Images and Copyright Resources for Storyworld Authors
This writeup addresses intellectual property issues and how they apply, both to your storyworld and to additional content you might use as part of your storyworld creation (such as images and text you import from other sources). It is organized into five sections:
The Big Picture: A summary of the issues.
Background: Detail on the different ways in which copyright might apply to your storyworld.
SWAT Copyrights Editor: How to use SWAT's Copyrights Editor.
Additional Resources: Informational links, and links to images for Actors, Stages and Props.
Obligatory Cautions: Yeah, this should all be obvious, but....
So, why does all this matter to you? Because the author of a storyworld and its publisher are both obligated under law to comply with all relevant and appropriate copyright laws. On receipt of a proper DMCA take-down notice, Storytron must remove from its website any material that violates US copyright provisions.
We don't want to have to take down your storyworld. We think it's really cool you want to create storyworlds, and we want to Storytron to be a community space where people can showcase and share their efforts. We need your assistance to make that happen. This page tells you how.
The Big Picture
There are three ways copyright may affect you.
(1) Original works. You own the copyright to your original storyworld. When you publish it on Storytron.com's website, Storytron will license the right to publish your work, charge players to experience it, and share the profits with you. You can choose whether to publish under a traditional or Creative Commons copyright.
(2) Derivative works. If your storyworld is based on a work that you do not hold the copyright to (say, if you decide to base a storyworld on a favorite book, movie, or game), one of the following conditions must be true:
Further detail follows.
Background
Original Works
Under US copyright law, you automatically own the copyright to a work of your own creation, upon creation of that work. "Original" means that the concepts, characters, and setting are all your own creation—not adapted from someone else's work. Use of concepts common in a genre is fair game (For instance, you can create an original work that is, say, a school-for-magicians storyworld, or a techno-knights-in-a- galaxy-spanning-empire storyworld, with your own take on the rules of magic, technology, characters and setting; but a Harry Potter or Star Wars storyworld would not be original works.)
Copyright laws apply to storyworlds, just as they do to other original creative works. In addition to traditional copyright laws, which were developed originally for paper, text based works, other more flexible options for copyrighting have come into existence in the era of electronic media.
Some of the most common options available to people publishing their works on the web include:
Works Based on Other Works (Derivative Works)
If you choose to create a storyworld based on another person's work (for instance, if you base your storyworld on a book, movie, comic, or computer game that you do not own the rights to), you must have permission from the copyright holder—either explicitly, or via the terms of the license they publish under. Likewise, if you use images or text that were created by someone else, you must have the copyright holder's permission to include their work in your storyworld. The nature of your legal obligations depends on the nature of their copyright.
Embedding Materials from Other Sources
If you so choose, you can add images for the Actors, Props, and Stages in your storyworld. The images go into the respective Editors, in the Background Information screen for each Actor, Prop, or Stage. This artwork will show up in Storyteller when your player plays your storyworld. You may also add text to your storyworld to provide background information about Actors, Stages, and Props. These can add richness and depth to your storyworld.
As with derivative works, copyrighted images and text cannot be used without permission from the copyright owner; it is illegal to use a copyrighted image (or copyrighted text) that you do not have permission to use. Fortunately, there are there are millions of images and other materials legally available for your use throughout the web, either public domain, or works published under Creative Commons or other less restrictive intellectual property regimes.
Below we include links to a wide variety of public domain and Creative Commons works. Public domain works may be used without restriction.
Creative Commons licenses come in a handful of flavors. Since Storytron is a for-profit entity that will publish your storyworld in exchange for payment, you must limit your use of others' works to those that permit commercial uses, or obtain the creator's explicit permission, if you plan to allow Storytron to publish your work.
Refer to the appropriate licenses, and the informational links on Creative Commons, for further information on how to adhere to Creative Commons requirements.
Fair Use
Copyright does not prohibit all uses or copying of a work without the creator's permission. US law permits a number of uses under its fair use provisions. A number of factors govern whether a use of a copyrighted work is considered fair use, including for instance: whether the derivative use is a parody; the proportionality of the derivative work (that is, is the copied portion only a small proportion of the whole original work?); and the effect of your use on the potential market for that copyrighted work. More information can be found in the links below.
