Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like theme manager, comments configuration and post comments with your name.
Shade's Live Action Role Playing (LARP) List: Forums
Joined: Jan 19, 2005 Posts: 68 Location: Fairfield, CT
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:08 pm Post subject: Copyrighting
How does one go about copyrighting a LARP in the US? Does anyone know? I'm prolly gonna start advertising at cons and stuff and I should prolly have the game copyrighted. _________________ They say absolutism is not fair or modern. I say if you always compromise your compromise has no meaning in the end. www.geocities.com/mythofagessite ...go here it'll brighten your day, or maybe mine, you wanna make me happy right??? ::Smiles::
Basically, there are two different ways you can go about it.
1. Copyright it yourself. As long as you have proof of the date in which the game was created, you can copyright it yourself for free. That entitles you to claim the work as your original work, and if someone tries to copy your material, you can have them stopped by legal means. You cannot, however, sue for monetary damages.
2. Get it registered with the US Copyright Office. They will charge you a fee, but once that is taken care of, you are allowed to sue for monetary dmamges if someone copies your material.
I've got a question, though. What are the limits to copyright, as far as LARP goes? Anyone got any opinions on that? _________________ Where were you when they began to walk?
They Walk Among Us
"You are what you eat....And I'm a human"
"Having a Paladin tell a monster to go screw himself doesn't exactly constitute roleplaying"
What I plan on doing when my game is finished is printing a copy and mailing it to myself, as described in that link. Its cheap, and provides you with an exact date for creation. _________________ Where were you when they began to walk?
They Walk Among Us
"You are what you eat....And I'm a human"
"Having a Paladin tell a monster to go screw himself doesn't exactly constitute roleplaying"
Joined: Oct 17, 2003 Posts: 264 Location: Seattle, WA
Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:21 pm Post subject:
I realize that this thread is a bit old, but because of my background (print journalism graduate) and the media law courses and other related courses I had grilled into me in college, I feel I am well qualified to discuss copyright and copyright law in the USA.
From the Copyright Basics section of the US Copyright Office site: Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.
This basic copyright, however, is very hard to hold up in court since you don't have proof that you "own" the copyright and it's very, very hard to seek any damages should someone copy your work, even if you have the copyright symbol the year and your name displayed somwhere in the work in question.
The Poor Man's copyright is what Zombielarp explained:
zombielarp wrote:
What I plan on doing when my game is finished is printing a copy and mailing it to myself, as described in that link. Its cheap, and provides you with an exact date for creation.
A Poor Man's copyright, though you have proof that the material was created before a given date, still does not provide a solid enough copyright to hold up in court. While it does prove that it was created by a given date it does not list whom owns the copyright to the material in question. This can lead to nasty copyright battles in court since there is no official documentation stating who owns the work in question, especially if you are seeking monetary damages. If you are seeking monetary damages, this copyright more than likely won't hold up in court.
The best bet for anyone seeking to copyright their work is to seek an official copyright certificate. This is given once an official copyright is granted to a work (i.e. rules set). You'll need to fill out a simple form, pay a $30 fee and send a couple copies of your work to the Copyright Office, which is located at the Library of Congress. In about four to five months you'll have a certificate mailed to you and your material will be copy written to you. This copyright is the strongest defense against an offender in court since it provides a date and a copyright owner name for the work in question. With this copyright you can seek monetary damages should someone copy your work and take credit for that illegal copy.
Joined: Oct 17, 2003 Posts: 264 Location: Seattle, WA
Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:19 pm Post subject:
Tailanna wrote:
Could you have the rules with your name on it noterized then do a Poor Man's copyright?
Interesting question. I'm glad you asked this. I don't have time to do research right now to see if someone has tried this, and if so, if it held up in court. My personal opinion is as follows: Bottom line, this is still a Poor Man's Copyright. While there would be a stronger argument that the person who had it notarized is indeed the copyright holder (and thus a stronger chance of winning the court case) I do not think that you would be able to collect monetary damages as it's pretty clear that to seek monetary damages you need to have registered your work with the copyright office. You should be able to get a cease and desist order as a part of winning the court case, but no monetary damages.
Again, registering your work with the US Copyright office is still your best bet, especially if you want to seek monetary damages should someone rip off your work. The best that will happen otherwise is a cease and desist order with the offender being told that they need to destroy the plagiarized work they created.
Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 2:12 pm Post subject: Copyrights
The thing is, you cannot copyright a system or method. It may be patentable, but it's not copyrightable. So if you publish your rules, then somebody takes them and rewords them so that the wording is different, but the rules are ultimately the same, it's not protected even if you spent big bucks on copyrighting.
Quote:
Not protected by copyright: Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration
Joined: Jul 07, 2003 Posts: 606 Location: Mikkeli, Finland
Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 3:58 pm Post subject:
I personally think it's cool that people want to use my theories, rules, world material etc. Imitation is the purest form flattery. Of course, checking from me first is even better way to flatter me .
I have never considered copyrighting any of my stuff and I see no need for such thing as long as I don't try to make my living by writing larps and roleplaying. _________________ Very few rules, very good games and ... Awesome food.
The thing is, you cannot copyright a system or method. It may be patent-able, but it's not copyrightable.
Correct, but the method in which the ideas are presented is copyrightable (the rule book itself, being the text within). Most often when a person steals an idea they also tend to steal the way it was presented as well. The way an idea is presented (the rule book text) is copyrightable, the idea itself (the RPG or LARP) is not.
TraconEdgar wrote:
So if you publish your rules, then somebody takes them and rewords them so that the wording is different, but the rules are ultimately the same, it's not protected even if you spent big bucks on copyrighting.
It depends on the rewording though. If the person with the copyright can show that the plagiarizer took the idea and presented it in a similar fashion that very closely mirrors the original work then the original author may have legal grounds to seek damages because of copyright infringement.
I think you can see how this area starts to get rather sticky (and why copyright court battles can be so dirty): Is this new work a derivative of an existing work or is it a new work altogether? A derivative work in the simplest of terms is (taken from the US Copyright Office site), "... a work that is based on (or derived from) one or more already existing works, is copyrightable if it includes what the copyright law calls an “original work of authorship.” Derivative works, also known as “new versions,” include such works as translations, musical arrangements, dramatizations, fictionalizations, art reproductions, and condensations. Any work in which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship is a “derivative work” or “new version.”
"A typical example of a derivative work received for registration in the Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published material. This previously published material makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law.
"To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a “new work” or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example, are not copyrightable."
So.... can a person who creates another LARP and uses some ideas from yours be held responsible for a copyright infringement? No, if it was the idea that was taken (unless you also have the system patented, and that's another monster to deal with), but yes, if the way they presented those ideas is a blatant rip-off of how you presented those ideas.
Joined: May 22, 2002 Posts: 48 Location: Minnesota
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 1:33 am Post subject:
Another great copyright myth is the "But if I change 25% of it, then its original" Myth. You have no idea how many times I've come across a NERO (or any other established LARP, for that matter)-ripoff that justified themselves that way...
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
.
