: Re: Including a real event in a story I was thinking about writing a short story depicting a real event that took place over 2000 years ago. I'm not using any real person, but I am using the

@Nickens642

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My first impulse is to agree with DJSpicyDeluxe. No one "owns" an historical event. No one can sue you for copyright or trademark violation for saying that Caesar Augustus became emperor of Rome or some such.

No one owns a copyright in facts. You can only own a copyright in how you express facts. That is, if, say, a newspaper prints a story about the president visiting Ruritania, if you were to copy their words exactly or very closely and claim you wrote it, that would be copyright violation. But if you describe the same events in your own words, that is not copyright violation. The newspaper doesn't own the fact that the president visited Ruritania, they just own the story they wrote about it.

But that said, depending where you live, some countries have laws against criticizing the government or government-favored religions. If you discuss the life of Mohammad in a way that makes Mohammad look bad, you could get in legal trouble in most Muslim countries. If you describe some atrocity committed by the government, even if it was centuries ago, that can get you in trouble in some countries. Like, if you live in Turkey, you must be careful what you say about the genocide of the Armenians. Conversely, in Germany you can get in legal trouble if you speak positively of the Nazis.

So really, I think to answer your question we'd have to know where you live, what historical event you want to talk about, and how you want to present it.

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