SWAT Copyrights Editor
Copyright, whether the traditional form or one of the newer kinds such as Creative Commons, requires attribution. To make this process easier for authors, we have provided an HTML-friendly editing tool in SWAT.
You can list your copyrights and attributions there, including your own notice, as well as notices for embedded materials.
We recommend an HTML list or table with all relevant licenses and sources and includes the following headers:
Work and Type (name the item as it appears in your work). Examples:
http://storytron.com/play-bop2k.php
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Don_Quixote_5.jpg
www.fake-link.net/journal/Jaime_and_the_Holy_Grail/ (this is a made-up link, for
informational purposes)
Most word processors and spreadsheet programs allow you to save a file as HTML. Create a copyrights table with the headers shown above, and put the relevant information in it. Here is a sample table (Excel, Word, RTF, HTML), which you may fill out, if you prefer. When you are finished populating the table, save it as HTML, close it, then open it using a browser or text editor. You should see a file with HTML coding—brackets, and so forth. Copy this content and close the file. Now open your storyworld in SWAT and go to the Copyrights Editor. Paste your table into the editing window. These licenses and attributions will be accessible in the Storyteller menu when a player plays your storyworld.
Your storyworld will also have a copyright notice of your choice on the entry webpage for your storyworld. See BoP2k's display page for an example.
Additional Resources
Here are some good starting places for further detail on copyrights, Creative Commons, public domain, and related issues.
The US Government Copyright Office
Public Domain image index (a huge list of links!): CAUTION: not all images you will find in the links are public domain.
Creative Commons images:
Questions about copyrights for your storyworld can be posted in the Authors' Guild section of the Storyboard in this topic: Copyright Questions. You will need an Author's Account to post questions there. Our BBS administrator will provide you with an author's account on request. First sign up for a user account if you haven't already, and then post a reply in the topic Request Access to the Authors' Guild. Check back periodically; it typically takes about one to two business days to process account change requests.
Obligatory Cautions
This is a summary of copyright information as it applies in the US. Laws differ for works published in other countries. Also, this material was not written by a lawyer. It is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to be exhaustive or apply to every circumstance. It is not intended as legal advice, nor as a license or contract of any kind. Please make sure you fully understand your rights and obligations before using any content that is not your own.
Finally, the links provided above are independent sources of information and not managed by Storytron. We can accept no responsibility for their content.
The Big Picture: A summary of the issues.
Background: Detail on the different ways in which copyright might apply to your storyworld.
SWAT Copyrights Editor: How to use SWAT's Copyrights Editor.
Additional Resources: Informational links, and links to images for Actors, Stages and Props.
Obligatory Cautions: Yeah, this should all be obvious, but....
So, why does all this matter to you? Because the author of a storyworld and its publisher are both obligated under law to comply with all relevant and appropriate copyright laws. On receipt of a proper DMCA take-down notice, Storytron must remove from its website any material that violates US copyright provisions.
We don't want to have to take down your storyworld. We think it's really cool you want to create storyworlds, and we want to Storytron to be a community space where people can showcase and share their efforts. We need your assistance to make that happen. This page tells you how.
The Big Picture
There are three ways copyright may affect you.
(1) Original works. You own the copyright to your original storyworld. When you publish it on Storytron.com's website, Storytron will license the right to publish your work, charge players to experience it, and share the profits with you. You can choose whether to publish under a traditional or Creative Commons copyright.
(2) Derivative works. If your storyworld is based on a work that you do not hold the copyright to (say, if you decide to base a storyworld on a favorite book, movie, or game), one of the following conditions must be true:
- You have the explicit, written permission of the copyright holder to create a derivative work (traditional copyright).
- The copyright holder published the original work under "copyleft" provisions (e.g., Creative Commons, GNU), and your use conforms to their permissions.
