Question about copyright laws reguarding Jordan's Wheel of Time

[gunnison]

I first picked up a copy of book one in this series back in Jr. High School. Only the first 6 of the series was out back then, and after I finished the 6th one the 7th did not come out for about 5 months after.

 

Basically, my point is I was a huge fan of the Wheel of time back then. A few days ago I decided to re-read the first 6 again and read the entire series. And yet again I find myself being a huge fan of Jordan's stories.

 

I have 2 hobbies that I devote a decent amount of time to. Reading and video games. The last 2 years I have played mainly World of Warcraft. While playing WoW I noticed a trend that has me asking a few questions.

 

I constantly see other players naming themselves after well known characters from fantasy genre novels. Legolas, Aragorn, Perrin etc. I personally do not do this because experienced players detest this and it can affect ones chances at seeing endgame content within the game due to all the popularity contests going on in order to get into a good guild.

 

Is it against any laws, for players in a game to name themselves after any characters in the wheel of time series? Copyright laws?

 

If it is, who is to blame? The players themselves or Blizzard entertainment for failing to not make those names available in create character menu?

[Tyrell]

Of course it isn't.

[Jagen Sedai]

Don't know if this would be considered off topic, but I recently found out that the drow race (and I'm guessing the term "drow" itself) is not copyrighted by the D&D people. Who would have thought?

 

I've been wondering about copyright stuff lately not with the Wheel of Time but with a game long off the market. I am still a huge fan of the Lands of Lore games, which was a trilogy before EA bought Westwood Studios and decided to cancel it. Oh, and they won't sell the title to someone else so they can actually bring the series back to life. I found out all this because I wrote to the man who wrote the games, inquiring about actually turning the games into books and expanding on the world. Well, he said there were certain things I can and cannot do, but I'm not going to bother specifying them here.

 

Anyway, any one can name anything what they want for RPing purposes. Now, if you try to publish something using the name Drizzt Do'Urden, or even Drizzt, well that's probably going to cause some controversy, so say the least.

[Guest The Thin Inn Keeper]

Don't know if this would be considered off topic, but I recently found out that the drow race (and I'm guessing the term "drow" itself) is not copyrighted by the D&D people. Who would have thought?

It's because "drow" is in fact an old Pictish/Gaelic word for troll, or other mythical beastie.

 

You can't copyright nouns.

[Shard]

I had no problem naming myself Kelemvor and playing WoW. I guess it all depends some of the guilds care and some not. For role playing purposes you can name yourself after any character you want to.

[metria31183]

Just because someone plays WoW doesn't mean they read fantasy.  I play and in my guild, there is a guy who has three toons in the guild.  They are named Ashaman, Lewtherin, and Moridon (sic).  I'm the only in the guild that actually picked up on the reference and there are about 15 to 20 of us that are on regularly at the same time.

 

I've come across plenty of people that have named their toon after characters in books I have read.  I will usually shoot them a whisper saying something along the lines of "Nice to see another fan of [insert appropriate series/author here]."  Lots of times they are suprised that I got the reference.

 

It also depends on the player.  If you show that you know how to play your class and aren't an asshole to everybody, I don't think most people really care what you name your toon.  Maybe on a heavy RP server it might.

[Casco]

I did try to name myself some of the "famous" names in the WoT series when i did play WoW, but the most of them wasnt allowed. It finaly ended up with "Naríshma" on one of my alts (a human death knight of course). I saw a couple of other players with WoT names... "Mooiaraine" and stuff.

 

It was oretty fun.

[metria31183]

I did try to name myself some of the "famous" names in the WoT series when i did play WoW, but the most of them wasnt allowed. It finaly ended up with "Naríshma" on one of my alts (a human death knight of course). I saw a couple of other players with WoT names... "Mooiaraine" and stuff.

 

It was oretty fun.

 

I have a few alts with some semi-obscure WoT times.  I have a druid named Javindhra, a death knight named Beldeine, and a paladin named Cairhigan.

[Darth_Andrea]

Actually I think using these names which are copyrighted is some form of violation. I know City of Hero's and Everquest are very strict about making users who use a copyrighted name to change it.

 

 

 

Darth_Andrea       

[Tyrell]

TBH I'm not sure you can copyright a name, it's just a name. If you couldn't use a name once it'd been in a book then there wouldn't be any names left.

[ChildofLight]

A use of this kind would technically be an infringement on copyrighted work under the Copyright Act, however if sued on the matter the user could claim protection under the statutory defense of fair use in 17 USC 107.  This gives a court leeway to consider factors such as (1) the nature of the infringing use (2) the nature of the copyrighted work (3) the amount and substantiality of the use and (4) the effect on the market for the copyrighted work.  Copyright does not give completely exclusive control over property, copyrighted material can still be used by parties not privy to the protection so long as their infringing use falls under the mantle of this provision.

