Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
From: richard@skaro.demon.co.uk (Richard Develyn)
Path: gmd.de!nntp.gmd.de!Germany.EU.net!EU.net!uknet!demon!skaro.demon.co.uk!richard
Subject: Copyright Characters - more questions
Organization: skaro
Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 11:55:33 +0000
Message-ID: <1994May15.125533.1@skaro.demon.co.uk>
Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk
Lines: 28

I have a few more questions about this topic:

1. I have a character in my adventure called Flay - a man-servant who 
I've named after the chap in Gormenghast. Now I can see that this might 
cause copyright problems but what else am I to name him? Anything 
sensible is bound to have been used by somebody somewhere. In fact this 
is likely to be a problem with any stereotyped character.

2. I might not be able to use James Bond, say, in an adventure, but 
could I have a picture of him up on the wall, or a statue of him in the 
garden.

3. What about creatures like orcs, elves, dwarves, hobbits, or, for 
those familiar with D&D, how about Ettins, Fire Giants, Orcus or his 
wand, a Beholder or a Rust Monster? (I'm not saying I'm about to use 
these BTW :-) The point is given any sort of creature X how do I find 
out if X is under copyright? Will it tell me in a dictionary, for 
example?

Any ideas ?

Richard
--

Richard Develyn from Hastings, Sussex, England (also:rad@cix.compulink.co.uk).
Senior Software engineer (datacomms) for Cray Network Systems. Married
Caroline, daughter Sophie (b 3/11/92). Hobbies: Dr Who, IF, SF, FRPG.
Technical Interests: FDDI, Ethernet Redundant Link Algorythms, OOAD.
