On Sun, 15 Sep 1996 01:27:25 -0400 Joseph "Ashira" Kohle said:
: The Legacy
: Part 1: Homecoming
:
: A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic
: by Joseph "Ashira" Kohle
:
: All characters are the products of Rumiko Takahashi's imagination and
: as such belong solely to her and a few other people like VIz Video and some
: Japanese companies. I am using them without her permission because I don't
: have her e-mail address (really I would ask her). (enough legal jargon
: already)
That would be a pretty bad idea.
It is better for both, the original creator and the fanfic writer,
if the copyright holder is *not* asked for permission. In
Takahashi-san's case, for example, she would probably not be able
to give you permission for legal reasons (I think the copyright is
partially owned by the producers of the Anime, too). A nasty
situation for both sides: She would very likely feel bad about
treating a loyal fan like this, and you would feel bad about being
refused. And what's worse, now she would be *officially aware* of
your fanfic - that means, if you went ahead and wrote it anyway,
she would be *required* by international copyright law to sue you!
Otherwise she would lose her right to claim the copyright.
If you *don't* ask for permission, on the other hand, nothing can
realistically happen. First of all, the chances that
Takahashi-san or anyone else who owns part of the Ranma copyright
sees the fic are rather slim - and even if they did, they wouldn't
have to sue you. They *could*, since it's still a violation,
but they don't *have* to. It doesn't threaten the validity of
their rights, since they were not aware of the fic's existence
before publication.
Therefor, any fanfic author should think at least twice before
they contact the original creator, and consider the situation that
might bring about.
Sebastian (who learned this from Zen)