Copyrights Query

[Liquidnight]

I'm making an animated movie that uses a lot of fairy tale characters as well as a couple characters from old books. I am not completely sure what I am allowed to use, like names and the characters themselves without running into any copyrights.
I'm using the following in my movie:
Grimm(grimms fairy tales), phantom of the opera, mother goose, Aesop(aesops fables), snow white, her prince, 7 dwarves, cinderella, cheschire cat, alice, the playing cards, red queen, mad hatter, woodsman, little red riding hood, little mermaid, peter pan, aladdin, grendel(beowulf), beauty and the beast, 3 bears, rapunzel, frankenstein monster, his bride.

I looked up a couple sites and i kept running into them saying that anything before 1923 is public domain now. which i dunno.
I also know that they cannot look like anything Disney has designed for the characters to look like as well.
I thought that using the characters was alright as long as they didn't look like any other adaptation but I am not totally sure.

Anyone know anything I may have to change or look up to help make sure i dont run into any problems when i make this movie?
Thanks

 

[Thundarr]

First, is this a paid project or just for fun? Generally if you're doing something just for the hell of it you don't have to worry about copyrights (Fan Films, Fan Fiction, Fan Art, etc). If you're planning on being paid for it, then copyright becomes an issue.

Second, I'm pretty sure that what you read was true. Anything published before 1923 is public domain, and many of the stories you listed (Snow White, Cinderella, Frankenstein, etc) do predate 1923. However I would caution you to take care to reference the original materials and not later versions. For example, in Grimm's original version of Snow White, the dwarves had no names. They didn't receive names until Walt Disney made the story into the animated movie that we all grew up on. Also I don't think Mary Shelly ever wrote anythink about The Bride Of Frankenstein. I'm pretty sure that's a purely Hollywood creation, in which case you'd have to check to see exactly when that movie came out (I'm not sure, but I think it was after 1923). To be on the safe side, I'd make sure the characters look nothing like their Disney variations.

I hope this helps.

 

[Liquidnight]

This is not a paid project but I do plan on using it as a sort of portfolio piece and to put it up on youtube and try to get it around in contests and stuff so, I am going to use it for a job or such advancement, even if its bought by a company. my dream would be to have it get big and stuff but you know, its a dream....

I was going to list in the end credits where the characters were from and I am making sure that they do not look like disney's character designs or names.
So going by the 1923 public domain thing I think the only character that I may have to check with is the bride of frankenstein.
thanks for the help!

 

[Mister J]

Thundarr is pretty spot on, especially when talking about making reference to the original works (now public domain) and any revamps/updates, which could bring about other issues.

Personal, non-commercial use is usually OK in situations like these. Mostly companies just want to be sure no one is profiting off or causing harm to their stuff. What you've mentioned doesn't seem to be anything that would raise eyebrows.

Below are a link to a basic primer that I've found useful from time to time and the contact page to the US Copyright Office, where you can pose questions and get some sort of talkback (not anything legally binding or overly complex, but at least some clarification). Hope some of that helps. Good luck!

http://efuse.com/Plan/copyright2.html#maycopy
http://www.copyright.gov/help/