[WikiEN-l] Plot Element Copyright

[Stephen Bain]

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 2:26 AM, Flameviper Velifang
<theflameysnake at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yes, but the point is that the "plotline stealers" are retelling the story as their own work and profiting off it. None of which we are doing (I hope).. Obviously to summarize a story you need to present the plot thoroughly (you can't just say "the book Moby Dick was about a whale"). This is not at all the same as copying the entire script, with annotations added in. Cliffs Notes has never been sued for copyright infringement (AFAIK) and they give a far more in-depth view than we do.

Something like Cliffs Notes would almost certainly have a defence
available to it: both fair use and fair dealing protect use for the
purpose of criticism or review. Of course, that someone has a defence
available does not mean that they haven't exercised any of the
exclusive rights of the copyright owner, indeed by definition it means
they have.

The key point is to distinguish between exercising the exclusive
rights of the owner on the one hand, and infringement on the other.
You can do the former without doing the latter, if an exception
applies to what you are doing (whether that be fair use or a similar
doctrine, or perhaps a [[statutory license]]).

-- 
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com