When a story/game/etc. has a character named Zagreus with the title “Prince of the Underworld”, and Melinoë with the title “Princess of the Underworld”, is this story a derivative of the Hades I & II games? Note that both Zagreus and Melinoë aren’t original creations of these games. They are from mythology & folklore, but they barely appear in ancient documents (Zagreus is basically just a name in ancient myths, and Melinoe only appears in a few Orphic Hymns)
From what I’ve learned from dub con hetero Omegaverse fiction, filling off the serial numbers is only really important if you’re selling the product. Even then, you can use a lot from the character archetype as long as you aren’t pulling from the setting.
After all, 50 Shades of Gray started as a Twilight fanfic.
What?
You’re right, I meant to say “from”, not “Freon”. Good catch, thanks!
I meant the 50 Shades from Twilight. Lol. I’m not in the Twilight demographic so I’d heard of 50 Shades years before I heard of Twilight. I had no idea there was a connection.
Yeah. 50 Shades was based on the writer’s fanfic of Twilight. When the author decided to publish the books as something for sale, she had to rip out everything relating to Twilight IP.
With this particular example, Hades is a derivative of actual Greek myth. If another game happened to have the same characters and themes, I would not assume they ripped off Hades unless it also had similar gameplay. God of War has some of the same mythical characters from Greek and Norse myth as TitanQuest and the Marvel comics; niether is derivative of anything but the ancient myths they were inspired by.
You can use the art for the Magic: the Gathering set Lord of the Rings as an example of what you can and can’t do. Hasbro got the rights for the books, not the movies in making the set. That meant all the art for the various characters couldn’t reference or even look like the movie characters.
Because they had to rely on the books only and couldn’t rely on the movies at all, the art on the Magic cards made Aragorn black to be more in line with the books.
How many places/things are named Pandora, or Hyperion? A lot of names are just commonly used.
When the trailer for a new god game came out, I thought it was sly that they called it something about Albion, which is the setting of the Fable games. The game is being made by the creators of Fable, but they don’t own the Fable IP anymore. (The new Fable game is being made without them.) Turns out Albion is just an old name for England. I had no idea!
Some names are just common.
Another example, Ka is a term known to Stephen King’s Constant Readers (fans) as a force that is something like karma (what it likely comes from), but if you read the Hierarchy books by James Islington, Ka is a villain in the second book. I thought King’s camp (kingdom? heh. I’m so clever) would say something, but it’s probably a common name.
Just depends on where the original author/creator got it from and if they wanna push it.
Also, ask Christopher Paolini, author of Eragon. He lifted a bunch of stuff from other fantasy books. A few readers shook their fists but nothing really happened.
They are from mythology & folklore
There’s your answer, no? Are you asking if Hades can copyright claim characters that are 1000s of years old?
I never understood how anyone could prevent use of things like myths. Like other places did various fairy tale movies and cartoons but rarely did as well as disney ones did.
Specific reinterpretations or takes on myths or stories in the public domain can be subject to copyright. Like you can sell your own drawings of Hades or old drawings from the public domain, but not drawings of the Disney version of Hades. Even Disney can’t claim Hades as a whole, just their Hades.
which is fine if theres is not to generic. makes sense why their characters often are very stylized.
As with every legal question, it depends on the country you’re in. And in those kinds of cases maybe, how good a lawyer you can afford can be more important than the actual law. You can be completely right and still be bankrupted by legal costs if you plan to go up against rich companies and/or people.
