Re: Sued by Cthulhu


31 Jan 95 12:08:14 GMT

In article <3g65c8$2hn@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, zbir@ucs.indiana.edu (zachery joseph bir) writes:
> Graham,
>
> I am glad you feel this way. I, too, am working on a game in
> progress. Slowly, but surely. But I have come across a certain snag.
>
> How does everyone feel about using a pre-established background for
> stories? The game I am working on is heavily influenced by Lovecraft,
> and I want to center the story in and around Arkham. Now, I have
> communicated with Chaosium (producers of the RPG Call of Cthulhu), and
> they heavily frown on it, but I believe, from past communication with
> Arkham House (current publishers of Lovecraft's works), the _ideas_,
> including place names, entity names, etc. are not Copyrighted, and so
> long as no plagarism takes place, I would be free to write an I-F game
> based on Lovecraft's works. It is this snag, you see, that really
> prevents me from fervently undertaking this. Could I come up against
> legal problems if I were to continue with the game? Chaosium does hold
> certain trademarks, one I believe is 'Cthulhu', so what could happen if
> I were to try?
>
Now, I'm not an expert on this, and you really do need to ask one, I
think (try the net-law newsgroups). If they've got a trademark on Cthulhu
then you probably can't use that name in any kind of title, but that might
be all. As for the rest, the issue is probably how long H. P. Lovecraft
has been dead (or, as I'm sure his fans fervently hope, undead). I
wouldn't be surprised if he's still in copyright a few years yet, since he
was publishing around the 1920s (I think).

I suspect you're all right, especially if you've got some kind of authorisation
from the publishers of the books, but I'd be extremely careful about titles
and advertising. (Remember, though, Chaosium have no particular interest
in generously interpreting the law, so ask someone other than them.)

Then, too, you could just steal the genre and change the proper nouns.
In places, "The Lurking Horror" is quite Lovecraftian...

Lovecraftsmanlike?

Graham Nelson