Ownership of quotations of our own works, published elsewhere

This part of the whole rights thing is a little ambiguous.

Basically it is suggested that TV Tropes retains ownership of any material posted to the wiki, and it is advised against posting anything we wish to gain publication credit for in the future.

The question is, if one has already published a work elsewhere and happens to selectively quote it on a works page they make about it (to illustrate how a trope fits into the narrative, say), how does that affect the original author's right to claim ownership of the larger work in its entirity? What about licensing of the larger work?

(Basically this is what I've done with my work-in-progress story The Genesis Of Jenny Everywhere and I'm a little worried about how this will affect my ability to assert moral rights over the story, or if I should bother to finish and publish it at any point in the future (fat chance of that but anyway...))

Quotes and similar minor excerpts from larger works count as Fair Use. As long as we cite the source, there should be no IP issues.

Plagiarism is only an issue if you try to take credit for things you quote from other people.

edited 21st Feb '15 7:26:08 AM by Fighteer

Am I assuming Fair Use is invoked on the part of TV Tropes in this case, rather than the author posting examples of their own work?

Yes. For purposes of who owns what, it doesn't matter who the author of the material is: if it's posted on TV Tropes, then it should comply with our rules. A user posting their own original material on the wiki outside the bounds of Fair Use should contact the staff for permission.

Any suggestions as to the limitations of Fair Use? Does the example I gave qualify?

What you are referencing is a wiki article about a work, not the work itself. At least, I'm assuming that the contents of that article are discussing something that exists elsewhere. If not, it counts as using TV Tropes for your own original writing, which is something we don't allow.

The quotes on that page are fine. Fair Use covers short extracts to illustrate a point, basically.

Yeah, sorry; forgot to add a link to the original for comparison.

It can be found on my blog here.

I should mention that your disclaimer about citations regarding use of the PDC is irrelevant on our article. You should link to the blog where the work is kept and any legalese should be there, not here.

OK, I'll remove it then.