Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
This is the real problem with the "it's property and belongs to the author forever" crowd. Copyright keeps expanding outward and outward. You go from the right to make copies of a book to complete control over any character mentioned in the book.
As was pointed out in the thesis I linked to earlier, this mind set would mean that Virgil, Shakespeare and pretty much any author you have ever heard of would be guilty of copyright violations. J.K. Rowling? Yep, Nicolas Flamel was central to the plot line of the first Harry Potter book. He was both a real person and a figure of legend who was widely written about. The Philosopher's stone? Doesn't really exist, but the legend has been around since around 300 AD. I suppose she could have called him something else, but the knowledge of the legend of Nicolas Flamel was a huge clue to the reader and a major plot device.
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There behavior would have changed. And we aren't talking about legends from the mist of time where nobody knows who created them.
If you write about Harry Potter....you are infringing on JK Rowling's copyright. And yet...people are STILL able to create endless wizard school books (and have)