or libel i guess if its written. So i read the disclaimer before the celebrities category and just clarifying, does this extend to stories outside the celebrities category? My story has characters based off of real like nude models and internet porn stars but ive been worried about revealing who they are based off of. I was thinking about linking on my profile to a page with pictures, so people can have visual representations, but have been afraid to do so? But is it legal for me to do that?
Celebrities: not slander?
- Thread starter Jedikool
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Weird Harold
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Jedikool said:
You're treading on a legal grey area -- just who is a "public figure" and what you can write about them boils down to how likely they are to sue you if they find out about your story.
FWIW, Celebrity stories and/or stories that describe characters as "looks like so-and-so" are characteristic of lazy writing and seriously susceptible to "dating."
The "life-span" of "celebrity" for most public figures is less than a year, and usually much less; the recognition factor you're relying on is gone for most readers very quickly and often never existed at all. The fact that you're considering linking pictures to provide "visual representations" suggests that the "celebrities" you're writing about are not very well known in the first place.
Work on actually describing your characters and make them completely fictional and you don't have to worry about legal problems like Libel and Defamation of Character.
R. Richard
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Just to beat it to death, the idea of linking to pictures is almost certainly using someone else's copyrighted material. Can you say, "Good morning, Judge?"
Weird Harold
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R. Richard said:
To be fair, I 'm pretty sure he was talking about sending people to their site(s) and not hotlinking or copying the pictures -- which Lit would reject anyway.
