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Legal question of interest

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Roaram:
 you can write a story taking place in the same universe as another story as long as you have permission. I know your not writing a book in the dresden universe, but say you did, it was good, and you wanted to sell it, you could go to the dresden publisher, or butcher, whoever owns the rights basically, and see if they would publish it.
many publishers use established universes to try out new writers, and get their names known. that's why you see so many star wars, star trek, dragonlance, warhammer books out there.

as for copywrite infringment, legally speaking, the holder of the copywrite has to proove that you stole their ideas. and as before mentioned it is very hard to proove that an idea is stolen, not just similar. plus if the holder of the copywrite borrowed their themes and elmemnts, it is much harder to proove.  for example, how many books have we all read that have evil wizards and orcs verses an alliance of elves dwarves and men? I have personnally read like five trilogys that copy the lord of the rings, almost to the point of story arc, and they didn't get sued. just because the similarities are all classic archtypes.
so its all about the points of similarities between two works. if you leave characters and specific names out of a dresden copy, you just have magic hiding in the real world, and you are in as much danger of getting sued by the owners of buffy or harry potter as you are of dresden.

Starbeam:

--- Quote from: Roaram on September 29, 2008, 08:48:10 PM ---many publishers use established universes to try out new writers, and get their names known. that's why you see so many star wars, star trek, dragonlance, warhammer books out there.

--- End quote ---

I can't comment on some of these series, but I do know that Star Wars does not do this.  Not unless the way they do things has changed in the last several years, and from the authors I've seen, they haven't.  All of the Star Wars expanded universe novels are written by established authors, and the publisher approaches the author. It might have been different before the deal with Del Ray, but with the New Jedi Order series, and pretty much every series afterward, the storyline has been a collaboration among several authors, or between a couple.  As for the story itself, I'm a little less sure about that, but I'm pretty certain those are also collaborations, and working with some Lucasfilm employees to keep the continuity correct.

As for the original question, it violates copyright if trying to publish without permission of the author.  The most recent case was the one with JK Rowling and the fansite trying to publish an unofficial book.  It was ruled copyright infringement.  I forget the exact type of book that the guy was trying to publish, but it was basically like an encyclopedia.  I think that anything written in a previously created world, either using or not using the characters already created, would be considered some kind of violation of copyright if the person doing the writing is trying to publish.  Unless the writer has permission.  Otherwise it just falls under the heading of fan fiction.  The one way around, I believe, is if the work itself is a parody, like Bored of the Rings.  And hopefully there's someone that'll actually understand what I wrote.

AverageGuy:

--- Quote from: Roaram on September 29, 2008, 08:48:10 PM --- you can write a story taking place in the same universe as another story as long as you have permission. I know your not writing a book in the dresden universe, but say you did, it was good, and you wanted to sell it, you could go to the dresden publisher, or butcher, whoever owns the rights basically, and see if they would publish it.

--- End quote ---
In this specific example, the Dresden universe would be JB's intellectual property.

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