What fade said. A concept cannot be copyrighted -- you can have all the hawt vampire city-lords you want, even if they're boinking the local vampire hunter necrohottie, and unless you name them something way too close to Jean-Claude and Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton probably won't bother trying to sue you. (Though she could, rightly, send your publisher nasty notes saying you're a hack.)
But fanfic, using the actual names-for-concepts and probably characters? If you don't have permission, that's copyright violation. (Whether it's morally right for the US law to be worded that way? That's an entirely different discussion. You'll note that I, myself, have written fanfic for fandoms where I'm not aware of any blanket, explicit permission to write it. On the other hand, I do try to avoid writing in any fandoms where I know the author has explicitly asked that there not be fanfic.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 09:27 pm (UTC)But fanfic, using the actual names-for-concepts and probably characters? If you don't have permission, that's copyright violation. (Whether it's morally right for the US law to be worded that way? That's an entirely different discussion. You'll note that I, myself, have written fanfic for fandoms where I'm not aware of any blanket, explicit permission to write it. On the other hand, I do try to avoid writing in any fandoms where I know the author has explicitly asked that there not be fanfic.)