Writing a story in a copyrighted setting?

[NovusAnimus]

Hey, I've been looking but haven't been able to find a very clear, definitive answer to this question:

Is it ok to publish stories on Literotica that, while original stories written entirely by me, are set in a copyrighted setting? Specifically, publisher White Wolf's Chronicles of Darkness setting.

This means while all the stories and characters are my own creation, they're based on races and concepts owned by White Wolf.

 

[RejectReality]

Works set in existing universes are supposed to only be posted to the Celebrities category. Some do slip through in other categories — probably because Laurel isn't familiar with the source material — but the letter of the rule is they are supposed to be in Celebs.

Whenever you're dealing with a Sci-Fi & Fantasy universe, your best bet is to eliminate the direct references to places, characters, etc. and make it your own parallel world, since you're writing about characters you created. There are so many things in Sci-Fi & Fantasy that aren't specific. Everybody has orcs. Everybody has ogres. Everyone has warp drive. You get the picture. Even if your orcs are the same as the orcs in White Wolf, you can bet your ass that some other franchise has nearly identical orcs. There's no way to say for certain that "Those are White Wolf orcs".

The celebrities category has very little traffic, and what little it does get is mostly people looking for fantasies about having sex with the movie star of the moment. You'll get far more readership in Sci-Fi & Fantasy.

Or, if your main characters are weres, vampires, ghosts, fairies, etc., then NonHuman. More or less, any type of creature that isn't a standard player character race in RPGs such as dwarves or elves.

 

[NovusAnimus]

Works set in existing universes are supposed to only be posted to the Celebrities category. Some do slip through in other categories — probably because Laurel isn't familiar with the source material — but the letter of the rule is they are supposed to be in Celebs.

Whenever you're dealing with a Sci-Fi & Fantasy universe, your best bet is to eliminate the direct references to places, characters, etc. and make it your own parallel world, since you're writing about characters you created. There are so many things in Sci-Fi & Fantasy that aren't specific. Everybody has orcs. Everybody has ogres. Everyone has warp drive. You get the picture. Even if your orcs are the same as the orcs in White Wolf, you can bet your ass that some other franchise has nearly identical orcs. There's no way to say for certain that "Those are White Wolf orcs".

The celebrities category has very little traffic, and what little it does get is mostly people looking for fantasies about having sex with the movie star of the moment. You'll get far more readership in Sci-Fi & Fantasy.

Or, if your main characters are weres, vampires, ghosts, fairies, etc., then NonHuman. More or less, any type of creature that isn't a standard player character race in RPGs such as dwarves or elves.

Alas, the devil's in the details.

I was writing a story in the Vampire: the Requiem setting (a subset of Chronicles of Darkness) and there is no mistaking the hundreds of details that are very specific to the setting. The covenants, the blood clans, the political systems, the mechanics, etc, are all essential to what makes V:tR so appealing and I can't make parallels of them.

Thanks though.

 

[RejectReality]

Like I said, things do go through. There's a series of WoW stories that don't try to hide what they are posting to Sci-Fi&Fantasy, and has been for a long time now. The author even goes by the handle thatawfulwowporno. It may be that Laurel has a bar for what's "too specific", and it most likely is related only to huge pop-culture franchises. Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, etc.

You could always give it a shot in NonHuman ( It will do better there than Sci-Fi&Fantasy because it's vampire-centric ) and see what happens.

There's also precedent for stories of this nature being posted to other categories with the Celebrities category disclaimer added to the text of the story/chapter.

https://www.literotica.com/s/virtual-reality-dragon-quest-iv

So that's a possibility.

The only way to know with absolute certainty is to PM Laurel ( you can find her as the thread starter on most of the sticky threads here in the AH ) or to submit the story and see if the category gets changed.

 

[sr71plt]

You can't copyright a setting (it's possible, with a lot of difficult, after establishing it as a product, to trademark a setting. This is rarely done but I have no idea if it has been done for your specific source.). What is under copyright are lifting chunks of direct passages in which the original describes the setting. Paraphrase and you aren't violating copyright. That doesn't mean necessarily that the originator will send you love notes.

 

[NovusAnimus]

I'll do that then. Guess there's still hope, cause I'd hate to have more or less wasted 40k words (of what will probably end up being 200k+).

I loooove Vampire: the Requiem.