I've been a paralegal at a law firm in Burbank for eighteen years. We do mostly business contracts and real estate, so even in this town I'm not an entertainment lawyer, or any kind of lawyer. But I've also been a fan all my life. From 1983 to 1989 I edited the newsletter of a fan club for a television show I still love: typed on my kitchen table, run off at the copy shop, folded, stamped and mailed to about four hundred members. Before we ran a single photograph, we wrote to the production office and asked. Twice they said no, and we didn't run them.

These days the newsletters are home pages, and the mailing list is the whole world. Once a few people on the message boards found out what I do for a living, the questions started coming. I answer them all, but I answer the same twelve or so again and again, so here they are in one place. The short version: you can say almost anything you like about a show you love. It's the copying that gets fans in trouble.

The questions:
1. There's no © on it. Isn't it free to use?
2. I gave credit. Isn't that enough?
3. My page doesn't make any money. Doesn't that make it all right?
4. Can I scan pictures from magazines?
5. What about screen captures I made myself?
6. Can I use the show's logo?
7. Can I put the theme song on my page?
8. What about MIDI files? They're free on other pages.
9. So what CAN I put up?
10. What is "fair use," exactly?
11. I put a disclaimer on my fan fiction. I'm covered, right?
12. What's this new law everybody's talking about?
13. Am I going to get sued?
If You Get a Letter (its own page)

1. There's no © on it. Isn't it free to use?

No. This is the one I most wish everybody knew. In the United States, copyright starts the moment something is written down, drawn, photographed or recorded. Nobody has to register it, and since 1989 nobody has to put a copyright notice on it, either. A photo with no © under it is just as protected as one with a notice in big letters. Assume that everything you didn't make yourself belongs to somebody.

2. I gave credit. Isn't that enough?

Credit isn't the same as permission. Putting "photo from such-and-such magazine" under a scan is good manners, and it shows you weren't trying to pass it off as yours, but it doesn't give you the right to copy it. Think of it this way: if somebody borrowed your car without asking, it wouldn't help much if they left a note saying it was yours.

3. My page doesn't make any money. Doesn't that make it all right?

Not by itself. Whether you're making money is one of the things that gets weighed if anybody ever argues about fair use (see number 10), and not making money counts in your favor. But the owner's rights don't switch off because your page is free. Plenty of the letters fans get are about pages that never earned a dime.

4. Can I scan pictures from magazines?

Generally, not without permission. The photographer, the magazine or the studio owns those pictures, and scanning one and putting it on your page is making a copy of it. Owning the magazine doesn't change that; you bought the paper, not the rights. I know every fan page in the world has a photo gallery. I'm telling you what the law says, not what everybody does.

5. What about screen captures I made myself?

You did the capturing, but the picture is a frame from the show, and the show belongs to the people who made it. A capture is a copy. Some studios have tolerated a few small captures on fan pages, and some haven't. Tolerated isn't the same as permitted, and it can change overnight. A handful of small captures used to illustrate your own review is a much better bet than a gallery of three hundred, but it's still a bet.

6. Can I use the show's logo?

Logos are trademarks, and usually the artwork is copyrighted too. Trademark law is mostly about confusion: a company has the right to keep people from thinking something is official when it isn't. So whatever else you do, never make your page look like the official site. Say right at the top, in plain words, that it's an unofficial fan page and not connected with the show or the network. And think twice about putting the logo at the top of it.

7. Can I put the theme song on my page?

A theme song usually has two copyrights: one on the music and words, and another on the recording. A sound file of the theme copies both. This is one of the things studios and music publishers notice. If you love the theme, say so, and say why. You can't post it.

8. What about MIDI files? They're free on other pages.

A MIDI file isn't a recording, but it's still an arrangement of somebody's song, and the song is copyrighted. The person who made the MIDI usually didn't have the rights to give away, so finding it "free" on another page doesn't mean anything. If the other page is breaking the rules, copying from it just means two pages are.

9. So what CAN I put up?

More than you'd think, and it's the best part of any fan page anyway. Generally safe:

• Your own words. Your opinions, your reviews, your essays about why the second season was better. Nobody can stop you from saying what you think about a show.
• Episode guides you wrote yourself. Titles and air dates are facts, and facts aren't copyrighted. Write the summaries in your own words. Don't copy somebody else's guide, or the network's official descriptions.
• Your own artwork and your own photographs. A picture you took of yourself at a convention, or of your collection, is yours.
• Links. Linking to the official site, or to an article, is generally considered fine. Link to their page; don't copy it onto yours, and don't wrap it in your frames so it looks like part of your site.
• Anything you have permission for, in writing. Ask. You'd be surprised who says yes. Keep the letter.

10. What is "fair use," exactly?

Fair use is the part of copyright law that lets people use bits of copyrighted material for things like criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching and research. It's real and it matters. But it is a defense, not a permission slip. It gets decided case by case, after the fact, by weighing four things:

1. why you're using it, and whether it's commercial (commenting on it counts for more than decorating with it),
2. what kind of work it is,
3. how much of it you used, and how important that part was,
4. whether your use hurts the market for the original.

There are no magic numbers. You will hear that thirty seconds of a song is fine, or ten percent of anything, or three pictures. None of those is a rule. If somebody tells you that something is "fair use" as if that settles it, what they mean is that they hope it would turn out that way if anybody ever argued about it.

11. I put a disclaimer on my fan fiction. I'm covered, right?

A disclaimer is a courtesy. "These characters belong to so-and-so, no money is being made, no infringement intended" tells the world you know they aren't yours, and that's worth saying. Keep it. But it doesn't give you any rights you didn't already have. Some writers and studios don't mind fan fiction, and some object to it, and a disclaimer won't change which kind you've got. If an author has said publicly that she'd rather not see fan fiction of her books, the kind thing and the safe thing are the same.

12. What's this new law everybody's talking about?

That's the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, signed in October 1998. It does a lot of things, but the part that matters to fans is this: it protects the companies that host Web pages from being blamed for what their members put up, as long as they take material down promptly when a copyright owner sends them a proper notice.

What that means for you: a studio doesn't have to write to you anymore. It can write straight to the company that hosts your page, and the host, to keep its protection, will usually take the page down first and sort it out afterward. Fans have come home to find their page simply gone, with an e-mail from the host explaining why.

The law does give you a way to answer, called a counter-notice, if you believe something was taken down by mistake. But it's a serious step. It has your name and address on it and a statement made under penalty of perjury, and it can lead to a lawsuit. Don't send one without talking to a lawyer first.

13. Am I going to get sued?

Very probably not. In all the years I've been answering these, almost everything fans have told me about has been a letter, not a lawsuit: a polite or not-so-polite request to take something down. Most of the time, if you take it down, that's the end of it. What you do when the letter comes makes a big difference, so I've given it a page of its own: If You Get a Letter.

A word about asking

The fan club used to write and ask, and it worked more often than you'd think. If you want to use something, write to the studio or the production company, say exactly what you want to use and where, and say it's for a fan page that makes no money. Keep a copy of your letter and any answer. If nobody answers, that isn't a yes. And if the answer is no, take it gracefully, because they'll remember you either way.