Copyright Law |
Does anyone know where legal information regarding using derivatives of other company's Intellectual Property for use in a non-profit mod could be found? Say, if I wanted to do a Star Wars mod and shipset for SE:V (I'm assuming MM won't take issues on their side), would I need permission from the owners of the IPs of the Star Wars franchise?
Re: Copyright Law
A copyright holder has the exclusive right to control distribution of their work, and derivatives of it, in any form. It does not matter if your derivative is for profit or not, from a legal standpoint. A copyright holder can certainly grant you license to use their work in a non-commercial derivation, but you have no inherent legal protection just because you give it away for free. Some copyright holders are far more hostile towards mods based on their IP than others. Some operate on a don't ask, don't tell policy, ignoring anything that is small-scale and flies under the radar.
Trademarks are a whole other back of armageddon worms... A trademark owner has to prevent anyone else from using it, especially if there is risk of it becoming a "common" term, not exclusive to their own works.
Thus, we have the birth of licensing systems like Creative Commons and similar. I wouldn't expect to ever see any major corporate IP set up with such systems, though.
Re: Copyright Law
Not unless you plan on SELLING it.