My Writers Circle
Writing => All the Write Questions => Topic started by: bowmore2 on August 12, 2014, 05:24:54 PM
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Hi guys, and ballish in particular, Just read your flash fiction and noticed the heading...freefall.
Among my writings from a few years back i did a short story called freefall, my version is about two window cleaners
working from a platform, and the tragedy that ensues.
Anyway i just wondered if there would be infringement on my part,would really like some guidance on this.
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There's no infringement.
Similar stories with events and titles happen. Often at awkward moments. I'll give you an example. The first Simpsons movie showed an event where the town, Springfield, became enclosed under a glass dome.
Sure enough, King wrote a novel with the exact same idea, he says it's coincidence and makes light of it in more than a few writers' conferences, around that time. This novel's titled, Under the Dome. Later, CBS developed it into an ongoing television series.
Again, no infringement. :)
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Just to clear up any infringement issues, my motivation was a Lucille Ball episode where she was standing on a girder in a flowing dress.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'll play one in this forum. :D
In order to violate copyright, there must be significant portions that are similar, and this usually means they have the same words or expressions. The idea is not copyrightable. So I could write about a teenage girl falling in love with a vampire with sparkly skin, but as long as my use of language is unique, there is no infringement.
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So I could write about a teenage girl falling in love with a vampire with sparkly skin...
Please don't ;-)
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What Gyppo said.
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I didn't say I would. I see maybe twenty new books a day, and about a third of them include vampires. I only wish everybody else was as tired of them as I am.