Rights to character names

Hello Ya'll,

My question involves the names of characters that are 'published' in the BDSM Library. Over 6 months ago, I read an unfinished story on this site. (I use the term 'story' loosely, as it has only 3 poorly developed, named characters and is more like an outline with a shattering of dialogue.) However, I did like the story and was disappointed that it only contains 2 charpters, the last of which lacks a conclusion. I found the story so interesting, I decided to write my own expanded version, which has nearly 10 times the number of characters and is presently 18 chapters long. The author, who I have emailed, is claiming propitory rights to the character name 'Judge Fair' and place name 'Greenville'. In his story, Greenville is mensioned only once and Judge Fair seems to be a minor character. Even though my story uses variations of these names, not the exact names, the other author considers my work to be plageristic. Does he have a ligitimate claim ? Can he prevent me from having my story 'published' on this site ? If so, then how can ANY author write a story using the same, or similar, names that have EVER appeared in ANY previously written story ?

If this is the case, I wish to formerly assert, that I have the exclusive rights to the letter 'e' and wish all other authors to refrain from using it in the future, unless they pay me a royalty fee.

Tell me what you think.

oldpervert1

ugh this is one of my pet peeves, as there isn't a thing on this planet that can't be written without someone having thought of it first. specially if i write a letter "a" or use the word "the" first in a title, and especially with sexual conotations as good pornographic writers seem to just disappear without any notice so stories wind up like "The Lady or The Tiger" where you have to make your assuptions and hope that leads to some specualtion of what type of person you are.

i've found in my experiece that if there is a disclaimer as to where you found the publication(story) who the original author was, and probably a few other particulars like when, some of thier character names, or where, then you might not be nailed for plagerism as credit for the whole idea is given to the originator

of course this opens up a whole can of trouble as where does one in a court of law draw the line between an author's idea and adding on to an existing one.

in my opinion and i stress the word opinion
make a discliamer and give credit of whom the original idea came from and that names are changed to protect his copyright rights as well as yours. try to change as much as possible since i dont' really know what percentage a person can change something from an existing product to make their own original idea, and yes there is a small percentage you can change of an existing product to gain credit for your new improved version or your brand new version.

check other media for examples, like movies, song remakes, similar products with almost similar logos.

sounds like a lot of trouble, but in the end, your just protecting your story, even though the idea came from somewhere elsel good luck.

all in all i look forward to some new input to old stories, specially since a lot of them just seem to stop like there is an upcoming chapter but none never show.

besides i'm pretty sure that if you do some digging on this site, you'll find that almost all of them have the same idea so it's pretty hard to get nailed for plagerism, specially since only so many peoples names can be used without doubling up, look up any of the female names and i bet theres plenty of stories with that name being used in the same role.

hope to read more
Robert

The key is that you admit being inspired by the story and use the same name or stting. If for example you wrote a story about Harry Potter or James Bond then there are claims for royalites. However if your wrote about a teenage sorecer and a secret agent then you are not. You really need to consult with copyright attorney given that you have posted that your story is the derivative work from an already posted story. Sorry

StephVE has a point, the point being you are using the same characters, not just the same names. The characters are the intellectual property of their creator, the names can be in the commons, unless they are unique. Hard to write "THX-1138" and claim that is just some name you made up, for example.

I have two series with the MC name "Suki", but she is not based on any real person nor any prior work. Two people who worked on the first series with me wrote fan fiction using my main characters. I gave them permission to use them, without objection. A bit of a wrinkle there, my character developer and proof reader helped develop Suki. In my mind and heart, she owns that character too and I do not object to her using it online as her handle.

Anyway, the legalities disagree with me, I am all for being able to write fan fiction, while crediting the creator, without penalty. If someone does that from my stories, I am cool with it. My understanding is, legally, stay away from characters others created unless they give you express permission to use them.

My WIP uses common names and it would be a little difficult for any of the authors who wrote about Sarah or Nancy to honestly claim that I am ripping their work.

Obviously, it is impossible to patent common names like Bond or Potter.
So if some problem arises it is always possible to say that story character has nothing to so with that popular character.
but if story explicitly describes that it is that well known character or if writer confirms that it is indeed same character, original author will win.

Copyright laws allows fair use for parody and educational purposes.
so characters can be used for these purposes and no asking or giving any credits is necessary.
you can write spoof story "Harry potter and society of pussies"
but you cant write serious story which closely resembles original.


if we talks about original question here then using characters from other story is illegal without permission
but since nobody cares and in case of problem you can just replace names there is no need to worry.
Using same character names is legal.