|
I suspect what Alastair was referring to was the concept of fan fiction. If you created a mud based around the Pern theme, it wouldn't be long before Anne McCaffrey started threatening legal action against you (she's done this before). As you point out, the theme itself isn't copyrighted, but the stories are - and creating a mud based on the theme within those stories is going to result in a derivative work. If you have written up some lengthy information/stories about your custom theme and the builder has used that information to create their areas, then those areas are going to be considered derivative works - and can therefore can only be used under the "license" with which you allowed them to create that work in the first place.
|