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ON THE PERILS OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
NOTE: For the sake of simplicity, this discussion assumes that if you are thinking of basing your mush on a pre-existing copyrighted theme, then you are specifically interested in a book or series of books, such as Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series or Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books. The persons who have created imaginary worlds and own copyrights on their work will be called "authors." However, the same principles apply to any imaginary worlds which were first created for film, television, comic books, or any other medium, regardless of whether the copyright is owned by a single person or a corporation.
Before we begin, some useful items on copyright law (with attention to the special problems encountered on the Internet, where duplication and mass distribution are so easily accomplished) are these:
Ten Myths About Copyright Explained
Now let's get down to specifics. If I logged onto a mush based on the pair of four-book series which author Dave Duncan has set in the imaginary world of Pandemia (the series are titled A MAN OF HIS WORD and A HANDFUL OF MEN), I might find a newsfile reading something like this:
| NEWS DISCLAIMER
Pandemia MUSH has no official connection with Dave Duncan, author of the eight books which we have taken as our theme, nor with Del Rey, publishers of the aforementioned eight books. We charge nothing from our players, but merely wish to engage in mutually enjoyable "social" roleplaying activities in a world we greatly admire, and intend no harm to Mr. Duncan or his copyrights. |
NOTE: So far as I am aware, there has never been any sort of multi-user site based on the world of Pandemia created by Dave Duncan (a pity, since his world has several interesting aspects which would roleplay well, in my opinion). The above disclaimer was not taken verbatim from any existing mush, but was merely constructed by yours truly as a sort of model, based on similar disclaimers which I have seen on several different sites. I wrote it to illustrate some of the common excuses that people use in rationalizing their "right" to operate a mush based on copyrighted materials. Such a disclaimer has NO legal validity in protecting you from the penalties of copyright infringement, to the best of my knowledge.
Many people seem to feel that if they are drawing upon an author's work for use in a mush (or in writing fan fiction, or in some other way), but are NOT charging any money for their own work, then they are not doing anything wrong (meaning illegal and/or immoral). After all (they say, looking as innocent as possible), they aren't stealing the author's royalties by selling copies of his own books without his permission, or anything like that, so he has no right to complain. This is a very common belief in fan circles, but there is just one little problem: it's not true.
I'm not going to argue about the "morality" of it, since my arguments wouldn't carry much weight with anyone whose opinion on the basic principles of "morality" was different from my own, but the legal issues are more straightforward, since laws are all written down in black and white and are expected to apply to everyone within the relevant jurisdiction. Please note that my comments here are based on my understanding, such as it is, of the relevant laws applying within the boundaries of my homeland, the United States of America. I make no claim to knowing what differences may exist between copyright law here and copyright law in any other country.
If an author has created an imaginary world and described it in detail in a series of novels (or some other medium), then his creative work is automatically copyrighted by him. His copyright does not just mean that he can collect royalties on the books he wrote, and that people who try to photocopy and mass distribute texts written by him are infringing upon his rights, but also means that in the eyes of the law, he and only he has the right to decide whether or not any aspect of the "theme" he has created (characters, imaginary nations, distinctive artwork, whatever) should be used in subsequent books, movie projects, roleplaying games, t-shirts, or any other type of service or commodity, INCLUDING non-profit activities such as running an online mush.
You may feel that it's highly unlikely that a certain author will ever attempt to put together a pay-for-play online roleplaying game based on his fantasy series, so you are not actually competing with any of his moneymaking activities. You may feel that it is probable that if your mush lasts long enough to attract a lot of people, some of them will A) be previously unfamiliar with the author's work, but B) be sufficiently inspired by what they see reflected of it in the mush that they will run out and buy a couple of his books in order to become more familiar with the theme, and in that sense your mush could actually be called free online advertising on the author's behalf. You may feel that it's exceedingly stingy of a gifted author to create a fascinating fantasy world which you almost feel as if you have been living in when you read his books, and then callously refuse you permission to roleplay in it after you've exhausted the pleasures of reading and rereading such material as he has provided, and are feeling the need to try and create some more of the same type of stuff to satisfy your addiction.
You may feel all three of these things at once, and any or all of them may be "true" in a particular case. But from the legal perspective, it doesn't MATTER. These arguments have no legal significance when lined up against the consideration that the copyright holder, and ONLY he, gets to decide what should be done with the ideas he has created.
