MTG Copyright Question

>Wouldn't the cards alone count?
The cards, the online stories, the books, all of that would count.
>But you can copyright a book.
Yes. You cannot distribute someone else's non-fiction work, but you can distribute facts from that work.

What if there were a non-fiction work and someone tried to use unique phrases coined in that work for their own purposes, at odds with the creator of the work? Also, how do you know this information?

>Wouldn't the cards alone count?
Yes they would count. Also, Wizards of the Coast tends to buy the rights to card art as well, so the artist can't, for example, sell prints of their own art that is used on a MtG card because WotC owns the rights for it.

>But you can copyright a book.
>someone tried to use unique phrases coined in that work for their own purposes
See also "citations" and "plagiarism." If I copy a sentence from a history book into my own history book without attributing them, that is not legal. If I write about the same event, that is OK. If I quote the history book and provide proper attribution, that is considered fair use, as long as I am not copying too much of the work and not discussing it or some such.

>how do you know this information?
By being an adult? Going through college and getting an education? By registering copyrights for work? By following the news?

I'm talking more like a new phrase that encapsulates a view. Say you started a business and created a philosophy called "freshnessism" for how fresh your produce is and what that means to the company, etc. And then someone else tried to use the word "freshnessism" for something similar, but damaging to your original intentions - not as satire, but perhaps they were a disgruntled employee or something. Where would that be trademarked/copyrighted? Suppose it first appears in a manual for and about your company.

That would be a trademark and you would have to register it.
uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database

Does it matter if it's for-profit or not?

Legally, no. In practice, corporations don't tend to care to litigate things like fanfiction. Making money on their intellectual property is a great way to get them to care, though!

Also, as a fun fact, it is common to register several trademarks for the same word or phrase but used in different situations.

IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Audio visual recordings featuring entertainment, namely, animation, comedy, action and adventure for young adults and adults; downloadable multimedia files containing text and graphics featuring animation, comedy, action and adventure
is different from
IC 016. US 002 005 022 023 029 037 038 050. G & S: Posters; stationery; writing implements; stickers; notebooks

If you have to register such phrases, then what difference does an unregistered trademark make and what is it?

If someone registers a trademark you've been using but haven't registered, they may get legal rights of and can sue you to stop using it. It's possible to win a case like this, but litigation is expensive.

>use freshnessism as trademark
>disgruntled employee registers it and becomes the owner of the trademark
>sues company to stop using his trademark
>now company has to go to court to prove that the trademark should not have been granted to the employee
>it's not guaranteed that they will win the case
>if they lose the case they have to stop using the phrase and probably pay the former employee a bunch of money

Ah I see, so the courts view an unregistered trademark basically the same as a registered one unless a conflict arises where someone else registers it?

More or less. People register trademarks so they don't have to go to court in these events and to protect their branding. If I opened a restaurant and started using "Eat Fresh" as a tagline to sell salads, Subway wouldn't be able to do anything about it unless they had registered the phrase as a trademark.

If they register the trademark and find out someone is using it, they send the offender a cease and desist letter that basically says "we will sue you and win because we own the trademark if you don't stop using it." If they don't own the trademark they can't say that with as much certainty.

>wouldn't be able to do anything about it
Correction: they COULD, but it would be a lot more open-ended and expensive.

Damn, registering a trademark is fucking expensive.

Cheaper than going to court.

Yes and no.
The have immediate copyright of every published piece of lore through creative commons, and it's retroactively enforceable if their lawyers knows the ropes even if they didn't go through the IP registry.
They have TM on Magic: the Gathering, Deckmaster, Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers, Magic Digital Next, Magic: the Gathering Online, the Beleren font, etc. That are immediately enforceable without review.
The have R registries of all the plane names and all set names, that can be enforced without review.
They have IP registries on all their Planeswalkers that can be enforced without review.
The had patents on "tap" and the cardstock they use, but those have expired and can now be used by other companies without paying WotC.
You can't copyright game mechanics, that's why there are so many Magic clones around that bypass accusations by just using different terminology.

So basically you can call your LGS "Orzhova" and they'd have to take you to court to prove that they use the name and you are infringing on their copyright. But you can't call your product Magic: the Gathering, your character Jace Beleren, or your setting Ixalan without incurring copyright infringement.

What about claiming copyright on characters that don't belong to you?

if you read the thread, although I doubt you can read at all, you'd understand why the question you asked is so retarded.

If you breach a registered trademark you have to prove no intention or prior knowledge of the registered trademark and that agreen to C&D was economically disastrous to you, just to not have to pay a shit ton, you still end up losing the capability to continue using that creative element.
If you breach an unregistered trademark you can make a whole circus claiming that you created not!Mickey Mouse and possibly win.

This. I attended a convention panel about copyright run mostly by lawyers and it basically boiled down to "If you need to hire a lawyer, chances are you've already lost- just invest in the copyright so you don't need us."

>It was my understanding that anything that was trademarked or copyrighted had to have these symbols after every instance of their mention
Your understanding is wrong, but it's a misconception that's common enough for many companies and people to place the symbols where they technically don't need to be simply because some people will otherwise think that the name isn't under copyright or trademark protection,