Wannabe submitter has a few questions

[Ellebeth]

I am new to Literotica. I have written some erotic stories and shared them with friends. All have thought they were really hot and thought I should write seriously. Some have even suggested submitting to literotica. Hopefully serious erotic readers will think so too.

I am an online gamer, big into MMOs. My stories were written for other players so I will have to change them to appeal to nongamers but they will still be fantasy based. My question is how do I find out what is copyrighted and what is not. Obviously the name of the world they are on, though it's not in the stories, would have to be changed as well as cities and outlying areas. I know a generic race description such as elf would not be but what about dark elf, high elf, wood elf, etc. I would change Kerran (the cat people with decadently sticky tongues) to be safe but what about halfling/hobbit? I don't want to inadvertantly use a copyright but how far do these companies go with copyrights of their game material?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Elves and "dark, wood, high" elves are still generic. "Halfling" is an actual word, and allowable, Hobbi is a trademark-- they didn't exist until Tolkein coined them, and his estate is pretty meticulous about copyright infringments since the movies came out.

Here's a page full of name generators, yay!

I se it has a "realms" generator as well..

 

[raphy]

It wasn't erotic fiction, but I used to write a bunch of EQ FanFic - (You mentioned Kerrans, I'm take an erudite stab in the dark here. Yes, pun intended) - I'm not sure how SoE regards it, but no one ever told me to stop.. I figure as long as you're not making any money out of it, I would say it's okay..

 

[The_Darkness]

I am new to Literotica. I have written some erotic stories and shared them with friends. All have thought they were really hot and thought I should write seriously. Some have even suggested submitting to literotica. Hopefully serious erotic readers will think so too.

I am an online gamer, big into MMOs. My stories were written for other players so I will have to change them to appeal to nongamers but they will still be fantasy based. My question is how do I find out what is copyrighted and what is not. Obviously the name of the world they are on, though it's not in the stories, would have to be changed as well as cities and outlying areas. I know a generic race description such as elf would not be but what about dark elf, high elf, wood elf, etc. I would change Kerran (the cat people with decadently sticky tongues) to be safe but what about halfling/hobbit? I don't want to inadvertantly use a copyright but how far do these companies go with copyrights of their game material?

I believe most of what gets put up here fully qualifies as fair use because of several factors.

One, you're not declaring the copyrighted subject to be inherently yours. Just like you can say a character in your story drives a Porche Carerra, you can say she's a Dark Elf.

Two, no one is making money off your story. It can be construed that your story helps promote the advertisements on the page, but realistically, finding your "market share" of how much your story contributes to that is not realistically achievable and won't be pursued.

Three, I think what we write qualifies under the laws protecting parody, which is why Mel Brooks and Al Yankovic have never successfully been sued.

In short, write away, girl! If it's hot, we want to read it! If you have questions, fire away!

 

[Stella_Omega]

I didn't know that EQ uses "hobbit" in the game. If that's true, then there can't be a copyright on the term at all-- as I said, it's Tolkien's invention.

You're free and clear!

 

[Ellebeth]

Actually EQ does not use the term Hobbit. They are called Halflings but essentially that is what they are. Anyway, thanks for all the advice. I was concerned about infringing on SOE copywrites. Now if I can drag myself away from EQ2 long enough to clean up the story, I'll be submitting it, hopefully soon. If any of you play I'm on Butcherblock server.

 

[Ellebeth]

And raphy, I've read some awesom EQ fan fic over the years, some that really get into the lore. I don't want to get that deep here. I want to set up the scene without taking to long to get to the sex.