To clarify, copyrights last something like 90 years after publication (or author''s death...?) and with the passage of the Soni Bonno Copyright Extension Act, they can be extended for another five years, every five years (thus they now never end).

You can thank Micky Mouse (TM) and Disney (TM) for that.

In any case, I can guarantee that Tolkien made up some of his names and the character classes (Ranger, Hobbit) and I''m actually pretty sure he coined the term Ork, but I could be mistaken. -- nope, some quick research proved that one wrong.. it''s old english... turns out most of the ''races'' in fantasy are OE or similar (including kobold!) so you can probably feel free to use those.

quote:Original post by PointSoft

Also, you will probably want to get as much of your ideas down on confidential papers as soon as possible. You cannot protect your ideas, but you can however protect something of tangable nature. (aka, anything you could turn into a copyright office for copyright protection, such as the papers with your UNIQUE concept on them. Of course there is a fee for this.) T

or you could go the cheap route. this is what I always do:

produce some hardcopies of your work. printouts/pictures/CDs, anything'll do. go down to your local post office, get them to seal it (which basically means get them to put a few stamps along the sealed flip), and then mail it to yourself as registered mail (hope that's the right term). put it in a bank deposit box when you get it back, and you'll be pretty safe.

quote:
Oh and that name thing has some loops too. Like if the name portrays a tangable object, then it could and probably is copyrighted/trademarked.

also remember that intellectual property, copyright and trademark are three different things.

any intellectual work you ever produce is your intellectual property. noone can take it away, noone can buy it from you, and it's your IP even if you never did write it down, although that would make it a bit hard to prove, of course. with a few exceptions, like a computer program is normally your employers IP (if you made it on their time, of course).

copyright is essentially the right to reproduce, and _can_ be bought/transferred.

a trademark is an identifer. it could be a name like "Macintosh", it could be a slogan like "the third place", it could be a silly logo like that wawy coca cola line, and it could probably be a whole bunch of other stuff. AFAIK it can not be anything abstract, like an idea or a concept or a story.


finally, in response to rojo: according to Norwegian law -- and that would probably mean it's the same for most of Europe, at least -- copyright expiration is extremely confusing, but 70 years from the death of the copyright holder seems to be the default.


Edited by - Fremmed on July 18, 2001 4:38:28 AM