Copyright status... OK to use Greek gods?

Pretty sure Greek Gods are public domain. Run like Mercury with it!

Greek gods TM, (c) 4000 B.C.E - 2008 C.E.

Might want to write to Homer's agent to be sure.

Public domain. Use at will.

wipes spit off monitor

Just don't go out in thunderstorms, and make an occasional burnt offering

Throw a goat on the altar and you're good to go.

I'm not sure what age group you're writing for, but Rick Riordan's absolutely brilliant YA series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, is all about the Greek Gods (and their present day half-breed offspring) and all three books (the fourth is due out in May) are highly entertaining for anyone of any age.

http://www.rickriordan.com/children.htm

Tread carefully. Zeus might smote ya ass.

One minor point .. make sure you are righting about the OLD Greek Gods, not a modern version of them.

For example, if you mention Dahak (the ancient Greek 'Dark God') you may get into trouble, as he was an 'ancient Greek' god invented for Xena.

Mac

Usual written copywrite is 100 years from date of publication. Pyramis and Thisbe turns into 'Romeo and Juliet' which gets made into 'West Side Story'. Eros and Psyche becomes 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' & 'Beauty and the Beast' as 2 variants.

billz015 said:

I had an idea for a story involving greek gods and I was curious if I would run into any copyright problems or something such as that in doing so.

Can anybody help me on this?

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Gosh, I hope so, or I'm in big trouble. LOL.

And so is Rick Riordan.

HeronW said:

Usual written copywrite is 100 years from date of publication. Pyramis and Thisbe turns into 'Romeo and Juliet' which gets made into 'West Side Story'. Eros and Psyche becomes 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' & 'Beauty and the Beast' as 2 variants.

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If anyone does this again, I'm going to slap 'm with a wet fish! It's copyRIGHT, not copyWRITE. Copywriting is a verb, copyright is the noun this questioner was referring to.

About the question: Characters aren't copyrighted, they're trademarked, but there's no such problem with Gods, Santa, and real people.

Read/Listen to Mur Lafferty's "Heaven" series if you still wonder.

Actually in the US, copyright runs out 75 years after the author's death, not 100 years after publication. Still, Greek Gods are public domain.

I'd echo the "make sure they're the ancient versions" statement. This comes to mind especially with the Norse gods, for example, that have been somewhat appropriated by a certain comics publisher with nasty lawyers. They do not own the trademark on Thor - just on their version of him.

(So keep your gods out of capes and tights. )

As long as you use the Greek gods in an original way, you're all set copyright-wise. Greek gods are a hot property in publishing now, thanks to Rick Riordan. One of my favorite books from last year was gods behaving badly by Marie Phillips, if you want another example. Or just a good read!