How close to, or how far from, copyright violation is the movie &quot;Gattaca&quot;? In 1942 a novel appeared: Beyond This Horizon by Robert Heinlein. The setting is a future time when it has become standard that people's genes are chosen from among their parents' genes by doctors, who try to pick the best among those available, but are forbidden to add any new genes not present in the parents. Those whose genes are chosen the old-fashioned way are looked down upon as inferior people. In 1997 the movie Gattaca appeared. The setting is a future time when it has become standard that people's genes are chosen from among their parents' genes by doctors, who try to pick the best among those available, but are forbidden to add any new genes not present in the parents. Those whose genes are chosen the old-fashioned way are looked down upon as inferior people. In 1953 the novel Starman Jones, also by Robert Heinlein, appeared. The protagonist falsifies his identity and work record to get a position in the crew of a spacecraft. The protagonist has memorized a book on navigation in space. In Gattaca, The protagonist falsifies his identity and work record to get a position in the crew of a spacecraft. The protagonist has memorized a book on navigation in space. But the story in Gattaca is quite different from those in either of the two Heinlein novels. In Gattaca, the spacecraft is on a bold mission of exploration; in Starman Jones it is a luxury liner that makes routine voyages carrying passengers and freight. In Gattaca the protagonist is one of those whose genes were chosen the old-fashioned way; in Beyond This Horizon he is is one whom the government wants to have many children to continue their eugenics program because he is considered of superior stock. He wishes not to have children because he thinks most humans are naturally unhappy and he would only be sentencing his descendants to unhappy lives. And some of his coevals are so unhappy despite their affluent lifestyle that they want to overthrow the fairly liberal government and replace it with a dictatorship. Heinlein is not acknowledged in the movie credits. How much do they need to lift from already published fiction before it becomes a derivative work with obligations to the owner of the copyright on the earlier work?
Under U.S. law (17 U.S. Code § 101 ) A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work.” But probably, focusing on this definition doesn't get to the heart of the question you seem to be asking. A more important matter becomes what protections does a copyright exclude? This is covered in § 102 (b), which says: In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. The similarities you describe seem to be more ideas and concepts rather than Heinlein's expression of those ideas. I have looked no closer than the description used in the question, but the movie seems unlikely to have violated a protected right. Others might disagree.
Arguably not (or, the example terms are not restricted by copyright, but not for the reasons given, which means this protection may not extend past the examples given in all cases). The protection for &quot;stock characters&quot; comes from the &quot;Scènes à faire&quot; doctrine, which protects elements that are elementary and near-required to be part of a genre. For example, a fairy tale is &quot;obligated&quot; to start with &quot;Once upon a time&quot; and end with &quot;And they lived happily ever after&quot;. Character classes, by virtue of being character classes, do not qualify under this doctrine to me, simply by virtue of being &quot;character classes&quot;. What matters are: a) the terms used for the classes are generic b) there is prior art to any claimed copyright, with uses of such terms in fantasy fiction stretching back at least hundreds of years and predating, for example, modern English. Note that the above is not universal to all character classes. For example, if you had classes whose names that directly related to various other copyrighted works IP (e.g. &quot;Jedi Councilor&quot;, &quot;Yogo Wardmaster&quot;, &quot;Grey Warden&quot;, &quot;Aes Sedai&quot;, &quot;Asha'man&quot; &quot;Eversor Assassin&quot;), those could still be infringing copyright.
Probably Not The creator or owner of a piece of software does not in general have any copyright over the output when others run the software, unless that output is itself a derivative work of input supplied by the copyright owner, or forming part of the software. In this case the translation is a derivative work of the 19th century original, but that is assumed to be in the public domain. SAo google has no copyright on the resulting translation. But copyright protection is only available for &quot;original works of authorship&quot;. (See 17 USC 102 in the US, and similar laws elsewhere.) A machine-produced translation is not an original work, and it is surely not then work of the author of the overall book. However, the author would still have a copyright on the book as a whole. The legal situation is no different than if the author had simply quoted a 19th century work. One may incorporate public domain works into a later work, and that later work is still protected by copyright, provided that there is enough original contentr to make the work as a whole &quot;an original work of authorship&quot;. Others may use the PD [arts, or the original from which they are taken, but not the rest of the work (beyond what fair use would allow in any case). For example, I have made a number of posts here on LAW.SE. In several,of those I quoted sections from one of the numbers of The Federalist. That 19th century work is in the public domain. Anyone else may re-quote the passages I quoted from it. But that gives them no rights to use the rest of my work, except as the CC-BY-SA license or fair use permits. So the author would retain copyright on the book as a whole. But soemoen who merely quotes or uses the translated 19th century article but none of the original parts of the book would not be infringing that copyright. I say probably in the header, because I do not have any actual case-law to cite here. It is possible that some court has rules otherwise on the subject of the copyright on the output of a software tool, but I strongly doubt it.
