[Freeciv] Re: it's like a screenplay

["Per I. Mathisen" <Per.Inge.Mathisen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 20 Jul 2000, Arkadiusz Danilecki wrote:
> If i understand you correctly, then if i with my friends make a
> screenplay based on Hamlet, just for fun, not for money, only for friends,
> we are infringing copyrights? Iiick. Lawyers should be shot.

Hamlet is a bad example, since the copyright on Shakespeare's works have
long since expired and they are now in the public domain, but the question
is good.

If writer A writes a screenplay and calls it Dumblet, then writer B cannot
write the same screenplay again, call it Humblet and publish it without
much legal ado. However, legal practice permits quite a lot of copying of
ideas between works of art before ruling that they are essentially _the
same_, which is necessary for ruling it a copyright violation.

IANAL.

Yours,
Per