Sennadar Forums

Fel, they giving you a cut of the sales? Looks to be more then just inspired by your work. They did not even change characters names.

https://smile.amazon.com/Between-Worlds ... Y84HGBAX7W

Earl

I think we discussed this before - there are a lot of similarities in the first chapter - there after it does diverge. But if they didn't change the names all the way through - any number of the names of Fel's non-human characters aren't normal names found in the English language - so may be he has a copy right claim on the book... Depends on how flattered or the lack there of he feels.

This is the same story that was on royalroad, just the 1st book. And also there is this when you open the amazon link: "Inspired by the likes of James Galloway's Subjugation and John Scalzi's Old Man's War"

There is no lawsuit or copyright claim legally possible. I havent read it and dont plan on reading it but it sounds like despite the similarities, the author did write the story himself and still created his own story. I believe the reason big companies like Disney can sue if u create a story based on a Disney character is because they actually copyrighted the characters as well as the story. Companies like marvel own characters like The Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Spiderman, exc..... so you can't even have them in the story without getting sued. With Subjugation, all Fel actually owns so far as I know, is the story. In order to be liable, you would almost have to copy/paste the Subjugation series, change the names, and pass it off as your work. I'm not a lawyer but it would have be obvious that its copied, not just inspired, in order to have a legal case.
None of this is to condone the story if it's so similar to Subjugation. That's why I won't read it, aside from the fact that it sounds like a low quality porn novel from what I've heard.

There's a difference between copyright and trademark.

Copyright deals with "creative works" such as books, movies, music, artwork, etc.
Trademarks deal with specific names and imagery in a far more focused manner than copyright.

The first printing of Dungeons & Dragons included Hobbits and Ents...shortly afterward that got changed to halflings and treants, as the Tolkien Estate had established a trademark on various of the terms invented by Professor Tolkien and aggressively defends said trademarks.
Just like TSR had trademarked Dungeon Master, and as a result the rest of the field ended up using Game Master, as the folks who came up with Game Master decided not to attempt to limit it to only their own publications while TSR did.

At least that's my recollection of things; I'm now 60, and these all came to pass while I was still in High School.

Derivative works is an interesting aspect of intellectual property law, or at least that's my understanding; there are certain criteria which have to be met concerning what aspects of a given work are central enough that inclusion of them in an unauthorized work would trigger a successful cease and desist request.

Yes I confused copyright with trademark. Still, I think what I said is still accurate aside from that, but I'm no lawyer.

Heh,

Lawyers who specialize in Intellectual Property law and are worth their salt get paid a ton of salt, as it were.
No matter how cut and dried it appears, someone is gonna try to quibble, to game the system.

That applies to both those seeking to sidestep others' IP rights, and those attempting to increase the scope of the IP rights they already possess; Disney is an excellent example of both; copyright extension acts + denial of contractual royalties due in the aftermath of the purchase of LucasFilms Star Wars franchise (Look up what's going on with Alan Dean Foster these days...)

I've really wandered afar from the initial topic of this thread, haven't I?
Sorry!