In general this kind of brief literary reference is not unlawful, and such things occur in both novels and commercial games with some frequency. Making such a reference a major part of the plot, such as by using a name from a previous work as a major character, particularly if other aspects of that character are also used, is far more likely to cause a problem. In the united-states this would be a matter of fair use. In general, when only a very small part of the source work is used, such a a single name; where the use is &quot;transformative&quot;, that is used for a rather different purpose than in the source work; where the use does not harm the market for the original work; and where the use does not serve as a replacement for the original, it is likely to be held to be fair use. But fair use decisions are always fact-dependent, and are made case-by-case, so it is hard to be absolutely sure of one in advance. But the kind of literary reference described in the question is very unlikely to be held to be copyright infringement.
It is probably a word that can be used, but not definitively. Many words of general applicability coined by authors enter into the general lexicon. The process is similar, but not precisely identical, to the dilution of a trademarked term to become a generic descriptive term for anything in the category of items so trademarked. Early examples of originally trademarked words that entered the general lexicon are &quot;elevator&quot; and &quot;escalator&quot;. For example, the word &quot;grok&quot; coined by Robert Heinlein, is now part of the general lexicon, as is the word &quot;quark&quot; coined by James Joyce (although its current meaning has shifted). The word &quot;robot&quot; from K. Čapek's play R.U.R. ‘Rossum's Universal Robots’ (1920), would be another example of a word coined in fiction that has entered general use. The scene a faire doctrine also authorized public domain use of tropes and terms that have achieved wide use in a genre. As a rule of thumb, if three different authors have used a term to mean the same thing, or an author who is no longer in copyright has done so, it can be used freely. For example, regardless of who originally used it, the term &quot;mecha&quot; would not be protected by the doctrine due to its used by multiple authors and commentators in a particular science fiction sub-genre. &quot;Mentat&quot; is a close case, because it is overwhelmingly used in a specific series of books written by Frank Herbert and his son with licensing from his estate, and because the series has produced so many published properties, not only in books, but in TV and movies, it has been close to maximally protected from an IP perspective by the Herbert Estate, his publishers, and his audio-visual licensees. There is at least a colorable argument that use of the term in a fictional setting would be a derivative work, intended to evoke and be derived from the extended series of creative properties. The best counterargument that the term has entered the general lexicon, or in any case is not a protected derivative work, would comes from use of the term in a non-fiction sense which is not negligible, even though it isn't terribly common. Wikipedia notes two (probably unlicensed) commercial uses, one as a trademark and the other as an IT company name, in addition to two minor fictional uses, one with a similar meaning and one with a somewhat shifted meaning. Further, to the extent that the non-fiction use was great enough to show that it entered the general lexicon, at that point, fictional use would no longer be a derivative work because the work could be derived from many sources in which the Herbert estate does not have copyrights. A Google N-gram search could be used to evaluate that argument empirically. The use of the word in the early 19th century (before Herbert was born) is particularly promising, although the senses in which it was used pre-Herbert would have to be evaluated, and the context in which it was used post-Dune would also have to be evaluated (if all the uses are in his licensed books, it hurts the cause). A quick scan suggests that in the early 19th century that it was often used as a Latin or French word used untranslated for foreign flavor in English language works, so there is an argument that it is really a loan word not specific to Herbert. Much of the modern use is in fair use commentary expressly referencing Herbert's works and in obvious misspellings of the word &quot;mental&quot;. Particularly encouraging in the N-gram search are the uses of the word in independent science fiction novels including &quot;The Search for Snout&quot; (2014) by Bruce Coville, &quot;Dorsai!&quot; (2013) by Gordon R. Dickson, &quot;Eye of the Storm&quot; (2009) by John Ringo, and &quot;The Ghost Brigades&quot; (2007) by John Scalzi. Also, particularly notable is the use of the word in an independent non-Dune novel in &quot;Clockwork Lives&quot; (2015) by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart, since Kevin J. Anderson was a co-author of some of the Dune novels and would have contractual obligations to the Herbert Estate as well as copyright obligations; signifying a concession of non-ownership of the term by the estate. This use in five independent fictional cases in the same genre in works published long enough ago for the statute of limitations for infringement to have lapsed (with late filed suits used to muddy the waters). This strongly advances the scene a faire doctrine validation of the word. The term is also used in a scientific journal article in 2008 in the Indian Journal of Experimental Biology, but in a related but not identical sense of the word. Another litmus test regarding whether a word is part of the general lexicon is whether it appears in more complete dictionaries, such as the OED, or Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, or in a notable published thesaurus, None of the dictionaries and no thesaurus that I have in hard copy have that word, but this could be because mine are dated. An updated dictionary and thesaurus search would be probative evidence of this question. A thesaurus search for &quot;genius&quot; or &quot;prodigy&quot; that came up with &quot;mentat&quot; listed would be a good thing to look for. A third issue for general lexicon v. derivative work analysis would be whether the word can be derived by obvious use of affixes and suffixes and retroflex letters from words that are in dictionaries. For example, a word plus -ology (for the study of), or -itis (for medical conditions) would not generally be beyond the scope of legally permissible public domain use. This again is a close call in the case of &quot;mentat&quot;. Single words are also harder (but not impossible) to protect as derivative works, if not trademarked as well, than extended passages either verbatim or paraphrased or translated, which would weaken the derivative work claim, although it wouldn't be entirely without merit just because it was a single word.
