okay, so

[ceresi]

This was recently posted to a comm I'm watching. Quoted:

No, it's not Star Wars: it's not even sci-fi. It does however, feature four recognizable Rogue Squadron characters.

I happen to write western novels as well as fanfic. I've already written three books featuring characters from Blakes 7, a tv sci-fi series I'm a fan of. As I love writing about Wedge and the Rogues, I decided they could go into a western too. So Wedge, Tycho, Wes and Hobbie are now a Colorado sheriff and his three loyal deputies.

The characters have the surnames of the actor who played them in the movies (except Tycho, as I couldn't find a name for him). The town they're based in is called Lucasville, there's a beautiful widow called Eileen Wessex and the bad guy is called KJ Anderson .

Sadly, the generic gunfighter on the cover doesn't resemble any of the heroes, though his colouring is correct for Sheriff Alec Lawson. The setting doesn't look a fat lot like the Rockies either. Never mind..

She's selling the book on Amazon. Isn't that . . . plagarism? Or at least copyright infringement? I'm genuinely clueless.

Comments

[lanning]

Heh. If she had kept her mouth shut and used different names, she would probably have gotten away with it. As it is, I give it 24 hours before Lucas is all over this like white on rice. He's funny that way. *g*

[ceresi]

She did use different names, actually, at least different enough to slide under Lucasfilm's radar, although the post isn't locked. Here's an excerpt she posted:

The door between the offices at the front of the building and the living quarters at the back opened as Ethan Oldfield came through. He hid a yawn with the back of his hand as he ambled across to the cookstove.
"Someone had shoved this under the door," he said, handing a folded piece of paper to Alec.
Alec dropped a lump of lard into the frying pan and took the paper.
"I told you there was a draft under that door," Ethan added, peering at the half-inch of cold coffee in the bottom on his tin mug.
"I bet you-all it's a lvoe letter," Sam said, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he watched the sheriff read the note. "My money's on a redhead."

I guess Ethan is Tycho and I'm pretty sure Alec is Wedge? Formatting and typos all hers. :/

This reminds me of the time someone emailed me and said they were a fanfiction collector (actually, I think they called them fanfictions) and asked if they could, I don't know, buy or rent or host one of my fics for a few years. I said no, 'cause it was creepy, but now I wonder if they were planning on ripping out the names and publishing it and didn't want a Google search turning up the old version. WEIRD.