What if I make my WoW(World of Warcraft) Character the protagonist of a story inside of WoW?

[krislalev]

I've been wondering about this for a long while. And not just about WoW in particular but other games as well.

How legal and acceptible would that be?
Copyright wise is there a gray area or an acceptable area where you are allowed to use the content of someone to create your own in this way?
If it is acceptable, then is it acceptable to eventually earn income from it?

For example if I tried to use any of the lore characters in the story I create will that be considered copyright?(Like a cameo appearance or a temporary storyline appearance)
And if i dont, but still use the same universe, and just use my main character(created character) along with other characters, maybe use some npcs as well, then is it again copyright?

I really am a curious person and a very unaware one too. But I want to really know the delicate details of this media industry.

[nostalgicroxas]

It's considering "fanfic with original protagonist". Lots of people do it - star wars fans, sonic fans, and FNAF fans and so on. The basic idea is not yours for copyright purposes. The story you have made and the characters that are yours, are 100% yours and can be copyrighted to you. However to legally make money without being shot in the foot by the company later, you cannot make money off of fanfics.

MatPat talks a little bit about this in his video in regards to future FNAF games that will be given money by the creator of the franchise, but he will not control them. They are creating fan content of things and ideas within the confines of his world. If he, at any point decides to "no longer give them his blessing" - something akin to what Disney does - then the creators will be sent at the bare minimum Cease and Decist letters - and at the most, will be sued and fined for something along the lines of copyright infringement and forced to fork over all of the profit made off the content.

TLDR: did you write WoW's story, lore and own copyright to it - its ideas - and it's lore? No? It's copyright infringement and falls within the legal bounds of fanfic / fanart and is considered illegal to make money off of it.

I mentioned this in another thread recently but if you are seen making a damaging threat to the Creation's bottomline, they can sue you for "royalities" and "profit" that you have gained off of selling their product. Like Pokemon hitting people for making better plushies than their own - they at the minimum put out C&D's everywhere.

[krislalev]

Ouch! But the bottom line would be not to temper with making money out of someone else's original content.

[nostalgicroxas]

Bottom line is : it is not your world, it is your characters within the confines of it. You cannot make money off of it. It is, in FBI terms of showing movies at gatherings "for private personal use only". The minute you start charging 1 penny for someone to sit in and watch Moana, you owe that penny to Disney.

( Of note the only way around this legally is with a license, which is how radio operates. They buy a license to play certain songs of The Beatles. Which is why you don't often hear less popular tracks like Yellow Submarine - it's not in the radio's license to play it. )

[krislalev]

Yes! I understand now! Great example with the radio. Thank you for this clear and well written answer @nostalgicroxas!

[nostalgicroxas]

Oh and before I forget, because it's fan characters within someone else's world, that company may do shady things with your characters if they gain enough attention and popularity. An example from the Digimon Adventure fandom is that apparently through rumor mill one of the new characters introduced in Tri along with her monster are ripped straight out of the fandom without the written or verbal consent of the creator of this character and monster. But because it's within the "digimon world", well... legal gray area and tiny little fans cannot legally fight that.

The biggest question you face is not just legality (of which you have almost none), but also how much does WoW shit on it's fanbase? The Pokemon Co and Disney are famous for hitting the hammer and C&D's everywhere. Same for the company that did Voltron. So you can probably skate by making nickles and dimes off your WoW fanwork for decades without any issue, assuming WoW doesn't care and it doesn't become super popular that they see it as a financial threat.

You best bet is to do like the author of 50 shades of Grey and rip out the vampires and names - well you get my point - from Twilight that it's a fanfic of, re-skin it as "your own" within your own world and confines. Something that just looks kind of akin to WoW. Then it's 100% yours.

If your curious on it, copyright is a very interesting topic since it also does not hold up across countries. And not all countries are created, shall we say.... equal in their respect to the law (US law) and how it stands.
Candy Crush has constantly been trying to win legal battles with games that are similar to it either in name or design. https://kotaku.com/why-the-ridiculous-candy-crush-vs-banner-saga-conflict-1507064357

King's game cloning lawsuit against 6waves to proceed in US court | MCV/DEVELOP

To which, candy crush cannot file copyright or trademark on how a game functions. It's why turn based combat happens to be called "ATB" but is not a copyrighted item by say SquareSoft/Square-Enix. It's a mechanic.

[krislalev]

Can't express how thankful I am for all this info. I am copy/pasting this for reference because i want to eventually know it by instinct. I am already working on an original webtoon but its on its begining stages. That's why I thought I'd ask. But I am a man of ever extending growth. Fanfic can only grow so much and if it does grow large eventually it becomes a problem. Original work however is another story. I will do my best to create a coherent and good original webtoon!

[Darth_Biomech]

Bottom line is fanfics as a whole are technically illegal under the law (Yes, any OCs probably as well), and if the company will decide to go after you, there will be no barriers to protect you. No, "fair use" does not cover derivatives. so you can do it on your own risk, and for the majority of the sane people it isn't wrong or unacceptable (But there's always lawyers that can't comprehend morality or compassion). But I wouldn't try to cash in on that directly (instead maybe Patreon, where technically people aren't paying you for your comics, they're donating you money without buying anything), since it is doubly illegal.

If you want to cash in on your fanfic, just give WoW setting some "Chinese bootleg toy" treatment to avoid copyright issues, I'd guess. I heard that what Seth MacFarlane did with The Orville because he was refused to make a Star Trek show.

Or better yet, create your own setting.

[krislalev]

Yes my own original one! Thats the best way i believe!

[therosesword]

I strongly advise that you find yourself a copyright attorney.

All the answers you're getting here are great but you've had threads asking these questions and as spot on and wonderful as they are I think you really need to avail yourself of an attorneys answers to make sure there is no confusion.

You also need to realize that copyright laws vary from country to country. China is now contemplating jail time for plagiarists (within the country of course) and other countries are too, if they don't already go that route.

[therosesword]

Spot on.

Also when people think they're small and no one will notice there are companies that have bots just looking for their work out there.

When I worked for the audio drama company we had several people who combed the web looking for infringements. We never sued, just sent cease and desist letters. But still, we were a small company with offices above the owner's garage, but he had a huge fan base (also many of our actors were game voices as was he) so we had a lot of fans that were rabid little dogs in ferreting out people trying to infringe.

Best to create your own stuff.

[krislalev]

Yeah seems that's the best case!