The basic principle is that copyright never protects an idea, it only protects the expression of an idea. In the US, that rule is embodied in 17 USC 102(b) which provides that: (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. When significant, detailed, and specific plot elements are copied from a prior work, then that may make the new work a derivative work. Creation or distribution of a derivative work requires permission from the owner of the copyright (if any) on the prior work (source work). But the elements used must be significant and must be detailed. If all that is taken could be expressed in a summery contained in a single sentence or paragraph, this will not make the new work derivative. For example, such ideas as: Napoleon meets the Emperor of China and they form an alliance. [My idea] Sherlock Holmes helps to repel the Martian invasion described in The War of the Worlds. Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger is also involved. [Wellman's Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds] Aliens crash land on Earth in 1905, creating an alternate timeline. They seek to start WWI early, to stimulate technical development. [Benson's ...And Having Writ] would on their own not be enough to constitute a derivative work and thus infringement. But the more specific detail from the source work is used, the more likely it is that an infringement suit would win. By the way, the rule is the same whether the source work is a book, or a TV show, or an opera, or any other work subject to copyright protection. If the work is old enough, any copyright will have expired, but the format of the original does not matter, as long as it is &quot;fixed in a tangible form&quot; which includes video tape, DVD, computer file, or a script written on paper. About the only things that do not count as fixed would be an impromptu dance, song, speech, or story whch the creator performed or spoke without its ever having been written down or recorded in any way.
It would be copyright infringement. The script that you are planning to copy from is protected by law, so requires the copyright-owner's permission to create a derivative version (your own interpretation). If instead you write a completely different story inspired by the original book, you might not get sued. The problem is that there is a reasonable chance that you would accidentally duplicate part of one of the myriad adaptations, then the jury would have to decide whether it was just a coincidence, or copying.
If one is writing about a work of fiction, one may describe the work, and use terms from the work in doing so. One might write, for example: In Spaceman Sam the characters use &quot;blasters&quot; as weapons, while in Jack of the Galaxy &quot;contragravity&quot; is used to propel &quot;aircars&quot; These are facts, and copyright may never be used to protect facts. Moreover, such uses as reviews and criticism are particularly likely to constitute fair use under US law, or another exception to copyright under the law of some other country, even if some otherwise protected content is quoted. If something appeared in that sci-fi universe prior to me re-iterating it; does that mean it's fair game for me to use? If the &quot;something&quot; that appeared earlier is an &quot;idea&quot; or a name, it is indeed fair game. This is true whether it is obscure or well-known. In any case describing the facts of the fiction, even in detail, is generally not an infringement. If &quot;re-iterating&quot; something from an existing work in a new fiction involves an extensive quotation, or a detailed, point-by-point reuse of a fictional element, that might constitute infringement, unless fair use or another exception to copyright applies. Does intellectual law protect very specific plot concepts? No, it doesn't. A plot concept is an idea. In the US, 17 USV 103(b) reads: (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. Laws in other countries are similar on this point. This is sometimes known as the idea/expression distinction. This means that while the expression used to embody a concept is often protected by copyright, the concept itself never is. Are you allowed to borrow names of different generic sci-fi inventions that aren't super-important to the story. Yes. In fact even the names of fictional technological devices that are very important to a story may be, and often are, reused in different works by different authors. For example Ursula LeGuin used &quot;ansible&quot; as the name of a faster-then-light communicator, in fact an instantaneous communication device, in her &quot;Hanish&quot; series, particularly in The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, and The Word for World is Forest. (She wrote that the term was derived from the word &quot;answerable&quot;.) The term and concept were reused by Vernor Vinge in &quot;The Blabber&quot; and A Fire Upon the Deep, and by Elizabeth Moon in the &quot;Sassanek&quot; series and more centrally in the &quot;Vatta's war&quot; series starting with Trading in Danger. Moreover, the names of fictional characters are not protected. An author might introduce characters with names borrowed from Tolkien, Heinlein, or other well-known (or obscure) fictional works. US Copyright Office circular #33 &quot;Works not protected by Copyright&quot; says that &quot;names, titles, and short phrases&quot; may not be protected by copyright, and will not be separably registered. However, if a character has not only the name of a previous character, but a detailed, point-by-point similarity in distinctive elements to a character in a protected work, that may be enough to make the newer work a derivative work, and thus be infringing if permission is not obtained from the copyright holder on the source work. The same is true of the detailed reproduction of a distinctive setting from a source work. But a mere name and broad, general description is not enough tom make a later work derivative. The more details are reproduced, and the more distinctive and specific those details are, the more likely the newer work is to be found distinctive.