Can Fictional Characters be protected by a Copyright?
Can Fictional Characters be protected by a Copyright?
Summary:
It is not specifically protected under Copyrights but are so by judge made laws. For a character to be protected it must have a distinctive identity from the said production, that is it must have such physical and conceptual qualities and identifiable character traits which can be identified by public even though the said character would appear in another production, that is independent from its parent production e.g Chulbul Pandey in Dabangg or rather Jethalal from Tarak Mehta; where you will be able to identify the character even though it is appearing as the character in another show/movie, etc.
Also the person playing the character has no right over the copyright obviously, only the production company has the right.
My question is whether a person playing such a character be separated from such distinctive identifiable traits/qualities. Even if it can be then what would be the limit where distinctive qualities are stopped by commonality. This can depend on case to case ofcourse.
Read the Full Article (By Neha Uppin at PA Legal: https://lnkd.in/eFjfunc7
Not Authored / Written by Me.
Background Story:
While I was on linkedin I saw a poll asking if Hastags can be trademarked. Yes they can be e.g: '# BornOfGreatness' registered by Suzuki Motorcycle India Pvt. Ltd. under class 35 - Marketing/Advertising.
There maybe many more but I discovered this one through a LinkedIn post by Kalpana Garg where the validity/qualifications required are also stated.
Then although not strictly trademark I wondered a charactered portrayed by a person in a serial be used for an Ad by any other company. Simply as an IP.