Novel Gens

Experimental notice

NovelGens is an experiment that relies as heavily on technology as much as legal know-how. I don't actually know if, for example, generating creatures creates a "right" to legally own, sell, or claim copyright over. I haven't spoken to a lawyer yet, and I imagine figuring out the legalese of a site like this will be a long journey with plenty of ups and downs.

Right now, I'm primarily focused on the tech side of things: the best way to reliably generate high-quality, interesting creatures at the lowest server costs. I do not know whether I can actually offer you shared legal ownership over a generated creature. Worst case, this site will have been a fun experiment and way to share interesting fiction prompts and creative ideas with others. Best case, things will actually work out and we'll create value for authors.

I'll update this page with more guidance after speaking to a lawyer about, well, everything. Until then, below follows my best legalese attempt at explaining what the intent behind the site is.

If you're trained in law, I'd definitely appreciate your input too!

Legal intent

Creature ownership

Creatures generated on NovelGens may be "owned" by multiple entities at once, with each individual owner receiving the following rights:

  • Right to use, adapt, copy, or publish content depicting an owned creature, without restrictions, with no permissions or attributions needed
  • Right to resell these rights to another owner in the future

For any specific creature, the "owners" are the following people:

  • Every user that has "claimed" that creature (and is listed on that creature's owner page)
  • Every person who has purchased the rights to that creature from a listed owner
  • Andrew Brown, creator of the site, so he can continue to display the creature and ensure basic site functionality using that creature

Story ownership

Some features of the site (specifically, functions related to writing and publishing stories) may generate more content related to owned creatures. Every story written and/or published on NovelGens continues to only be owned by its original author, and no rights or ownership over those stories shall transfer to any other creature owners, site users, or to the site itself, except as detailed above. If you write it, it is yours.

Artwork ownership

Users may also add their own artwork to creatures on the site. This artwork is displayed publicly alongside the original NovelGens-generated artwork and may be viewed by any user, whether they're an owner of the creature or not. Uploading a piece of artwork transfers the following rights to NovelGens:

  • NovelGens retains the rights to display an unmodified copy of the art
  • NovelGens retains the right to remove any uploaded art, at any time, for any reason

Every user-submitted piece of art uploaded to NovelGens continues to only be owned by its original creator, and no rights or ownership over that artwork shall transfer to any other creature owners, site users, or to the site itself, except as detailed above. If you made it, it is yours.

All NovelGens-created artwork for each creature is free to use, without restrictions, permissions, or attributions, for the associated creature's owners.