The General Warnings and Disclaimers Guide thread.

This thread is to help people with the Warnings and Disclaimers they want to put on their fics to both avoid drama AND not drive away readers.

I have this at the very beggining of my first fic.

"I don’t own One Piece. One Piece is a creation of Eichiiro Oda and published by Shueisha. This, by the by, is an AU Fanfic set 5 years after the timeskip. Its not an excuse to keep characters out of character but it does my job of telling the story easier without having to worry into fitting canon. With this in mind: Lets Begin."

I do not use disclaimers myself unless the website the fic is hosted on explicitly demands one, seeing as there's no point to it.

But don't take that as discouragement for posting your own.

edited 31st Jul '17 2:46:48 PM by amitakartok

I hate disclaimers. They've gotten so pervasive that they sometimes slip into original fictional material. Usually something along the lines of "This is a work of fiction. Any similarities of situations or characters to actual events or people is coincidental." It's so stupid.

OMG YES! That's sooooo stupid. I hate that. I hope mine isnt like that.

Not just stupid, pointless too. People seem to have the impression that disclaimers provide legal protection against copyright infringement lawsuits. They don't. Quite the opposite, actually: it's an admission that you are infringing and do so in full knowledge of your actions, ergo if they sue you, you cannot use "I didn't know it was illegal" as a defense in court because your admission of guilt is right there.

Even if you explicitly and publicly state that the IP is not yours, even if you get no money from using it and publicly state that too, you are still using the IP without the rightsholder's permission and consequently they can still nail your ass to the wall in court regardless of whether you have a disclaimer or not.

edited 1st Aug '17 12:23:11 AM by amitakartok

I was warned not to gush over people here too much but that post was beautiful.

Only if you are basically just stealing the character. If you're actually putting your own spin on the character, making your own content, etc., it no longer works that way.

It has to fall under parody/satire rules. Most fan fics do. Often times, "bad fanfics" can actually be the ones the least in danger because they're following the law better.

Ones that try to adhere strictly to canon and change nothing can be in more trouble for not making it their own thing enough.

This is also why they can't just say for the fact you happen to be having their character in a fan work alone. There has to be context. Things like, say, a Pokemon hack can be sued for because you're modifying the content of a game you do not own. That actually is against the law overall. Even if it's not for profit at all.

Disclaimers aren't actually stupid. They're just a reminder that you're basically not the owner and is having fun by modifying the world and characters to entertain others. This has never been illegal. If you were to copy and paste a game script, you could get in trouble for that unless you legitimately are having it on a website as basically a "game guide" of sorts. This type of stuff is fair use, because it's solely information. You're not modifying it, you're just pasting the exact words. This is fine too. There's a reason they can't sue Wikipedia simply for listing stuff. It's not a work copying them. It's a guide of sorts. That's always been fair use. Do note that images don't necessarily fall under fair use, as that can vary more.

It's not a black and white thing. Likewise, I've put disclaimers on my fanworks out of respect for the other companies. They deserve it for their hard work. I also only make fanworks that are significantly unique from the final product. Related, yes, this means I probably won't be able to do much with my Pokemon Hack(which is fair, considering the nature of the item being worked with).

Fair use isn't all-powerful. I mean, I once recorded some gameplay footage for Earth 2150 and the Youtube video of it got flagged with a copyright claim. I contested it on the grounds that it's the game's official soundtrack that tripped things so they should be taking it up to the game's publisher, but Youtube threatened me with a copyright strike if I don't drop the matter and accept the claim as valid.

So yeah, I say you'd rather not rely on fair use, innocent-until-proven-guilty behavior from IP rightsholders when it comes to fan material of any kind.

That's not an example of Fair Use. Youtube is correct in that regard.

Gameplay is not one either. You need to not "just play the game". You have to add commentary/your own pieces to it. It has to actually have something from you alone. That can include commentary, silly little parody things like a "death counter" or "how many times they swear counter". Think of it like this; you actually bought the right to play through the game. You can't do anything that would treat it like you own the game, that includes putting up straight gameplay. The second you have commentary, you also include stuff not found in the original work. This does matter a lot, because basically, much like if somebody put up all the cutscenes, some might not bother to buy a game if they see everything already. The purpose of your commentary shifts it towards you as the player, and less the game, meaning people are entertained by what you do, not the game alone. Give them a reason to experience it for themselves. That does matter to businesses. Likewise, Let's Play are more murky than fan fiction due to various issues that comes up. Like whether they have a good ratio of unique content(that isn't strictly from the game itself).

Let me rephrase a little; The fair use and parody laws, simply put, only apply if you have enough of your own content to consider it a "unique" product. This is a big reason why cutscenes get taken down. That's just the game's content not yours.

It did have commentary.

My point is, don't assume you have any kind of protection just because the letter of the law says so. If the rightsholder wants to sue you, they will. If they want to make you stop, they will make you stop because as rightsholder, they have far more cash for lawyers to bury someone under litigation than you ever will.

The fanfiction writing scene depends completely on the rightsholders not caring. With disclaimers, you are practically flaunting the fact that you're using their property without their permission, which is a bit counterintuitive to staying under the radar.

edited 1st Aug '17 4:15:22 AM by amitakartok

Which doesn't even really happen because it's a waste of money anyway. Courts don't take fan fiction seriously at all. A lot of "suing" is thrown out for being a complete waste of their time.

They shut down games and lp's only because it can hurt their sales potentially. This is also the one courts specifically take seriously. Youtube is a bit different because they want to keep in business, so oblige in a blind manner to what they say. They don't bother to fight or confirm the company knows what they're talking about. They just do it. That's a problem with Youtube's actions towards it, not really the company(there's many cases they have a point, but sometimes they're too quick to judge and don't do the research). Considering Youtube doesn't make money, they literally cannot afford a court issue or to even prove them wrong. Which is stupid, because it's at best being bullied into doing whatever a company wants without thought of their own.

Nintendo is literally the only one to care that much about their "image" and couldn't even win battles either because it was considered a laughable reason and taking it way too far. They only could even legitimately win taking direct modifications of their games by outright changing the rules of buying the system itself, namely that you aren't allowed the modify the system's content beyond what is normally available, which is how they got rid of the Action Replay. No other company has that issue. But that's because they're a lot smarter than that.

I stand by disclaimers being healthy and not anywhere near an issue that you keep touting it as.

Ummmmm....this turned kinda sour. I dont know which side I'm on though.