Some people like to say that this sort of thing falls into a "gray area" of the law. This is not accurate. The only "vague" or "gray" part of it is found in the fact that some copyright holders make no (or very little) effort to hunt down copyright violations on the Net and warn the violators to cease and desist or else they will be sued. But if they did - in the case of a mush, for instance - and if the mush operator refused to comply with their warning, then I feel the final ruling by a judge would inevitably go against the mush and in favor of the copyright holder, based on the laws as they are presently constituted concerning copyrights and "intellectual property."
To the best of my knowledge, no such case (that is to say, regarding the owner of a mush and the owner of the copyrighted material which the mush drew upon) has ever made it all the way into a courtroom case with plaintiff and defendant (if a civil case) or prosecutor and defendant (if a criminal case) each presenting their own sides, and a judge (with or without a jury's help) delivering a verdict, probably due to these factors: A) The awareness of the mush owner that the law is not on his side when the copyright holder registers a formal complaint, B) A feeling that it is not worth the time and expense to fight over the issue when he can simply shut down his mush and find some other theme to use if he feels the need to still run a mush at all, C) The fact that the owner of a copyright on a really successful project (such as a bestselling series of novels) probably has a LOT more money at his disposal for paying legal fees, etc., then the typical mush owner does, D) As I understand it, a copyright violator can be sued by the aggrieved party for up to $100,000.00, depending on various factors, and it does not need to be proved that he has actually collected any similar amount of money as a result of his violation.
So: if you really want to start a new mush based on a theme created and copyrighted by someone else, AND you want to be sure that it won't abruptly be shut down a year from now when you get a threatening letter from the author's lawyers, your best bet is to find a way to communicate with the author by mail and request offical permission to proceed with your plans. If you blithely ignore the legal ramifications and just proceed with your plans to do an "unapproved" mush on the theory that the author will never know, or even if he knows, will not care enough to stop you, then you may be headed for real heartache at some point.
On that note, I have seen reports on the Internet, more than once, that the following SF/Fantasy authors are particularly hard-nosed about not permitting multi-user roleplaying adaptations of the worlds they have created, period. So don't waste your time seeking their approval, don't imagine you can create a unauthorized mush based on their works WITHOUT getting them mad at you, just abandon the whole idea and move on to some other possible theme.
Melanie Rawn. Mercedes Lackey. Terry Goodkind. Robert Asprin.
There is also a report - which I have not yet confirmed - that Anne McCaffrey has sold the rights for online gaming development of her books to someone else (probably a corporation with very strong views on copyright infringement), and the new owner of that particular aspect of the copyright is no longer authorizing anyone to open up a NEW roleplaying site based on any of her books, although any established operation which had already received written approval from her before this sale of rights is free to continue their normal roleplaying activity.
There are probably other popular authors who never approve any such adaptation of their stuff, but I don't know their names yet (if you happen to know of any I missed, drop me a line!). In the cases of Rawn, Lackey, and Goodkind, I have seen multi-user projects based on each one's writings come and go over the last few years, although I do not know which ones were closed down due to ultimatums from lawyers and which collapsed from other factors before the lawyers ever took notice of them.
In case you're wondering which themes DO seem to be "safe" to use, either because the author is willing to discuss giving approval to your plans if you make the right impression, or because nobody seems to care about tracking down violations, then you might get some pointers by examining two of my other webpages.
Over on Book-Themed SF/Fantasy M** , you will find a list that is as up-to-date as I can make it concerning all currently active multi-user sites set in any world first created by an author of science fiction or fantasy novels. Over HERE , you will find my other M** list, this one cataloguing all currently online M** which are set in a world first created by someone else, EXCEPT the ones which began as novels. TV shows, films, comic books, the World of Darkness RPGs, that sort of thing.
I have never made any special effort to ascertain whether or not each site I add to the lists has sought and obtained permission from the relevant copyright holder before it opened. If I worked for a law-enforcement agency and were being paid to worry about such things, I would certainly take an active interest in sorting out the law-abiding sites from the illicit ones, but as is, I figure I have better things to do with my time.
If you see a particular theme on one of my M** Lists which you might want to use yourself, you can check out the links to sites and webpages, and poke around to see if they mention being officially approved by the copyright holder. If any of them do, then you at least know that it is possible to do it the legal way. If none of them do, you still have nothing to lose by communicating with the relevant party and asking for permission.
But if you can't get permission to run a nonprofit mush based on someone else's property, my advice is to abandon the idea and look for another theme, even if you end up having to create it yourself in order to get the kind of atmosphere you're looking for.