Writing Stack Exchange
Writing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [legal]

General legal questions. There are also separate tags for "copyright" and "creative commons". Make sure to specify the relevant jurisdiction.

335 questions
38
votes
10 answers

How to prevent ebook piracy from stealing your livelihood?

I'm a part-time writer, still working on my novel (with a long term goal to make a living as a writer). My partner is also a writer, full time, with a couple dozen novels in ebook format, who makes a reasonable living solely from ebook sales. …
Zeiss Ikon
  • 5,302
  • 2
  • 15
  • 34
29
votes
7 answers

Using the real world in writing

To what extent can you use locations, businesses, etc. from the real world in fiction? I know someone cannot copyright a city, but what about a particular location in the city that's private. Can I talk about the Denver Convention Center and use the…
way0utwest
  • 1,285
  • 1
  • 11
  • 17
23
votes
6 answers

Can someone publish a story that happened to you?

Can someone take a story that happened to you, without your knowledge, and publish it? Using your name and specifics, and take the copyright for it? A person, whose mother lived in our small town, heard a story about our father. This person wrote a…
Juli Ridgway
  • 231
  • 2
  • 3
23
votes
2 answers

Are Names of Characters Copyrighted by Authors?

Are names of characters copyrighted by authors? For example, the character "Eragon" from the Inheritance Cycle series, or a name that you've generated using an online name generator that you'd like to use (Which, could be copyrighted if names of…
JFW
  • 3,435
  • 3
  • 30
  • 33
23
votes
9 answers

Do I need to register my work to retain copyright?

What are the legal issues when submitting work to publishers? is there a risk of having my work stolen? How can you protect yourself from this? Is there an international "law" for this or is it country-specific?
juan
  • 1,423
  • 3
  • 17
  • 22
22
votes
7 answers

How to tell readers your story is a re-imagination of a popular story?

If for example, I were to rewrite a story heavily inspired by Romeo and Juliet, but placed it in a complete different setting. Do you have to say it? Also, do you mention it in the title that's it's a reimagining, or would you put it in the preface.…
user36239
20
votes
4 answers

Do I have legal grounds against a book by an ex which depicts private details of my life, including some false events, without permission?

I recently found out an ex from 6 years ago recently published a book detailing all their past relationships leading up to their present wife. My friend read it and instantly knew when they were writing about me in it. Half of the book was dragging…
Jynnard
  • 201
  • 1
  • 5
18
votes
3 answers

Getting My Rights Back

Back in the late 90's I wrote a picture book which eventually was published in 2002 by a big name publishing house. The book was critically acclaimed, won an award, and went through a couple of printings, before finally going out of print around…
Chris Sunami
  • 56,510
  • 5
  • 87
  • 195
18
votes
8 answers

What's a good way to backup your writing?

One of the most important things for writers to do is to back up their work so that in the event of a computer failure, their work isn't lost. But where's a good place to do that? A lot of storage sites have little details in their TOS that gives…
Ralph Gallagher
  • 8,736
  • 5
  • 40
  • 61
16
votes
14 answers

Are wands in any sort of book going to be too much like Harry Potter?

I am trying to write a magical system, and I love the way that wands are like gunfire and how you flick and attack and it's instant. No weird hand movements or long unwieldy staffs or canes to use. But I'm stuck at the Harry Potter series, as I…
John155jd
  • 171
  • 1
  • 1
  • 3
15
votes
6 answers

Borrowing Characters

Would it be a violation of copyright and/or plagiarism to “borrow” a character from another novel? For example, I have a short story and want to include as a side character Ender (of Ender’s Game). I would preserve Ender’s name, family, personality,…
LN6595
  • 251
  • 2
  • 8
14
votes
2 answers

How can I know that I'm not plagiarizing?

New to the web. I just recently started to write again. I won a few highschool prizes writing short stories. Around the same time, I began to play Roleplaying games and to write different stories for different games. Lately, I have been thinking…
Tiklis
  • 251
  • 2
  • 8
13
votes
6 answers

Are music lyrics copyrighted?

I tried to find copyright information about music lyrics, but it is too confusing, because it is related to the usage. There are lots of websites providing lyrics, but it seems they are somehow illegal (though no complaint against them). Most of…
Googlebot
  • 850
  • 2
  • 9
  • 17
13
votes
3 answers

Is it legal to write about trademarked material and use the terms?

I am contemplating writing a technical book (and probably self-publishing it) on a proprietary programming interface for a well-known software package produced by a very large company. The company name and many of its packages are of course…
Chad Cooper
  • 231
  • 1
  • 5
12
votes
4 answers

Using a pen-name: possible legal issues

My question is about publishing under a pen-name. Does it have to be registered as a trademark? If it's not registered as a trademark, can someone sue a writer for using it? Because every name you pick is surely also someone else's name. (Every name…
Jackie
  • 121
  • 1
  • 3
1
2 3
…
22 23