Cthulhu copyright?

Is the Cthulhu mythos copyrighted? i know there is currently an RPG that is based on it.. there has been several over the years.. but do they hold exclusive right to the name?

i been thinking i would really like to write something about the whole Cthulhu myth, lovecraft is truly the master of horror.. and King pales in comparrison, and i feel like i would like to write something in honor o the horrors that Lovecraft unleashed on the fragile minds of mankind

The Cthulhu mythos is under copyright couldnt figure out to who, but the earlier Pre-1923 stuff is free to exploit/emulate hopefully emulate

Huh...

You know I was going to write that I think you would be fine in this case but I guess I may be wrong, Usually copyright law only extends 70 years past an authors death (in Lovecraft's case March 15th 1937) but it seems that there is some confusion regarding any sort of renewal of copyright in this case...

here is this very same discussion from another board...

They reference this wiki page and reading it is rather vague... It appears that if anyone owns the copyrights, it is Arkham House, but there is some question as to whether they actually own them as well.

It appears that the RPG manufacturer Chaosium owns a few lovecraft terms and phrases including "the call of Cthulhu" But the wiki goes on to say that Lovecraft himself was all for people continuing his work...

I don't know... Considering you can go to this website and read all of his works, I'm going to say that whatever copyright is claimed isn't exactly ironclad...

I'd say go ahead and write what you want man, chances are no one will come after you if it is just a personal project, if you want to publish it just check with a publisher, I'm sure they have legal departments for this kinda stuff...

Best of luck, I'd love to read what you come up with.

While the copyright may be somewhat airy, were Lovecraft himself alive today I don't think he'd be too bothered. He encouraged other writers to use his characters or events in their books so that they'd become even more mythic.

One man writing about all these Dark God's is nowhere near as scary as hundreds of writers writing about them.