Quote:
Originally Posted by Luke King
The whole point of copyright is that people can't take characters and worlds you've created and then "piggy-back" on your hard work by writing fanfic.
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That is almost, but not entirely, exactly what copyright is
not about. Copyright protects words, not ideas, only the expression of it. The ideas behind a work, or even the facts embodied in the work, are free for all to use. It is legal to take the plot from somebody else's mystery novel, and write your own mystery novel based on that plot.
Whether fictitious characters, worlds, histories and names are copyright protected is heavily disputed amongst scholars. It certainly is not "the whole point of copyright".