On Tue, 9 Dec 1997, Kenneth Burling wrote:

You are forgetting a major point.  Technicaly this is true for any of 
the anime characters.  FanFics are technicaly going against copy right 
law by their very existance.  Legaly you have to sign a release form to 

And despite people claiming copyright on them, you can't claim copyright
on material that is in violation of copyright. 

Some good sources for copyright law if you don't have the knowhow to go
read the copyright laws (I know I don't) are:

http://www.yahoo.com/Government/Law/Intellectual_Property/Copyrights/

http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/misc.legal.html

use any on the Ranma 1/2 characters, or characters from any anime for 
that matter.  The only reason that we get away with it is because of the 
authers' respect for their fans and the fact that we do not get ppaid 
for writing fan fics.  So though your point is technicaly sound, it is 

Well, the fact that we don't make money reduces the incentive to sue, but
legally, they could.  (They would recieve less damages in the case of
'non-profit' copyright violation.)  A 'non-profit' copyright violation is
still illegal, and potentially criminal (Copyright law is normally
enforced through civil suits, but at a sufficiently high level also is
subject to criminal penalties as a felony)  The damages that would
probably be gained from sueing us would probably not be worth the effort,
but the principle remains.  


John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu       
rhea@tass.org              http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net      http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/

"We're not grave robbing; we're grave bartering!"