Why did the show &#39;Lucifer&#39; need the rights to the DC character?
<p>For a little bit of background since I don't expect you to watch the show:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The necessary feature of the show is that lucifer leaves hell and then runs a nightclub</p>
</li>
<li><p>The personalities and features of the majority of the characters are different to the source material; they only share a name.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>So if the characters did not share their comic book name (besides Lucifer himself since that's not copyrighted), would the show avoid a copyright strike from DC?</p>

<p>The Lucifer TV show is an adaptation of the comic series of the same name, but with a lot of creative license applied to make the show more viewer friendly/dramatic. In that case, they need the copyright license from DC because, even though there are a lot of differences, there are also a lot of similarities in the story, making it at least a derivative work.</p>
<p><a href="https://screenrant.com/lucifer-comics-show-changes-similarities/" rel="noreferrer">Lucifer: Similarities and Differences</a> describes how the show and the comic are similar and where they diverge. You can see that the underlying concept/story is at the very least the same as the comic.</p>

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