Copyright Question

[Rob_Royale]

Ok, thanks everyone..
Looks like it falls under "not worth going there"..
Well I will work on the outline and file it for another day.

Since the idea is based more about the circumastances of the HP world and less the characters within it, seems like you could create your own world that is perhaps dealing with dark magic and write your story. Don't get fixed on the source material.

 

[Bramblethorn]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

It's in the section on Public Domain

I'm not seeing it. There's a mention of "paying public domain", but that doesn't match the thing you described previously, and from what I can tell the only countries currently using that system are Algeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, and Paraguay.

 

[Bramblethorn]

From https://jamiesonlaw.legal/resources/blog/the-chamber-of-trademarks/

For those Harry Potter fans out there, it’s important to know that “muggles” is trademarked by Warner Bros across loads of classes, along with various other words, themes, and even characters including “Dementor”, “Sirius Black”, “Hogsmeade”, and “Gryffindor”.

I'm sure “Hogwarts” is also trademarked, among other Harry Potter specific terms you'd need in a FanFic.

Trademarks aren't likely to be an issue here. Trademark law is primarily about preventing somebody from passing off their merchandise as somebody else's, so demonstrating trademark violation generally requires establishing a "likelihood of confusion" between the violator's product and the trademark's owner. I doubt there's much likelihood that somebody reading a Harry Potter fanfic here would think it was an official JKR/Warner Brothers product.

 

[IWroteThis]

For those Harry Potter fans out there, it’s important to know that “muggles” is trademarked by Warner Bros across loads of classes,

I don't really believe in the Mandela Effect, but this one might actually change my mind. You see, I've watched the episode of Bewitched where they used the word muggle in the same manner, and I've read several discussions about it. Still, Google claims neither happened, insisting that the word muggle was invented for Harry Potter, but Google is not as trustworthy as it once was. Interestingly, every page has search results removed due to copyright infringement, so maybe it did find them...

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

^^^

"Then, in the 1920s, the word took on another meaning. George Maines and Bruce Grant’s Wise-crack Dictionary (1926) defines ‘muggle’ as ‘joint’, and ‘muggles’, in the plural, as marijuana. Two years later, Louis Armstrong gave the word further currency when he named one of his records Muggles. The origins of ‘muggles’ in this druggy sense remain swathed in a smoky haze of mystery.

https://interestingliterature.com/2016/03/the-curious-origin-of-the-word-muggle/

 

[CalBishForNow]

I don't really believe in the Mandela Effect, but this one might actually change my mind. You see, I've watched the episode of Bewitched where they used the word muggle in the same manner, and I've read several discussions about it. Still, Google claims neither happened, insisting that the word muggle was invented for Harry Potter, but Google is not as trustworthy as it once was. Interestingly, every page has search results removed due to copyright infringement, so maybe it did find them...

A third possibility exists: Bewitched first used the term, but Harry Potter trademarked it.

IANAL but I don't see why it's not possible. Trademarks have to be registered, and can be registered even if you didn't invent the term. "Palantir," for example. If no one at ABC thought of registering "muggle" for the show, then Rowling or her publisher could do so years later.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

A third possibility exists: Bewitched first used the term, but Harry Potter trademarked it.

IANAL but I don't see why it's not possible. Trademarks have to be registered, and can be registered even if you didn't invent the term. "Palantir," for example. If no one at ABC thought of registering "muggle" for the show, then Rowling or her publisher could do so years later.

"However, Layamon is thought to have lived a little earlier than the time when the surviving manuscript of his poem was written (c. 1275): he probably lived in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. So this places the word ‘muggle’ even farther back into, if not quite the dawn, then certainly the early morning of English literature. "

https://interestingliterature.com/2016/03/the-curious-origin-of-the-word-muggle/

 

[SimonDoom]

A third possibility exists: Bewitched first used the term, but Harry Potter trademarked it.

IANAL but I don't see why it's not possible. Trademarks have to be registered, and can be registered even if you didn't invent the term. "Palantir," for example. If no one at ABC thought of registering "muggle" for the show, then Rowling or her publisher could do so years later.

Actually, you don't have to register a trademark to have rights in it, at least in the USA. In the USA, a person's right to a trademark is acquired by using the mark in commerce in connection with offering goods and services, in a way that creates an association in the minds of the consumers between the mark and the products and services offered in connection with it. Invention has nothing to do with it. Unlike copyright infringement, one can sue for trademark infringement even if one hasn't registered the mark, although one's remedies are stronger if one has registered the mark.

The mere use of a term in a creative work, like the show Bewitched, doesn't create a trademark right. Those rights only accrue when one starts to use it in a meaningful way in connection with goods and services. Presumably, Warner Brothers has made significant efforts to market the term with a variety of goods and services, and that's how and why it can claim trademark rights.

 

[alohadave]

Trademarks aren't likely to be an issue here. Trademark law is primarily about preventing somebody from passing off their merchandise as somebody else's, so demonstrating trademark violation generally requires establishing a "likelihood of confusion" between the violator's product and the trademark's owner. I doubt there's much likelihood that somebody reading a Harry Potter fanfic here would think it was an official JKR/Warner Brothers product.

We'll see how that holds up in the US when a big Disney property goes PD and Disney sues for trademark violation, even though SCOTUS has previous ruled that trademarks can't be used as an end run around copyright.

 

[SimonDoom]

We'll see how that holds up in the US when a big Disney property goes PD and Disney sues for trademark violation, even though SCOTUS has previous ruled that trademarks can't be used as an end run around copyright.

Depends on what you mean by "hold up." They'd likely lose in court, if it ever got that far. But they'd probably count on all the little fish buckling and withdrawing their works in fear of scorched-earth litigation, so it would never come to that.