PirateMorg
Acolyte
There are so many wonderful fantasy things out there that I adore the thought of, but I'm concerned with some of it being copyrighted. Example: I love the show Grimm and find it inspiring with some of the creatures, and while I know Grimm's tales are not copyrighted to the show - I'm fairly certain wesen are. But digging further into that, they describe it as "the beasts inside of us". Would it be a copycat or a trope if I wanted to write something about "beasts inside of us" and didn't call it wesen?
Or...Tolkien made his elves tall and thin, and while he wasn't the only/first one to do that, he was one of the most influential people to give us modern day "elves", despite their appearances in folklore. But, as far as I understand it, the tall, thin beautiful elves that "speak to the trees" are now a trope - or seem to be.
A trope I can handle, as there are a multitude of ways to twist it around and make it a little different. Copyright is what worries me.
At what point does something leave the "intellectual property" category and fall into the "trope" category?
Or...Tolkien made his elves tall and thin, and while he wasn't the only/first one to do that, he was one of the most influential people to give us modern day "elves", despite their appearances in folklore. But, as far as I understand it, the tall, thin beautiful elves that "speak to the trees" are now a trope - or seem to be.
A trope I can handle, as there are a multitude of ways to twist it around and make it a little different. Copyright is what worries me.
At what point does something leave the "intellectual property" category and fall into the "trope" category?