BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Question about fanfic and copyright

**Posted by TeaCub** August 17, 2015 9:04 pm

Hi everyone

I have a question for you all.

I'm working on a Sherlock AU that takes place in Kings College London and am looking for an appropriate place for the characters to have what is essentially the 'battle scene' if you will :D I haven't touched the piece for three years - the worry about location is one of the reasons why.

Could someone tell me: is it okay to use a 'real place' as the setting? A real lecture theatre on one of the college campuses as long as I put in a disclaimer? Would I get in trouble for this? I'm really rubbish at writing case-fics, but would really like to get this fic finished as there's only two chapters to go and it seems a shame not to push to the final after all that effort.

Any thoughts would be very much appreciated, thankyou.

TC x

**Posted by ukaunz** August 17, 2015 9:33 pm

I can't see it would be a problem, I've read plenty of Sherlock fanfics set in real places such as colleges. I could be wrong, but I don't think you can copyright a place I reckon you should go for it!

**Posted by Yitzock** August 17, 2015 10:30 pm

I agree with ukaunz, you shouldn't worry about using a real place. People use real places in fiction (professional and amateur) all the time. Don't worry about it. Besides, you're not writing fanfiction for any profit or anything, so it's not like you have anything to worry about regardless of whether you use real places or not.