posted
So recently, I've been thinking my WIP novel needs a REAL title. My only problems are that I'm already having a hard enough time thinking something up, but everything I come up with is already in use in some other fashion. My question mostly pertains to the latter proble; does it even matter?
Say, for example, If I want to call my book xxxx, but there's a song name or video game or company or anything with the same name, am I not allowed to use it. Should I use it even if I can or should I go for something more original? I'm just not sure and really want a title so I have something more to call it.
posted
I wouldn't recommend it if it's something really well known...but if it's, say, a quote or a song-title, it'd be acceptable even if it's been recently used. (In the last three years, I've seen four different books titled "Here, There, and Everywhere." (Only two had some direct connection with the Beatles.))
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posted
Titles aren't covered by copyright, so you could call it "Time Enough for Love" or "Diamonds are Forever".
Of course, if you did, some people might feel annoyed if they bought your book on Amazon and found it wasn't by Heinlein or Fleming. I'm a firm believer in original titles despite the acknowleded difficulties of dreaming them up.
Elements of titles can be protected from unauthorized use by Trademark law. For example, 007 and much of the Star Wars and Star Trek stuff is so covered. (In fact, as soon as movies or TV get hold of it, they seem to trademark everything, clearly so they can grab the merchandising revenues.)
Also, "For Dummies" is a registered trademark, so if you called it "Time Enough For Dummies" or "Diamonds are For Dummies" you'd find yourself receiving polite letters from the trademark owners, IDG Publishing.
posted
Okay, awesome. I've looked around and there aren't any BOOKS with the same title, just a video game designing company or a song name. Nothing even in the same area. And also, as long as there are no other books with that title then its an original title, yes?
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posted
If the title wasn't found in an online search, the chances are good that it's an original title. Research is valuable in more ways than one, eh?
I've regularly checked any available source for title duplication. Before the Internet's dawn, R.R. Bowker's Books in Print was my go-to source, and library catalogs.
One of the early benefits I got from appreciating Mr. Card's MICE concept was how titles reflect a story's primary orientation. I've found that many titles, if not all, say right up front whether a story's emphasis is milieu, idea, character, or event oriented.
Frank Herbert's Dune; milieu. C.J. Cherryh's Cuckoo's Egg; idea. Keith Laumer's Retief Unbound; character. Anne McCaffrey's Red Star Rising; event.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited March 02, 2009).]
posted
I used to like to pick up a book, stick my finger on a page at random, and write that down as a possible title. I used maybe one in a hundred, but it got me some interesting stuff, and also generated some ideas as well.
I don't know of any other books titled "Dune" or "Retief Unbound," but I know a couple titled "Cuckoo's Egg," or some variant, and as for "Red Star Rising," the history of the Communist Party produced a lot of things with that title over the years (I'd assume it was McCaffrey's little joke).
I can't recall actually buying a book and finding out it was something else with the identical title. If you picked up a book titled "Retief Unbound," you should know at a glance whether, say, it's SF about Laumer's diplomat or a sports book about the golfer with the same name.
posted
A stray afterthought: Titles are important...you guys must know I rarely participate in the Fragments and Feedback portion of the fora, but I'll sometimes look at an entry---if the title catches my eye. Today I took a look at an entry titled "How I Got My Wings," which intrigued me. (Couldn't think of anything else to say, but I did look at it.)
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posted
I think it can become an issue of trademark though, if I'm not mistaken. So if I publish a story called "Harry Potter 7, Rowling Ruins the Franchise" I can expect legal trouble of some kind.
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posted
Zero, you can't copyright a title, but you can copyright the character's names. Since Harry Potter is the MC's name, you couldn't write a fictional story based on this character. But if you wanted to write a non-fiction book about the 7th Potter book, this would be an acceptable title. I also don't think it would be a libel or defamation issue considering Rowlings is a public figure - US only, not sure how European law sees this.
I once jested that I would write a book called The Hobbit. However, this falls within copyright boundaries. Since Hobbits are named after a fictional town "Hobbiton", the name of the race was copyrighted. Therefore you can't call a character "a Hobbit". D&D got past this by using the word "halfling" in their games, as have many fantasy novels.
