Who Will Speak For The Slender Man?: Dialogism and Dilemmas in Character Copyright

Abstract

This Essay responds to Professor Cathay Smith’s Article, Beware the Slender Man: Intellectual Property and Internet Folklore, and suggests what the law of character copyright can learn from the legal complications and ambiguities surrounding intellectual property ownership of Internet folklore. Specifically, the essay explores the dialogic nature of character creation and the overlapping relationship between character and genre to highlight ways in which collectively-created characters are at particular risks for chilling claims of private ownership.

Keywords: copyright, trademark, dialogism, literary theory, genre, character, Internet law, intellectual property