From:        Trisha Lynn Sebastian, tlsbtn@ix.netcom.com

Anou... that seems a little paranoid.  They can read it without
"contaminating" their copyrights.  They simply cannot "recognize" them.
As long as they do not GIVE permission, or WITHHOLD permission, 
plausible deniability remains in the eyes of the law.

It's like that 10th Amendment says, paraphrased,
of course, "If it's not expressely illegal, then it's allowed."

Not quite. The last legal case I can remember in this area involved 
Chelsea Quinn Yarboro's Comte de St.-Germain character, 'round 1991-'92. 
Basically, what happened is a fan author wrote her and asked permission 
to use St.-Germain in a story; she refused politely, at least in part 
because the copyright issues are a little tricky, since there was a real 
Comte de St.-Germain. The fan went ahead and wrote the story, and a 
fanzine publisher went ahead and published it, *with a notice that the 
author had refused permission.* Since she couldn't afford any slack in 
defense of her copyright, she had to sue, and ended up with a judgement 
of $250,000 against the writer and publisher.

The legal issue is that if copyrighted material is used without 
permission -- if a copyright is infringed -- then the author must defend 
the copyright, or they risk losing it. As I understood it at the time, 
there was some grey area involved with the question of 'Did the author 
know' -- if the author didn't know about the infringement, it didn't get 
their copyright in trouble, and so they didn't have to sue to defend it; 
but if the author did know, and didn't grant some kind of permission, it 
put their copyright at risk. I may be befuddling these, it's been 4 
years. <wry g>

 "....Publishers
 are used to getting stories with a covering note saying 'Here's a story
 I've set in Harry Spiven's 'World of Hurts' universe...' and the
 publishers say 'Did you get his permission?' and the writer says 'I don't
 have to do that, do I?' and the publishers go white and say 'Does the
 Pope shit in the woods?'

Hmmmm, must check out Prachett's work.  He's got a style
of writing that interests me.  And I can't believe that
people have done that in the Real World(tm).

Well, I dunno about the Real World... but pTerry's writing is a *lot* of 
fun. Trust me. For that matter, ask Mike Loader, or any of the other 
Pratchettaholics on the list... just let me know if you want any 
recommendations on where to start. :)

I'm sure that Takahashi-san and all other manga creators would say
pretty much the same, if asked.

Also, what they must understand is that we're
not trying to rip them off, but trying to fill
the void left when some stories aren't complete
or something isn't explained to our satisfaction.

Unfortunately, while that's a reasonable moral/ethical position, to the 
best of my knowledge it has absolutely no legal standing and can *not* be 
relied on as a defense if things ever got that bad. In other words, don't 
depend on it to get you out of trouble, or to keep you from getting *in* 
trouble. 

We don't do it to make money, just to keep that
little section of the fiction universe alive.

Same goes for this. The fanzine publisher made this claim in the Yarbro 
case, and it didn't help him.



Travis Butler
(The Professor, formerly of Myth and Magick!, Lawrence, KS;
 tbutler@tfs.net, now from the Wandering Powerbook;
 <http://www.tfs.net/personal/tbutler/>;
 Mac page <http://www.tfs.net/business/tbutler/>)

...Cats are the proof of a higher purpose to the universe.