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by fennecbutt 903 days ago
Is it still compression if I read Tolkien and reference similar or exact concepts when writing my own works?

Having a magical ring in my book after I've read lord of the rings, is that copyright?

1 comments

Generally, no, copyright deals with exact expression, not concepts. However, that can include the structure of a work, so if you wrote a book about little people who form a band together with humans and fairies and a mage to destroy a ring of power created by an ancient evil, where the start in their nice home but it gets attacked by the evil lord's knights [...] you may be breaking Tolkien's copyright.