd be no point in going down there. They police their own (part of that reason is because they are always flying around on wires, it's hard to catch them.)

Chloe trys to look mysterious and fails miserably. LOL. oh yes, there's all sorts of wonderful stuff.Ever seen dried bats? TThey're used in chinese medicine. Eeek! Not just the wires either. Dancing across rooftops. Running across water. So hard to catch. I love chinatowns.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I've only ever read of them going after people copying music and movies and that was a while ago. Do they even bother now? When I was at college I used to buy all my movies from a chinese store that sold pirated dvds for a buck each. Nobody ever bothered them.

Only because there was no report store button for them to press.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Only because there was no report store button for them to press.

LOL. That must have been what it was. And the store name was only in chinese.

 

[Hypoxia]

'Theft' removes something from its owner's possession. Whatever intellectual appropriation is, ain't theft, because the originator (if surviving) still has those concepts available for their exploitation. Ideas, plots, players, can be appropriated but not stolen short of murdering the creator. Copyright law may say otherwise but it's philosophically phucked, has been since the Disney-provoked IP wars. Fuck the mouse!

 

[KindofHere]

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[Bramblethorn]

I've only ever read of them going after people copying music and movies and that was a while ago. Do they even bother now? When I was at college I used to buy all my movies from a chinese store that sold pirated dvds for a buck each. Nobody ever bothered them.

I don't know if anybody bothers pursuing physical copies any more, but in Australia the industry made an effort to go after downloads a couple of years back. They picked Dallas Buyers Club as a test case.

The plan was to get ISPs ordered to reveal the names of people who'd downloaded DBC and then gouge them for large amounts of money, but a judge ruled that they could only go after them for as much as it would've cost to rent the film on iTunes, plus the costs of finding their names. After that DBC lost interest.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...-court-iinet-piracy-case-20150813-giyyd7.html

I don't like piracy but I have little sympathy for the film/music industries on this one. A lot of piracy in Australia isn't even about cheapskates trying to avoid paying, it's about Australian viewers being offered a second-class product or no product at all.

 

[ishtat]

. They picked Dallas Buyers Club as a test case.

The plan was to get ISPs ordered to reveal the names of people who'd downloaded DBC and then gouge them for large amounts of money, but a judge ruled that they could only go after them for as much as it would've cost to rent the film on iTunes, plus the costs of finding their names. After that DBC lost interest.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...-court-iinet-piracy-case-20150813-giyyd7.html

.

The most interesting thing here is the Sydney Morning Herald article which shows how easily a Judge operating in the Australian/UK type of court system can get rid of a case by just creating a few reasonable hurdles at a preliminary hearing. America seems to be perceived by authors here as being the tougher jurisdiction for copyright cases, but the leeway granted Judges in UK, Australia, Canada etc has been sufficient to see that the great majority of such disputes are never heard in court.

Justice Jerram is no mug; he knew exactly what he was doing - 'not in my court mate.'

 

[sr71plt]

'Theft' removes something from its owner's possession. Whatever intellectual appropriation is, ain't theft, because the originator (if surviving) still has their concepts available for their exploitation Ideas, plots, players, can be appropriated but not stolen short of murder. Copyright law may say otherwise but it's philosophically plucked.

Bullshit. You're just being an apologist for thieves. Theft is taking something that doesn't belong to you and wasn't given to you. You're putting the responsibility on the victim. Why? Because you want to condone bad behavior and self-centeredness?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Bullshit. You're just being an apologist for thieves. Theft is taking something that doesn't belong to you and wasn't given to you. You're putting the responsibility on the victim. Why? Because you want to condone bad behavior and self-centeredness?

I didn't see anything in Hypoxia's comment that condoned copyright violation, only objecting to the term "theft" as inaccurate.

In my book, theft is a zero-sum game: I take your car, you don't have it any more. If I copy your intellectual property, you still have it.

That doesn't preclude copying being harmful and immoral. It can deprive a creator of their rightful income by cutting into their market, and there are also less-tangible reasons why it's problematic. I had a relationship-ending fight with one ex about her blasé attitude to copying DVDs (among other things), and a significant chunk of my income comes from an industry that depends heavily on intellectual property rights.

But conflating it with "theft" is counterproductive IMHO. It just encourages people to focus on the failings and overreach of the copyright industry, which makes it easier to avoid thinking about the morality of their own actions. That's why I roll my eyes every time I see those copyright warnings that equate downloading a movie to stealing a handbag or a car.

 

[sr71plt]

Ah, so you are condoning stealing someone else's property too. It's pretty simple.

The forum is pretty classic in this. Authors come here to complain about others stealing their intellectual property and then say there's nothing wrong with it if they do it. "They haven't stolen anything; the original author still has a share of it."

 

[ElectricBlue]

But conflating it with "theft" is counterproductive IMHO. It just encourages people to focus on the failings and overreach of the copyright industry, which makes it easier to avoid thinking about the morality of their own actions. That's why I roll my eyes every time I see those copyright warnings that equate downloading a movie to stealing a handbag or a car.

