Copyright Questions

[ecastanedo]

I live in California...

I am in the process of creating a website based around a certain movies that I enjoy. It's going to be a fan site that is based on two concepts.

1) the content based on the movies
2) based on dungeons and dragons style roleplaying

So there are two things here. I want to make sure that I am not infringing on any copyright laws for the above two items. My intentions are not to make money off of the website. It will be entirely fan based content.

Is a disclaimer really enough as some people have told me? Basically the disclaimer would say something like "this site is not endorsed by or affiliated with ..." etc....

 

[divgradcurl]

I live in California...

I am in the process of creating a website based around a certain movies that I enjoy. It's going to be a fan site that is based on two concepts.

1) the content based on the movies
2) based on dungeons and dragons style roleplaying

So there are two things here. I want to make sure that I am not infringing on any copyright laws for the above two items. My intentions are not to make money off of the website. It will be entirely fan based content.

Is a disclaimer really enough as some people have told me? Basically the disclaimer would say something like "this site is not endorsed by or affiliated with ..." etc....

First off, the problem won't be copyrights, most likely it'll be trademark, or a combination of the two.

If you are infringing on someone's trademark or copyright, a disclaimer really won't do you a bit of good. Think about it -- if you could avoid any liability just by putting up a disclaimer, then everyone would do just that, and IP owners would just be out of luck.

Your descriptions above are really too vague to determine whether you would have a real problem or not. I know Wizards of the Coast, who own the D&D franchise now, have pretty liberal licenses -- they pretty much allow people to do whatever they want with their rules, I believe, as long as you are not making money -- you should be able to get more info from their website.

As far as the movies are concerned, well, movie studios are generally more vigilant about protecting their rights. If you can't make up your own characters and situations, your next best bet is to talk with the studios themselves, and see if they'll give you permission to do what you want. If you don't get permission, you are asking for a lawsuit...

 

[ecastanedo]

Thanks for the response.

Well, I guess I am not as concerned about the roleplaying aspect of it as I am the movie theme itself. The site will basically be an online game which is based on the the game rules for Dungeons and Dragons. Many people play this all the time offline, so to speak. My concern was whether putting the gaming model online, to allow people to play in a virtual environment, instead of face to face would be an issue. I guess I can write to Wizards of the Coast.

As far as the movie them goes, I can't really get into the details in a public forum, but I can say that the movies are very popular and the company has a very tight grip on their trademark, so I am hoping that this will not be a problem. I don't want to leave it all up to hope though. I have written to them a couple of times, and I have yet to receive an answer. The users of the site would be allowed to create their own characters though. They would not be able to play any characters from the movie or anything like that.

I guess I have my work cut out for me if I really want to do this (which I do, by the way )

Thanks Again....