Jani McCutheon - Copyright protection for fictional literary characters

Copyright protection for fictional literary characters - Jani McCutcheon, Lecturer at the University of Western Australia Law School, critically explores how Australian copyright law governs the competing interests of authors seeking to control how others use their fictional literary characteres, and writers who wish to re-visit those characters in their new works.

“In her Pulitzer prize-winning novel, March, Australian author Geraldine Brooks ‘appropriates’ the father from Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, Little Women and imagines his story in her new fictional setting. If Little Women were still protected by copyright, could - and should - Alcott or her heirs control Brooks’ use of her character under Australian law?”

“Shakespeare has been re-written and Shakespeare himself re-wrote earlier classic tales. The advent of the Internet has fueld character recycling and reinvention, spawning hundreds of thousands of works of self-published “fan fiction”, most of which is based on characters in popular television shows or movies such as Star Trek and Star Wars, but also popular novels such as the Harry Potter series.”

December 2006 edition of Intellectual Property Forum


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