Question about copyrighting fan writing

can you copyright your own fan story so that no one can take from your story's situations and plot, for their own "original" work?

Like copyrighting it with the library of congress....

 

No. Because if that was the case than the author for the Eragon series would be sued up the yin yang by George Lucas for stealing the storyline and characters for Star Wars.

Besides any attempt to copyright anything Star Wars for yourself is asking for a lawsuit. If you use the universe, regardless of plot, you need Lucasfilms permission to publish and copyright. Now if you took that plot and put it in an original world with different names like the Eragon author did, than you can copyright it all you want.


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All creations that have been fixed in their form are copyrighted. So, if someone writes down a story in their notebook and you steal the notebook, you are violating their copyright. However, legal recourse is usually only available when the copyright is registered. So, the original writer can't do anything. Except sue over intellectual property.
Only if that person's story was fanfiction, they are taking intellectual property too, because they are using George Lucas, etc. stories.
You can't copyright a Star Wars fanfic if you didn't create Star Wars and Lucasfilm has not commissioned you.

 

You can only copyright your own original work. But if you've written fanfiction where you have borrowed plot and situations from another work (like Star Wars) you cannot copyright that.

If someone has copied your work and put their name on it, that is plagerism. While not illegal, it's highly frowned upon by readers. I'm pretty sure it's a TOS violation here, or at least a ban-able offense.

 

Indeed. Plagiarism is not tolerated here. If you think something of yours has been plagiarized on tf.n's fanfic boards, talk to one of our mods.

 

Thanks for all your replies. I will be sharing some of my Star Wars fan fictions soon! I wrote one, a long one, not long ago that I was writing as a screenplay for a Star Wars Fan movie. But I may never get a chance to make it.

And another one too.

I'm a screenwriting major at the university I attend, and would like to share my love for Star Wars and writing too on these boards. It's hard enough to come up with original work these days. But to come up with your own Star Wars story is something else.

If so, I can post my stories on this board, right?

Thanks again.

 

Not in the Resource board. Go to the Fanfiction, Before, Saga and Beyond forum and post your story there. Make sure it is in the proper category. Saga is for the movie timeline, Before is anything before the movies and Beyond is where stories taking place after the movies are posted.

I have a couple tips. Don't post your story in one huge chunk or many small chunks all in one day. It overwhelms the readers. Post a chapter and then wait a couple days and then post another chapter. For some reason when I post my story it takes all the paragraph breaks out. If that happens to you just edit your post because readers don't like a giant wall of words (meaning no paragraph breaks). In the title area you should not only have your title but it is nice to put the major characters. So if it is an alternate universe Luke and Mara story you would write: [title of the story] AU L/M.

Just look at the other fanfics for examples.

Good luck with your story.

 

THANKS!

This might sound a bit weird. But what if the story I wrote is set on Earth.

Where does that fall into?

All I can say is that it takes place after the events of Revenge of the Sith... but then... swoooosh! Earth.

 

I am pretty sure it will be in Saga since it takes place after ROTS. I don't think it matters if events take place on Earth as long as they are SW characters on Earth doing SW things.

I think we have Star Wars and Non-Star Wars categories of fanfiction only. I know other sites have things broken down further into crossovers (Example Star Wars/Superman). But I don't think that is the case here. Check the FAQ thread at the top of the Fanfiction Resourse Forum for answers or PM a moderator if you are not sure.

 

Awesome. Thanks again, I can't wait to post some of these stories up.

 

Jedi_Lover is correct. If you have a Star Wars story that takes place on Earth but is set after ROTS, it would be a Saga story.

No, we don't have specific categories other than Star Wars(in the SW fanfic section) but if it's a crossover I would recommend putting "X-over" or "crossover" in the title along with the fandom that it's a crossover with.