Weird Al said he always got personal permission from an artist for a parody - and they were always credited. I would assume they were paid or got royalty sharing as necessary. I’m sure there are time when an author said no.
For court cases I think they decided for melodies you can have up to seven notes in the same intervals in sequence regardless of key change. If eight notes match it is plagiarism or “sampling” if done purposely above board.
Lyrics are probably a judgement call based on context and how specific they are. I can probably use the simile “like a virgin snowfall in the night” but I cannot write a song about how I feel “like a virgin; touched for the very first time…”
Titles are generally not copyrightable unless there is intention to fool someone. Technically I can make a movie called “Titanic” about the world’s largest plane as long as I do not copy James Cameron’s screenplay.
“Covers” of an existing song are actually unusual in an interesting way. I’m not an expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but my understanding is that for musical compositions, once a recording has been distributed, other people can use a “compulsory license” to make covers of the musical composition (i.e, A writes and releases a song, B can use the compulsory license to record a cover version of the song. Under the compulsory license B has to pay a set fee to A). The key thing is A cannot refuse people the right to make covers, everyone can just do it automatically as long as they pay the fee. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ73.pdf
This is is contrast to most other areas of copyright–if you write a book, you can generally refuse people the right to adapt it into a movie, and the sound recording itself of the song is also treated differently, which is why you hear about people who own the copyright in sound recordings suing politicians for playing them at rallies.
The compulsory license has been getting press lately as one proposal to try to bring training generative AI more in line with rights and payments to human creators.
Sorry for bringing trivia into your thread Amanda. I think end or beginning would probably be fine–I guess one reason to do beginning is to try to prevent people who aren’t immediately familiar with the author from spending a long time thinking you wrote it all, but I get that you want people to have a realization . . .
I don’t think it’s needed for a single work by a single author, but this is why I included a SOURCES command in my previous title and WIP. It gives me a chance to lay out my inspirations and direct sources, as well as point readers to other texts, if they’re curious.
IF also originated around prestigious universities, which means there’s a history of “you’re just expected to be highly educated to finish this game” (see: Jigsaw having puzzles that casually assume you’re familiar with the main motifs of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time).
Weird Al made a point of never recording any of his parodies without permission (e.g. he never released Chicken Pot Pie, a parody of Live and Let Die, because Paul McCartney is a vegetarian and opposed any songs that condone eating meat), but that’s a personal thing, not a legal thing. Parody is strongly protected by our copyright laws and there’s very little someone can do, legally, to avoid being parodied.
They can be trademarked, though. That’s why I can’t release a book called “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” even though “Harry Potter” is a relatively ordinary English name and the Philosopher’s Stone is an ancient alchemical concept.
This is true. I still know this guy, and he will sign anything you want. Although it probably doesn’t have the same value as it did when he was sneaking into the girl’s dorm to do it at age 16.
Haha, really? You should offer this as an IF Comp prize — to stay above board, authors can ask for an autographed copy of their own game manuscript, signed as themselves.
It is important to understand that not all book titles can be trademarked. In fact, most book titles cannot be trademarked. Trademarks are designed to identify the source of goods and services. Most book titles do not serve this function. For example: consider a famous work of literature, like “Gone with the Wind”. While many of us remember the book or that it was written by Margaret Mitchell, we don’t identify book’s title as a source of goods. Therefore it is not a trademark.
While the law does not allow for a trademark on an individual book title, an author can trademark a series of books. This is because they serve as an identifiable brand. Common examples include the “For Dummies” series, “Chicken Soup for the Soul”, and the “Hardy Boys Adventures” series.
While a single book title cannot be trademarked, it is important for authors to protect the text and graphics of the book itself with a copyright. An experienced intellectual property attorney can help you determine whether a copyright, trademark or patent is the appropriate tool for legal protection in your particular situation.