- The original work is in the public domain (e.g., Huckleberry Finn).
- If the images or text are your original creations, you own the copyright to them, as in (1) above. Otherwise, you must conform to copyright requirements for each image or text portion you use, as described in (2), above.
- You will need to list a copyright notice/attribution in the Copyrights Editor for each embedded text or image (as well as for your storyworld, itself) in the Copyrights Editor.
Further detail follows.
Background
Original Works
Under US copyright law, you automatically own the copyright to a work of your own creation, upon creation of that work. "Original" means that the concepts, characters, and setting are all your own creation—not adapted from someone else's work. Use of concepts common in a genre is fair game (For instance, you can create an original work that is, say, a school-for-magicians storyworld, or a techno-knights-in-a- galaxy-spanning-empire storyworld, with your own take on the rules of magic, technology, characters and setting; but a Harry Potter or Star Wars storyworld would not be original works.)
Copyright laws apply to storyworlds, just as they do to other original creative works. In addition to traditional copyright laws, which were developed originally for paper, text based works, other more flexible options for copyrighting have come into existence in the era of electronic media.
Some of the most common options available to people publishing their works on the web include:
- Traditional Copyright: You retain all rights to your work under this option. In fact, anytime you create a work it is automatically copyrighted, regardless of whether you put a copyright notice on it. Others may not copy your work or adapt it without your explicit permission. You don't have to do anything special to obtain that copyright (though registering it with the US Copyright Office on publication can give you additional legal protection, in the event of a dispute. See links below). For more information on how copyright works, see the links below.
- Creative Commons Copyright
: Creative Commons is an a la carte version of copyright, in which you can opt to retain some of the rights to your work and release others.* Creative Commons provides the creator a series of choices regarding, for example, whether or not you are releasing the work for others' commercial or non-commercial use, whether others may use your work to create derivative works, and/or whether or not the person using it must "share-alike" by publishing their derivative work under a share-alike provision as well. For more information, see below.- Public Domain
: Public domain works are those either whose copyright has expired, or whose copyright holder has deliberately relinquished their rights and released the work into the public domain. There are no restrictions on its use. See the links below.
Works Based on Other Works (Derivative Works)
If you choose to create a storyworld based on another person's work (for instance, if you base your storyworld on a book, movie, comic, or computer game that you do not own the rights to), you must have permission from the copyright holder—either explicitly, or via the terms of the license they publish under. Likewise, if you use images or text that were created by someone else, you must have the copyright holder's permission to include their work in your storyworld. The nature of your legal obligations depends on the nature of their copyright.
- For source material published under a traditional copyright, you would need to obtain explicit written permission from the source work's creator, and comply with the terms specified under copyright law.
- For source material published under a Creative Commons (or other open-source/copyleft) style copyright, you would need to comply with the terms specified in the license for that work. Typically these terms are less restrictive than for traditional copyright.
- Public domain
works may be used without a need to obtain permission from anyone (it's good etiquette, though, to include an attribution or source for the work).
Embedding Materials from Other Sources
If you so choose, you can add images for the Actors, Props, and Stages in your storyworld. The images go into the respective Editors, in the Background Information screen for each Actor, Prop, or Stage. This artwork will show up in Storyteller when your player plays your storyworld. You may also add text to your storyworld to provide background information about Actors, Stages, and Props. These can add richness and depth to your storyworld.
As with derivative works, copyrighted images and text cannot be used without permission from the copyright owner; it is illegal to use a copyrighted image (or copyrighted text) that you do not have permission to use. Fortunately, there are there are millions of images and other materials legally available for your use throughout the web, either public domain, or works published under Creative Commons or other less restrictive intellectual property regimes.
Below we include links to a wide variety of public domain and Creative Commons works. Public domain works may be used without restriction.
Creative Commons licenses come in a handful of flavors. Since Storytron is a for-profit entity that will publish your storyworld in exchange for payment, you must limit your use of others' works to those that permit commercial uses, or obtain the creator's explicit permission, if you plan to allow Storytron to publish your work.