One other thing: Though the words "Star Wars" could not be copyrighted as a title, Lucas did a slick trick. He formed the letters "STAR WARS" in such a way that they formed a logo. Therefore any official Star Wars product has that combined "ST","A","RS","W","A","RS". Other books/movies/shows have done the same.
posted
Yes. I believe J. K. Rowling won her court case over the guy that wanted to publish a Harry Potter encyclopedia. That referenced, obviously, the names and world she had created. That's hers. No one else can use it without her permission.
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posted
Yeah, I remember that case. I believe he was the official president of the Harry Potter Association or something like that. He had been recognized by Rowling in some official capacity, nevertheless. He had been working on the encylcopedia for several years and then Rowling rolled him. She decided she could make a couple of bucks by writing her own encyclopedia.
This still falls under the realm of fictional material, because it would be an encyclopedia that only references a fictional world.
He could write a book about his experience of being rolled by Rowling, but there is an area I failed to mention regarding libel and defamation, which involves reasonable believability. This is what got Larry Flynt off (no pun intended) regarding the Jerry Falwell lawsuit. If there is reasonable believability and could be proven untrue, then there could be libel problems. If non-fiction is presented as critique or satire, it falls under free speech laws.
Edited to correct name of Larry Flynt.
[This message has been edited by philocinemas (edited March 03, 2009).]
posted
Does she really need a couple of bucks? I mean at what point do you just say to yourself "you're plenty rich, what's the point of more money?"
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posted
He was Mr Vander Ark, and had originally pubished the Harry Potter Lexicon in not-for-profit form on the internet. The trouble started when he tried to publish it in for-profit book form.
To put it simply, JKR felt that he added too little original material, and tried to make money by copying too much of her work without permission. (You can copy some under the "fair use" provision of copyright law, for example in critical reviews of a work.) The final settlement was a small amount of money. JKR said it was about enforcing the principles of copyright, not just for herself, but all of us.
quote: During the trial, Rowling said on the stand, "I never ever once wanted to stop Mr. Vander Ark from doing his own guide, never ever. Do your book, but, please, change it so it does not take as much of my work."
...
On 8 September 2008, Judge Patterson decided the case in Rowling's favor, claiming that "because the Lexicon appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide, a permanent injunction must issue to prevent the possible proliferation of works that do the same and thus deplete the incentive for original authors to create new works."
...
In a statement released to the media, Rowling responded favorably to the verdict: "I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favorably. I went to court to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The court has upheld that right. The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own. Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not one of them."
posted
I remember reading a couple of articles that were somewhat scathing of Rowling in relation to this case. I'll try to look them up, but if memory serves me correct, Rowling was aware that the encyclopedia was being written for a while - more than a year. She then decided to write her own encyclopedia and began pursuing legal actions just before he published it.
I agree that this was her right as the author, but the way it was done appeared to be pernicious.
posted
There were many articles that were scathing.
As the Wikipedia piece says, she was quite happy with the encyclopedia online for as long as it was not-for-profit. She objected when he decided to try to make money from his copying of her work. She claimed in court that his encyclopedia would compete with her own, and reduce the revenues from it which she planned to donate to charity.
It wasn't at all pernicious. He knew that what he was doing could violate copyright and made the point in court that he had requested permission from Rowling and from the movie publishers to use their work on the website. They had agreed, but for not-for-profit purposes. The website carried advertizing to cover the costs of the site itself, but not for profit.
Vander Ark knew copyright law, knew that publishing for profit was problematic. I cannot see, in the reports I've read, that JKR was either legally or morally wrong; her position was clear at all times, and in line with the principle and ethic that an author owns her work.
As for the money, no, she doesn't need it, but she said it wasn't about the money, and the court settlement reflected that with the small amounts it awarded. Besides, why should being rich reduce one's rights? If she had not fought it, there would now be thousands of illegal copies of her work on the market, making money for plagiarists.
I think the moral of this story is that to put large amounts of work into a piece that violates someone else's copyright is a fool's errand if, at the end of the day, one wants to earn money from it.
[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited March 04, 2009).]
posted
One doesn't have to make money to violate the copyright. Rowling decided that the guy's work was ok as long as it didn't interfere with her ability to make money. That's the bottomline.
