Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2024 July 30

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July 30

Kobolds and Copyright Laws

Dear All A friend of mine is working on his own game which features kobolds (small lizard-creatures who worship dragons, like the ones from "Dungeons & Dragons"). I know that kobolds are originally from European folklore. I did some researcha and I've found the story "Der Kobold", from "Die deutschen Volkssagen" by Friedrich Ranke, published in Munich in 1924, which states that small, dragon-like kobolds did exist in early medieval folklore. So my question is this: are the lizard-like kobolds copyright protected or can they be freely used since they are a part of old European folklore? Thank you very much for your replies! 85.4.154.199 (talk) 22:14, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

This depends, at least partially, on the country where your friend is located. Your IP address geolocates to Switzerland; is that where your friend is located? Generally, concepts centuries old are not protected by copyright, but some countries have special legal protection for what they consider cultural heritage. You or your friend should talk with a copyright lawyer. Nyttend (talk) 22:54, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

You are correct, I'm from Switzerland! My friend is also from Switzerland, but he currently lives in the USA (he's a student at a university in Boston, Massachusetts).--85.4.154.199 (talk) 22:59, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

The general idea of small mischievous reptilian creatures cannot be copyrighted, but any specific artistic form in a published work is in principle protected by copyright. Compare talking dogs: you can publish a comic strip about a talking dog just fine, but if your dog looks much like Goofy, you can expect problems.  --Lambiam 23:30, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Friedrich Ranke died in 1950, so copyright on his work has expired. The copyright term in Germany is life of the author plus 70 years. You're free to borrow from him whatever you like. I think copyright on Goofy hasn't expired yet in the US, but is expected to do so at the end of 2027 (publication+95 years). You can begin writing stories featuring him for publication in four years, at the risk of the US increasing copyright term again. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:37, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Kobolds are a) medieval and b) generic figures of folklore and low mythology. They turn up in multiple guises in contemporary tales (Roald Dahl, Harry Potter, the popular German Pumukl series on TV). It can even be argued that Oskar Mazerath, the ignoble protagonist of Günter Grass´s The Tin Drum, is a kobold of sorts. As such, I see kobolds as literary archetypes in a narration which stand outside any concerns for copyright.

It may as well be argued that Goethe pinched the character of his Faustian protagonist from Marlowe and the historical Germanic sources referring to Georg Faustus (*1480 - †1540). Which, of course, he did without being sued and imprisoned. --2001:871:6A:1B71:18E4:6082:4639:4A95 (talk) 16:27, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Nothing to do with Tolly Cobbold, then: but beware drunken dragons anyway. MinorProphet (talk) 13:18, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Harry Potter? I don't remember them anywhere in the series (I can't remember ever hearing the word before seeing this thread), and https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Kobold returns their equivalent of MediaWiki:Notitletext. Nyttend (talk) 05:35, 3 August 2024 (UTC)=

Then add this to your mental list of trivia: "The name of the element cobalt comes from the creature's name [kobold], because medieval miners blamed the sprite for the poisonous and troublesome nature of the typical arsenical ores of this metal (cobaltite and smaltite) which polluted other mined elements." You're welcome. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:01, 3 August 2024 (UTC)