A Fanfiction Writer’s Guide to Copyrights

What is a copyright and what does it do? Well, a copyright is protection of intellectual property guaranteed by international law. To translate this into English: a copyright is the law’s way of ensuring that nobody steals your creations.

HOW DO I GET A COPYRIGHT?

The answer to this is simple: a copyright exists as soon as pen is put to paper. If you create anything original, it is your intellectual property, and you immediately own the copyright. So, if you should create a character named Professor Smith, he is your character under copyright law.

DO I HAVE TO REGISTER MY COPYRIGHT?

Not really. If you have created something incredible that you think you can make a great deal of money off of, however, it can be a good idea. To register a copyright, you take your work to the national government, pay them a fee, and they record the year that the work was brought to them. This is added protection in case anybody tries to steal your work.

HOW DO I EXPRESS MY COPYRIGHT?

Expressing a copyright is easy. All you have to do is write something like this: “Abbot Arafael is copyright 1997 Robert B. Marks, all rights reserved.” You must express it in this format, as “(c)” is not recognized under law.

The last statement of “all rights reserved” is a very important one: it protects your copyright. This means that you control all of the rights to the creation, be they film rights, distribution rights or publishing rights. So long as that statement is there, if anybody wants to use your creation, they must ask permission; if they don’t, it is a breach of copyright and you can sue them over it (which should, in any event, be a last resort).

DO I HAVE TO PROTECT MY COPYRIGHT?

Yes. If you allow your copyright to go unprotected, it can become a part of the public domain, and can be used by anybody. This means that you lose your rights over the creation, and this, as a rule, is a bad thing.

Protecting your copyright is quite easy, though. Always remember to put the “all rights reserved” in the copyright statement, always include the copyright statement, and if somebody does use your work without permission, at least ask them to give you credit in a form such as this: “Abbot Arafael is copyright 1997 Robert B. Marks, and is used with permission”. Should an infringement happen, you are within your rights to request that they remove your creation from the story (although it is usually easier on the Internet to get them to acknowledge where the copyright lies).

HOW LONG DOES THE COPYRIGHT LAST?

In most countries, any copyrighted work becomes a part of the public domain 50 years after the death of the copyright holder. So, in short, you will expire before it does.

CAN I COPYRIGHT SOMETHING CURRENTLY IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN?

No. Public domain is public domain: anybody can use it.

CAN I TRANSFER MY COPYRIGHTS?

Yes. A copyright is a piece of property, like any other. To transfer a copyright all you have to do is give a signed and dated piece of paper to the new copyright holder stating that you have transferred the copyright. However, do not do this unless you really don’t want it back; a copyright is not like a library book.

HOW DO COPYRIGHTS WORK ON THE INTERNET?

In confusing ways, to cut a long story short. In reality, the Internet has still not entirely dealt with the issue of copyrights, but as a rule if you follow international law (ie. do what is said above), you will be safe. Just always put a copyright notice at the beginning of any work that you publish on the Internet, and that should protect you.

HOW DO COPYRIGHTS WORK FOR DOCTOR WHO FANFICTION?

It seems that so far the BBC has said that fanfiction is safe to write, so you don’t have to worry about being sued at this point in time. Just to be safe, though, here is a sample copyright message that will keep you out of trouble (assuming a story with Daleks): “Doctor Who is a trademark of the BBC, Daleks are copyright 1963 Terry Nation, story and original characters are copyright 1998 John Doe, all rights reserved.”

In short, so long as you don’t try to copyright the Daleks or the Doctor or something that is already copyrighted, you won’t get in trouble.

DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO CREDIT THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER?

No. If you have written something that makes a brief reference to a copyrighted creation, so long as you acknowledge the source, you are fine. This is called “fair use”. For example, if you want to quote Lord of the Rings in something, so long as you acknowledge that it came from Lord of the Rings somewhere in the manuscript, you do not have to put a statement of “Lord of the Rings is copyright...” at the beginning of your document.

However, should Gandalf or Aragorn appear in your story and start talking to your characters, that does not count under fair use, and is an infringement. Should you do something like this, the proper thing to do is to credit the copyright holder (in this case, the Tolkien estate), and then hope they don’t notice (or even better, don’t do it in the first place).

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I SHOULD KEEP IN MIND?

Only this: copyrights are your friends, and are there to protect you. If you use and understand them, they are incredibly helpful (and can keep you out of trouble at times).