copyright
Copyright violations in creating original trivia questions based on popular books, videos and articles
<p>If I compose an online trivia quiz for general users, and create questions such as</p>
<ul>
<li>Q1) To which Hogwarts House did Harry Potter belong ? (based on a Harry Potter book)</li>
<li>Q2) Does a honey badger attack a lion ? (based on a specific National Geographic video)</li>
<li>Q3) Who said this in 2002 &quot;...&quot; ? (based on an article in say, TIME magazine)</li>
</ul>
<p>Is this a violation of any copyright law ? Am I expected to take explicit permissions etc. ?</p>

<p>Q1 and Q2 are definitely not copyright violations. Copyright protects original expression. Your questions are yours; the only things you are using are the names, and copyright doesn't cover them on their own.</p>
<p>The quotation in Q3 <em>might</em> conceivably come under copyright. However in practice it is very likely to be fair use (unfortunately nothing is definitely fair use until a court rules on it, but I can't imagine a short quotation in a quiz being an issue).</p>
