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Help! Don't know if this Visual Novel can bring me legal trouble!

A topic by Kate created Sep 01, 2020 Views: 420 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 3

Hello, I have a big question and I need help or information about it. 

I have been working on turning a fanfiction story into a visual novel for a while. 

My concern is whether doing this could get me into trouble. The characters used in the fanfic are Korean artists and the story is about MxM romance and has some +18 content, so I was wondering if I will have no problems transforming the story into a VN and using the image and name of these people.

All the time I have seen people who make fanarts, comics and even games about these artists that in several cases include adult content and I do not see that they have problems, but I think it is better to be well informed about it.

I think that as long as I don't sell the game or use the image of these people to make money ... everything should be fine. But I don't know if I should change their names or something. 

Please if you can help me with this matter I would greatly appreciate it.

(1 edit) (+1)

Are these real or fictional people? If real, I would personally change the names and possibly more just as a courtesy.

Making art with copyrighted material is in most cases not technically legal, but copyright holders often don't want to or don't have the time to go and take down everyone's artwork. Whether or not you make money is not a deciding factor in whether or not it's legal, but it might be a deciding factor in whether or not anyone will actually feel the need to make you stop.

Tl;dr - You'll most likely be fine, but it's possible you'll get a cease and desist

Thank you very much! 

Yes, they are real people although their personalities are adapted to fit the context of the story.  I know that writing fanfic stories does not have any kind of problem but I don't know what kind of restrictions there may be when taking it to something visual.

So I think I will follow your advice and change as much as possible without losing the essence of the characters.

(+1)

Yah I'd avoid using real people if possible!