Anyone know anything about copyright rules?

[Oakmaiden]

Does anyone know how copyright laws work, please?

Basically, what I want to know is if I will be allowed to do this:

I am involved in plans to create children's activity weekends, and activity challenges, for a charitable organisation. We want to make one based on a popular film franchise: but I don't know what the rules are surrounding this.

It seems that there are a lot of small party companies and other venues offering parties and activity days using this theme. There are also published "Unofficial" books using the franchise name and lots of fan fiction. This seems to indicate to me that it is considered "OK" to use ideas and names from the franchise, as long as you are not using the actual content - but obviously I am not confident that it is not simply a case of these other people in fact breaking copyright laws. Clearly I don't want to land the charity with an expensive courtcase - that would defeat the whole point of the exercise!

Anyone know anything about this, or know where I can find out?

You should contact the rights owner (probably the film company) and ask them for permission.

Depending on exactly what you do copyright may not be an issue but you could still face problems with trademarks and could be accused of "passing off", i.e. pretending to be backed by the film franchise when you are not. You should contact the owners of the rights and see if they will give you permission. You never know - if they think you are a good cause they may even be willing to help in some way.