TL;DR: I think you can trademark an overarching title as an intellectual property including works, products, etc. but you can’t prevent someone with the actual name Harry Potter from using that name - say if he was an author of scholarly journals as long as he’s not telling a story about a boy wizard going to school; Harry Potter could technically publish a non-fiction book called “The Philosopher’s Stone” about the study of alchemy and probably be in the clear legally.
I think it helps if the trademarked name is associated with a specific logo and format - for HP it’s the font and the lightning-bolt P branding.
Because the poem is public domain, you don’t need to credit anyone - it’s free to take now. Of course, you may want to anyway, but that’s down to personal preference. There’s no legal reason to do it, at the end of the day.
Well, there’s copyright infringement, and then there’s plagiarism. Shakespeare’s works are in the public domain, so if I took A Midsummer Night’s Dream and published it as “a new play by Daniel Stelzer and no one else”, that wouldn’t be copyright infringement. But it would be plagiarism, since I’m passing off someone else’s work as my own.
There’s no law against plagiarism, but academics and creatives tend to frown upon it.
Well, that’s technically true, but I can’t imagine that anyone here would think highly of me for doing so, and I don’t have any urge to pass it off as my own.
if I took A Midsummer Night’s Dream and published it as “a new play by Daniel Stelzer and no one else”, that wouldn’t be copyright infringement
As @Hanon noted above, there can be associated trademarks, and that can extend to the author’s name and titles of public domain works.
For example, Beatrix Potter and Arthur Conan Doyle are both trademarked even though their works are mostly or entirely in the public domain.
Combined with trademarks on the titles, I assume that would give the estate or owning companies legal grounds to go after you whether you publish Peter Rabbit by Daniel Stelzer or Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (especially if you’re publishing commercially).
I don’t think there are any trademarks on William Shakespeare though. I am not a lawyer.
Just to clarify, since this has taken a little bit of a weird turn: For poetry geeks like me, it’s pleasurable to identify references in games and art and songs on my own. I like to realize, hey, this is riffing off George Herbert! That’s fun for me. Then I read the author’s notes and get confirmation and I feel smart. That’s how nerds do.
That’s what my question is about. I know I can legally do what I want. I’m interested in what the audience thinks.
This is heavily inspired by and has excerpts from a poem that is in the public domain. [Enter POEM / Click here] to learn about the poem and its author, or wait until the ending for the reveal if you want to figure it out yourself.
Personally, I’m not nearly well-read enough to recognize most references without explicit explanation (save for a few very common/English-required ones like Macbeth, the Odyssey, and the Monkey’s Paw), but I still want to know the “original” work so I can read it. I like knowing what it’s based on, and I like catching the little hints, so if you have something like what I put above, I would look for more information, but then people like you who don’t want the spoiler don’t have to get one.
I am absolutely citing the original. This was never in doubt and I was never asking if I should or should not credit. At the very least, it will be exhaustively listed in the endnotes, and in ABOUT if you want it (there will be a Y/N question about it). I AM CREDITING. My ONLY question was whether or not I should do it up front as well.
Yeah, that’s what I’m replying about. If I play a game based on T.S. Eliot’s " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" I want to know that so that I can read it and have context before jumping into the game. I think you’re saying that you would rather come across the connection naturally, so I suggested that you have the option to reveal what it’s based on in early credits/about page or only at the end.
As a fellow nerd who likes to recognize poetry references and feel smart, I absolutely wouldn’t want more than this, and I think having the option in ABOUT should be plenty for the people who aren’t that kind of nerd.
Yikes! I am just a lurker here and frustrated learner of Inform 7. The only game I have made so far (mostly, honestly it isn’t really done especially the cover and I guess sources) is a weird little game that totally steals/is based on a very famous poet’s poem. I am embarassed to confess that I didn’t even think about needing to give credit - for one thing it would kind of spoil the little experience and for another I am such a noob I didn’t really know where or how to put the sourcing correctly.
Should I just take it down for now? As far as I know only three people have played it anyway, so at least the plagiarism/lack of crediting the source of the poetry lines wasn’t widely exposed.
