[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Fantasy nations in contrib/nations

[Daniel Markstedt <himasaram@xxxxxxxx>]

On 2005-10-22, at 10.13, Peter Schaefer wrote:
> This,
> http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/bparchive? 
> year=2001&post=2001-01-18$3
> states that the copyright on Tolkien LoTR expires in 2051 (thanks to
> the Disney copyright term extension act)
>
> I don't quite understand why a set of names is worthy protection, but
> apparently character names may be protected:
>
> http://www.whoosh.org/issue25/lee1.html#2
>
> AFAICS from there, it is safe to use character and city names that no
> one remembers, but the prominent ones are off-limits.
Nation names Hobbits and Mordor are definitely risky then. Hobbits can  
conveniently be renamed Halflings, but what about Mordor? "Orcs",  
perhaps.
As for leaders; Sauron, Aragorn and Elrond are prominent figures in  
Jackson's films and should probably be removed. Players can still enter  
those names by themselves if the wish.
Risky city names I could think of: Rivendell, Barad-Dûr, Moria,  
Isengard. There might be more.
Daniel