Stephen King came to an agreement with the guy that did a lot of work on the Dark Tower mythology. Rowling could have done the same, but chose not to. That's her right as the author of the characters, but it's still kind of icky.
posted
"One doesn't have to make money to violate the copyright. Rowling decided that the guy's work was ok as long as it didn't interfere with her ability to make money. "
In some sense that's true, because she was planning to donate the proceeds of her own encyclopedia to charity. If she doesn't write it, (her plans to do so seem to have been abandoned because of the energy she spent fighting the court case) the Lexicon will have deprived charities of that revenue. (And let's not forget she donates time and money to charities anyhow; this would have been more.)
Quite why one party should be regarded as being unable to come to an agreement which, by definition, requires both parties to agree bemuses me, especially when the party of the first part is the originator of the work, and the party of the second part copied large chunks of it.
It's not clear to me how one can decide whether one party or the other is more at fault unless one was party to the negotiations between the parties.
Agreements are hard to forge with people who are insincere, and how's this for a demonstration of insincerity (assuming it's all true): [from the Guardian article]
quote:
What is clear is that Vander Ark had previously asked CLLA if he could collaborate with Rowling on a Potter encyclopedia, and been turned down, and had also suggested to third parties, via email, that he thought publishing the Lexicon without Rowling's permission would be an infringement of her copyright. For Rowling and Warner Bros, this is a virtual admission of guilt. "Not so," says Vander Ark. "I'm not the defendant in this case and I'm not a legal expert. I'd never taken any legal advice over the encyclopedia, so what I might have thought was uninformed and irrelevant."
He got it right in his e-mails, and the Court agreed. (For me, finding ways to reinterpret the law based, not upon its intent but some arcane way of reinterpreting the words of the law, is insincerity. I believe the principle of interpreting law in a manner consistent with its intent is stronger in UK law than US, but I'm not sure. In the UK, clarifications of "intent" are built up through case law.)
An agreement of sorts was agreed, by the party of the second part if not the first, by publishing a version "stripped of the material a US judge objected to in order to make it publishable". http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/03/potter_lexicon/
In other words, the version that was eventually published by the party of the second part respected the copyright owned by the party of the first part, as upheld by the Judge.
According to the publisher, it includes "extensive new commentary, which does not appear on Vander Ark's Harry Potter Lexicon website".
posted
TS, I do not have very strong emotions regarding Ms. Rowling either way. I'm sorry if my comments offended you.
I think she has done an excellent job in making one of the most appealing characters within one of the most imaginative fantasy worlds ever. Her stories (personal and fictional) are very inspiring.
However, I looked up the Wikipedia article you mentioned, and it would appear that she had very positive things to say about the project as early as 2004 and that it had been accruing revenue even before then. As of Oct, 2007 it had made 3,000 pounds - (interjecting a facetious "Wow!"). It wasn't until he wanted to put the information in book form that she had a problem with it.
To me, that doesn't ring of someone defending copyright laws for all writers, but instead someone who is defending their own purse. This was every bit her right to do, but it appeared to me that Mr. Vander Ark felt he had her blessing. That's why I used the word "pernicious".
Possibly, their mutual failings were in being too trusting of each other. She in thinking it was an innocent fan website; he in that she appeared to be approving of his work. I also suspect Warner Brothers had quite a deal of influence in it.
He eventually was able to have a shorter version of his book approved and published with no harm and no foul (just a lot of grief).
posted
I simply don't like seeing people discussed here in negative terms, or being accused of insincerity, when they aren't here to defend themselves, and the evidence does not unequivocally support what's being said.
posted
Trying to divert back to topic, I think wikipedia can be helpful when considering title questions (not that I like to rely on wikipedia). There is a reason wikipedia has a "disambiguation" link.
I searched some titles that were already discussed in this topic. While there weren't any other books entitle Dune, there are three albums and a band who share the name. Certainly some titles are more common than others, ("Stand by Me" turns up over a dozen different songs, movies, etc.), and some titles are more unique (I doubt you will find The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul resued as a title for anything but productions related to Douglas Adams' Novel, wikipedia doesn't even offer to a disambiguation).
Titles that do not include proper names (or copyrighted names)are free to be repeated, and often are. I wouldn't worry so much about what your title is or whether it has ever been used before. I always feel that the most important thing about the title is that it fits your story like a well tailored suit. Of course "fit" is a term that may also need to be disambiguated.
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