If it's not theft, then what the fuck is it? Knitting? Bird watching, perhaps?

There's some very elaborate word play you jokers are coming up with here. I deal with contracts that all have Intellectual Property clauses. The clue is in the second word. Property.

I write it, it's mine. You use it or duplicate it without my permission, you're a thief. What would you call yourself?

How about I come around to your house, sleep in your bed, watch your tv, crap in your pool, wear your clothes. It's ok, I haven't taken anything away, you've still got the use of it.

 

[KindofHere]

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[ElectricBlue]

You could add pirating movies to non theft ... I pirate a movie, but the person I pirate it from still has it, as does the production company. I imagine they have many copies of their film. Nothing was stolen.

No, if you pirate content, you are still stealing.

You steal the income the owner was expecting from your view of the movie through legitimate distribution (e.g. paying for the movie ticket, buying the DVD (legitimately), paying for the legitimate video stream.

Same when you pirate music. You deny the artists a primary source of their income, because they don't get royalties.

Theft is theft, it's purloining property or denying someone value from their property, or using that property without permission. It's pretty simple, if it's not yours, you don't have any rights to do anything with it, unless the owner grants you those rights.

Here on Lit, I earn no income from anything I write, but that doesn't mean it's not mine, and it doesn't mean I place no value on it. By publishing it here on Lit, I'm effectively granting you a royalty free licence to read it, as many times as you want, but I'm not granting you licence to do anything else with it. Coming back to the OP, I'm certainly not granting you licence to go away and do something else with my characters. If someone does that, in my country that's theft.

Whether I choose to do anything about it is something completely different. Whether or not I choose copyright protection is also another thing entirely. But my writing is still my property.

 

[Voboy]

There's another side of this: why would anyone who wants to think of themselves as a "writer" even WANT to use someone else's character? Isn't coming up with one's own characters part and parcel of any kind of creative writing?

For me, that's a big part of the fun. I like creating people with backstories and personalities and verbal quirks and all the other things that I get to invent.

I get the whole tribute/slash fiction thing, I guess, but I don't see how it's as edifying as rolling your own.

 

[sr71plt]

No, if you pirate content, you are still stealing.

Absolutely right. I think we've raised a whole generation of folks who think "what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine too"--that if it's inconvenient for them to respect the rights of others, they don't have to, but God help you if you don't respect theirs-- and I see them post here on this forum frequently. The same attitude is running in the current celebrity thread. "They are celebrities, not me, so I can depict them as performing whatever fetish sex act I want and I haven't violated or victimized them."

 

[ChloeTzang]

There's another side of this: why would anyone who wants to think of themselves as a "writer" even WANT to use someone else's character? Isn't coming up with one's own characters part and parcel of any kind of creative writing?

For me, that's a big part of the fun. I like creating people with backstories and personalities and verbal quirks and all the other things that I get to invent.

I get the whole tribute/slash fiction thing, I guess, but I don't see how it's as edifying as rolling your own.

With you all the way. Early on I started using a couple of characters from an old series I really liked, but with names changed a bit. Further on, once I had a better idea of what I was doing, that just wasn't as satisfying so I've replaced them with my own characters in later chapters....

 

[TxRad]

Lit is one thing but try using another author's characters in mainstream. It ain't going to happen. So if you are moving on from Lit, you'll need to know how to make your own characters to fit your stories. Ethics go a long way with being a writer. Stealing characters and yes, it is stealing, is not the way to become a good writer.

Stories are the easy part. Making believable, living characters, those are what make a writer special.

 

[KindofHere]

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[Bramblethorn]

That doesn't preclude copying being harmful and immoral. It can deprive a creator of their rightful income by cutting into their market, and there are also less-tangible reasons why it's problematic.

Ah, so you are condoning stealing someone else's property too. It's pretty simple.

The forum is pretty classic in this. Authors come here to complain about others stealing their intellectual property and then say there's nothing wrong with it if they do it.

This is actually the OPPOSITE of what I wrote in the post you're responding to. Have fun pounding on that strawman, but if you're not going to bother reading my post, leave me out of it.

If it's not theft, then what the fuck is it? Knitting? Bird watching, perhaps?

It's copyright violation.

How about I come around to your house, sleep in your bed, watch your tv, crap in your pool, wear your clothes. It's ok, I haven't taken anything away, you've still got the use of it.

All of those things are wrong, and you'd be breaking several laws, but the obvious charge there is trespass, not theft. Plus something like "criminal damage" for the pool, maybe; I'm not sure what the correct offence is there, but it wouldn't be charged as "theft".

Here is an explanation of the law on theft where I live; I think it's pretty similar in your neck of the woods. To prove a charge of "theft" the prosecution would have to show that you appropriated my property with the intent to permanently deprive me of it. If I've still got the use of it, then it fails that test.

The only thing I could see there where the prosecution might be able to stick a charge of theft is for the electricity used with the TV.