Can anyone clarify this?

[A.L.]

Hi
So I am writing an original story BASED LOOSELY on characters created by an author from 1910. The original book is in the public domain (I checked). And there are multiple spin offs and adaptations already.
What I am asking is does it make THIS a public domain work? It's fine if so - I can live with that but that does limit where it can be published. To clarify - my story is original (as in written by me) but it is BASED on characters created 100 years ago by another author. The names are the same, and there is some reference to events which happened in the original (ie the first author's) novel but this is from a different view point,

Does that make sense?
Is MY story counted as Public Domain?

[A.L.]

I know what I mean - honest I do;)

[Mike]

No, Public Domain only refers to books that are out of copyright. Yours will be newly published in the next period of time, and will immediately come under copyright laws with you as author. From memory I don't think there's any rule against using other author's characters (or even real people) in books; with the first you might possibly need to check that there's no restriction on using them (although given that you say plenty of others have used them for spin-offs etc this is unlikely) and with using real people you just have to be careful of libel. But again this is a book that's already a 100 years old so it's probably not going to worry anyone at thid date.

[Thomas]

As long as your changes/additions are more than trivial, the new work is covered under copyright laws. You can read more on the subject here:

http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/der...

[Thomas]

With all due respect India, the situation with the PP&Z author doesn't have anything to do with copyright, but instead breach of contract. I read their complaint and nowhere in there do they mention copyright, at all. They wanted an entirely original work, and instead they got a derivative (but still copyrightable) manuscript. They also had issues with its quality, length, and the timeliness of its delivery.

[Bruce]

I have a quartet of books. They start over 200000 years ago and ends well before the advent of writing on earth. Historical science- fiction buffs tell me that isn't historical science fiction. What category does it fir into?

[A.L.]

Thanks. The characters are loosely based on original characters but the events and the actual story are mine.
you've been very helpful