 

For the first factor, this kind of use would be fairly transformative because the computer game character named as, say "Perrin" would not actually be in a completely different medium.  The use would probably not be commercial unless the role playing gamer was somehow turning a profit, but even then the Jordan estate is unlikely to be effected by this because they do not sell licenses to use the name in this fashion anyways

 

Under the second factor, the character is fictitious and so this would weigh strongly against allowance of infringing use.

 

Under the 3rd we're really talking about a very small taking of a massive work.  Even though naming your character in WoW "Rand" would take the major character of the WoT, it is still only one character and its not like you have copied his whole back story, you've only taken the name.  And as Shakespeare says, what is in a name?

 

Under the 4th I cannot see any loss of revenue to the Jordan estate by naming a video game character the same as a character from WoT.  If anything the Jordan estate would benefit by gaining further publicity for its material at no additional fee.

 

So while technically it would be a copyright infringement, there is no way that statutory damages would apply because a fair use analysis clearly favors the infringing user.

 

 

...I think.  I'm not a copyright lawyer though so I wouldn't take this post to court or anything.

[Hallow]

I was sure the only single elements in the book that was copyrighted was The dragon reborn, Wheel of Time and the big snake/wheel thingy. Could be wrong tho-

[CUBAREY]

 

 

Im a lawyer but not an expert on copywrite law however I would generally agree with what ChildofLight had to say. One proviso is that the use of WOT characters especially if the persons using the names are seen by the gaming community as having a negative impact might come under scrutiny in the future as there are plans to publish games based on WOT and any negative feelings that the gaming community associates with a WOT character might have a detrimental monetary impact. A second concern would be if your use of a WOT character name was connected with the generation of any monetary gains. In that case it likely would be considered to infringe on the Jordon estates' copyright outside of the "fair use"  safe harbor protection.

[Shard]

The name Rohan isn't copyrighted at all as it is a name used in Indian Culture. So just because Tolkien had a country with that name in his books didn't mean that Melaine Rawn couldn't use it for a character in HER books.

 

Now if I said Bilbo Baggins that might be a different story.

[ChildofLight]

 

 

[/i][/b]

 

Im a lawyer but not an expert on copywrite law however I would generally agree with what ChildofLight had to say. One proviso is that the use of WOT characters especially if the persons using the names are seen by the gaming community as having a negative impact might come under scrutiny in the future as there are plans to publish games based on WOT and any negative feelings that the gaming community associates with a WOT character might have a detrimental monetary impact. A second concern would be if your use of a WOT character name was connected with the generation of any monetary gains. In that case it likely would be considered to infringe on the Jordon estates' copyright outside of the "fair use"  safe harbor protection.

 

 

Yeah, I thought about that, but just from what he was describing I'm not sure the second concern you're talking about would really come up.  That is a good point about creating negative feelings though, especially since he OP mentioned that "veteran" gamers generally have bad feelings about users that have these screen names, I didn't even think about that.

 

I'm not actually a lawyer at all, I'm just a 1L.  Oddly enough, the assignment I've had to work on for our writing class had to do with fair use under the copyright act.  In fact, I have to give my oral argument on it in about 2 hours so I guess I should get back to practicing that instead of dithering here.

[Bela]

I was sure the only single elements in the book that was copyrighted was The dragon reborn, Wheel of Time and the big snake/wheel thingy. Could be wrong tho-

 

Those are trademarked. Much different than a copyright.

 

As for the names it would not be copyright infringement unless you infringed the fair use doctrine. No author holds rights to a name, but they do to the character. As someone said above, if you made a character named Perrin Aybara on World of Warcraft, then proceeding to dress him in WoT clothing, make him have a wolf companion at his side, and role-play that he can talk to wolves and that Masema, The Prophet of the Lord Dragon, Hallowed be his name, then you may be pushing it. The only reason anyone would go after you at this point would be because they are just plain mean and in the end they would probably lose any case thrown against you. If you did however, act like an asshole, wipe people in raids (pretty much team-killing for those who don't play WoW) and make the general population of your server and other servers hate you and /or your name you would/could be effecting commercial value of such a piece of work associated with that character.

 

Copyright is very lax. I am no lawyer, but I have been a freelance web and graphic designer for over 7 years now and I know what is acceptable and what crosses the line in copyrights. International and web copyrights have become even more lax than they once were. A person would be charged under their own countries copyright laws but when you go onto the internet and transcend the boundaries of the physical world it becomes a lot more complicated than the standard United States Copyright Act.

 

 

[CUBAREY]

A person would be charged under their own countries copyright laws but when you go onto the internet and transcend the boundaries of the physical world it becomes a lot more complicated than the standard United States Copyright Act.

