#writing laws

[fieriframes]

[Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.]

[kaleid-tay-scope]

Legally speaking I don't believe that someone who we know and love could say she wrote such and such under the contract of another label because of intellectual property rights.

For instance, if someone wrote a jingle about a giraffe during the time they were employed by Butt Mayo Records then Butt Mayo Records owns said jingle because it's intellectual property; however, if someone says it's about this platypus she just met then it's all good in the legal woods.

That's antiquated law for ya! I think this is why some people fib and keep mum during transitional albums. 😭

[writingtipsandtricks]

If someone publishes a book plagiarized from a fanfiction, can they be sue for copyrights?

This is a difficult question to answer as the laws around fanfiction, in general, are unclear. I’m not a lawyer, so do not take anything I say for actual legal advice. This would be a better question for an actual lawyer. It also depends on the country. I’m working from an understanding of United States copyright laws.

From what I understand, fanfic writers create fanfic under the clause that it’s a derivative of the original and that they don’t own the rights to the original work. It’s covered by the fair use policy, which you can google if you want to know more. Because of that, if a fanfic writer has their story stolen, they do not own it, the original holder of the copyright does. I.e. A Harry Potter fanfiction that is published by someone other than the writer of said fanfiction, belongs to J.K. Rowling and she, or her publisher (depends on the country as to what publishing house that is), must file the lawsuit. 

TL;DR: if someone steals your fanfic and publishes it, you’re screwed and you have no legal right to sue. (I think.)

That said, don’t take this as the go-ahead to start stealing work. It’s a shitty thing to do and if you get caught by the fanfic author and put on blast, you might end up being sued by the original copyright holder anyways. Best not to risk doxxing, bullying and ruining your whole career because you were too lazy to write your own work.

Hope this was helpful and don’t steal people’s shit. 

-Amanda

***edit: An anonymous asker gave some more information. It’s copy and pasted directly from the ask: “Legally speaking, they can sue them. Even if it's a grey area and even if you can't publish a book without changes, no one can stole the expression of your ideas and you can have legal options. It's plagiarism as long as you can prove you wrote it first, and as long the main aspects remain. It doesn't apply to any fics, because some are too canonically similar, but the important thing is the original aspects. Sorry, I study copyright laws but English isn't my first language.”