Refer to the appropriate licenses, and the informational links on Creative Commons, for further information on how to adhere to Creative Commons requirements.
Fair Use
Copyright does not prohibit all uses or copying of a work without the creator's permission. US law permits a number of uses under its fair use provisions. A number of factors govern whether a use of a copyrighted work is considered fair use, including for instance: whether the derivative use is a parody; the proportionality of the derivative work (that is, is the copied portion only a small proportion of the whole original work?); and the effect of your use on the potential market for that copyrighted work. More information can be found in the links below.
SWAT Copyrights Editor
Copyright, whether the traditional form or one of the newer kinds such as Creative Commons, requires attribution. To make this process easier for authors, we have provided an HTML-friendly editing tool in SWAT.
You can list your copyrights and attributions there, including your own notice, as well as notices for embedded materials.
We recommend an HTML list or table with all relevant licenses and sources and includes the following headers:
Work and Type (name the item as it appears in your work). Examples:
- Balance of Power 21st Century (a notice for the storyworld itself)
- Don Quixote - image (a notice for an Actor image)
- Holy Grail - background text (a notice for a Prop description)
- Copyright 2009 by Chris Crawford. All rights reserved. (This is a notice for a traditional copyright.)
- Image by Gustave Dore' 1863. Public domain illustration. (This is how you might cite a public domain image or text.)
- Licensed 2008 by Joel Smith under a Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. Some rights reserved. (a sample Creative Commons license.)
http://storytron.com/play-bop2k.php
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Don_Quixote_5.jpg
www.fake-link.net/journal/Jaime_and_the_Holy_Grail/ (this is a made-up link, for
informational purposes)
Most word processors and spreadsheet programs allow you to save a file as HTML. Create a copyrights table with the headers shown above, and put the relevant information in it. Here is a sample table (Excel, Word, RTF, HTML), which you may fill out, if you prefer. When you are finished populating the table, save it as HTML, close it, then open it using a browser or text editor. You should see a file with HTML coding—brackets, and so forth. Copy this content and close the file. Now open your storyworld in SWAT and go to the Copyrights Editor. Paste your table into the editing window. These licenses and attributions will be accessible in the Storyteller menu when a player plays your storyworld.
- Sample copyrights table (Excel)
- Sample copyrights table (Word)
- Sample copyrights table (RTF)
- Sample copyrights table (HTML)
Your storyworld will also have a copyright notice of your choice on the entry webpage for your storyworld. See BoP2k's display page for an example.
Additional Resources
Here are some good starting places for further detail on copyrights, Creative Commons, public domain, and related issues.
The US Government Copyright Office
- Main page: http://www.copyright.gov/
- FAQ: http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/
- Fair Use: http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html
- Online copyright registration: http://www.copyright.gov/register/
- Main page: http://creativecommons.org/
- Abbreviated FAQ page: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FFAQ
- Full FAQ page: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions
- Creative Commons copyright wizard: http://creativecommons.org/license/
- On copyright: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
- On fair use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
- On copyleft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
- On public domain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
Public Domain image index (a huge list of links!): CAUTION: not all images you will find in the links are public domain.
Creative Commons images:
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
- http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
- http://search.creativecommons.org/
Questions about copyrights for your storyworld can be posted in the Authors' Guild section of the Storyboard in this topic: Copyright Questions. You will need an Author's Account to post questions there. Our BBS administrator will provide you with an author's account on request. First sign up for a user account if you haven't already, and then post a reply in the topic Request Access to the Authors' Guild. Check back periodically; it typically takes about one to two business days to process account change requests.
Obligatory Cautions
This is a summary of copyright information as it applies in the US. Laws differ for works published in other countries. Also, this material was not written by a lawyer. It is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to be exhaustive or apply to every circumstance. It is not intended as legal advice, nor as a license or contract of any kind. Please make sure you fully understand your rights and obligations before using any content that is not your own.
Finally, the links provided above are independent sources of information and not managed by Storytron. We can accept no responsibility for their content.
Snips, Tips, and Tricks