 

Except that if you are from the US, Canada or the UK where the copyright laws are not only very similar but similarly applied you could expect a letter from Harriet's lawyers if you werereally trashing a WOT character.

[Ashaman Kovan]

I think it would only be against the law if you were using the name and gaining some kind of material or monetary reward from doing so. Which I don't see happening.

[Bela]

That's why copyright laws are so vague. Someone cannot claim rights to a name like Elayne. They can claim rights to Elayne as a character if the resemblance is similar. Or if someone used the names Elayne Al'Thor, Perrin Cauthon, Suroth Aybara as characters in their books. But if an author wanted to but kind of an RJ cameo in their book by creating a secondary character by the name of those formerly used or one completely different the case would probably be thrown out, if the author filing the claim was stupid and jerky enough to get angry about that in the first place.

[gunnison]

Just because someone plays WoW doesn't mean they read fantasy.  I play and in my guild, there is a guy who has three toons in the guild.  They are named Ashaman, Lewtherin, and Moridon (sic).  I'm the only in the guild that actually picked up on the reference and there are about 15 to 20 of us that are on regularly at the same time.

 

I've come across plenty of people that have named their toon after characters in books I have read.  I will usually shoot them a whisper saying something along the lines of "Nice to see another fan of [insert appropriate series/author here]."  Lots of times they are suprised that I got the reference.

 

It also depends on the player.  If you show that you know how to play your class and aren't an asshole to everybody, I don't think most people really care what you name your toon.  Maybe on a heavy RP server it might.

On my server it is heavily detested. I seen a female human mage named moiraine and watched her get camped for 6 hours by a bunch of horde. Having 2 accounts myself, I was able to log on horde side ( even though it was a pvp server ) and asked them why they were camping her. Their reply? " we hate emo's that name themselves from fantasy books "

 

I laughed and immediatly logged. No use talking to a-holes. But Dragonmaw is not the only server that way. Illidan, Ysondre, Alexstrasza, and most people on all the servers I have played on save for 1 ( emerald dream, rp-pvp server of course ) are the same way.

[CUBAREY]

I think it would only be against the law if you were using the name and gaining some kind of material or monetary reward from doing so. Which I don't see happening.

 

If you do something that depreciates the value of the copyright it would also be actionable. So you cannot write a series of really bad WOT books and release them into the internet. Since there are plans to base games on WOT naming characters after Wot characters that piss off the gaming community could also lead to litigation (or at least a threat of it--how many people are going to risk the expense of being sued just to keep a nasty character alive in a MMPG).

[metria31183]

On my server it is heavily detested. I seen a female human mage named moiraine and watched her get camped for 6 hours by a bunch of horde. Having 2 accounts myself, I was able to log on horde side ( even though it was a pvp server ) and asked them why they were camping her. Their reply? " we hate emo's that name themselves from fantasy books "

 

I laughed and immediatly logged. No use talking to a-holes. But Dragonmaw is not the only server that way. Illidan, Ysondre, Alexstrasza, and most people on all the servers I have played on save for 1 ( emerald dream, rp-pvp server of course ) are the same way.

 

See I'm on Blackwater Raiders which is technically an rp server (but not pvp), but there is really very little RP at least on the alliance side.  But I also tend to stay out of trade chat since it's mostly a sink of infantile ramblings by idiots and even when I'm questing I keep to myself.  Guess it all just depends on the server.

[Shard]

I agree on Runetotem I used several fantasy character names and no one cared. Though they weren't all that big of names to start with.

[animegirl]

yikes from what you have said above, I can see my WoT videos being removed from youtube at some point.

 

I have not portrayed the characters in the best light on a couple of spoofs.

 

Egwene swears

Nyneave slaps Elayne

Lan cremates Moiraine

Nyneave tries to hock Moiraines ring

Mat has a creepy laugh

Tam is overweight

Rand has a dodgey hairstyle

 

No money being made though, they were something fun to do and I think WoT fans like them.

[CUBAREY]

yikes from what you have said above, I can see my WoT videos being removed from youtube at some point.

 

I have not portrayed the characters in the best light on a couple of spoofs.

 

Egwene swears

Nyneave slaps Elayne

Lan cremates Moiraine

Nyneave tries to hock Moiraines ring

Mat has a creepy laugh

Tam is overweight

Rand has a dodgey hairstyle

 

No money being made though, they were something fun to do and I think WoT fans like them.

 

As long as it was mild and funny it would likely fall under the "fair use" doctrine. However if they are very offensive and you have a lot of them out and continue to publish them at some point you might get a letter from Harriet's lawyer (or the lawyer of those who have bought the rights to produce movies or viedeo games).