Copyright: Naming characters from movies, television and books
Seamus:
Is it okay to mention the name of a major character from a television series, film or book to illustrate a point. In the character creation section of our rule book, we mention characters like this, as examples of the types of PCs players can make.
Tyler.Tinsley:
not a lawyer here
copyright is a terribly sticky issue. i would advise against what your doing. however games like "before i kill you Mr Bond" survived for some time before they had to re-name them. so there is a chance that it will just simply go unnoticed or unchecked for a time.
Ron Edwards:
Tyler, I ask that you practice better self-moderation. What you are doing, no matter what you intended, is basically scare-mongering. Please see how I respond to Seamus here to see the care I'm taking. If you are not a lawyer, and/or if you are not a publisher who has dealt with issues of this kind, you should recognize that you should not even post.
Seamus, I can tell you what I do, and I can tell you my experience as a publisher. What I cannot do is answer your question about what you can and cannot do. That very phrasing on your part demonstrates that you have not talked to anyone professional about this, or looked at enough official, on-line information about copyright. There are a bunch of links sticky'd at the top of this forum for exactly that reason.
As for what I do: I reference names, titles, and events from other works very frequently. I include quoted text, in some cases scattered regularly through my entire book. I include the following text in my indicia page: "Mention of trademarked works of any kind in this text are intended as reference and not as challenges to trademark or copyright." I adhere closely to the U.S. legal rules that define fair use, which is the key term you need to look up (but not here - seek an actual legal, official source).
On the rare occasions that I've contacted representatives of what seemed to me to be tricky properties, I have always received a positive, permissive response. Notice that unlike the example Tyler cites, I do not put the name or reference into the title of my work. Nor do I feature titles or others' characters as, for instance, example characters of my system. Nor do I use any such names or references on the cover as a selling point.
I have encountered no legal hassles at all. I have never received a cease-and-desist letter.
That's my experience to show you a little bit of reality, strictly mine alone.
Other publishers are welcome to share what they do and what their experiences have been. People with legal standing or who can point to especially useful on-line resources about fair use (for instance), please feel free to contribute. Everyone else, please understand that anything you have to say is, by definition, off topic. If you disagree and think you have something to offer, check with me first by private message.
Best, Ron
Tyler.Tinsley:
Something about the op reminded me of the trouble City of Hero's got into, with players creating characters that looked/played like marvel characters.
It was a very hard fight on both sides but marvel won. many people felt very strongly that marvel had no case and they may have well as sued the crayola company because the crayons they produced could be used to make illegal copies of marvel characters.
Now imagine if city of hero's had little pop ups telling people how to make Wolverine, marvel would have had a much stronger case.
I'm sure there is room for fair use, especially when it comes to niche RPG's that reach fairly small audiences. I guess I'm just used to dealing with larger more lumbering things. Good lord the latest big big battles expansion has been held up in legal for half a YEAR!
I have had publishers advise against using risk army men in my prototypes for cripes sakes!
Also why not just work from whole cloth? I would rather be quoted then quote someone else any day of the week.
Eero Tuovinen:
I agree with Ron here, just last year I published a game full of references to prior art. I'd also like to say that this is a pretty important issue for roleplaying, as misinformation about copyright, trademark and fair use is endemic and strongly established in the practices of the field in a way I've never seen in other, less American and less commercial genres of writing. I'd like nothing more than seeing more rpgs written with clear references and dialogue towards the prior art they engage with. The sort of storytelling rpgs that would find references to prior art useful are the exact sort that would benefit greatly from frank discussion of other works. It'd be great to read a genre roleplaying game that opened with a full literary analysis of some seminal work of that genre, just to show the reader how the author is going to pick apart the topic and apply it in roleplaying. I like Sorcerer supplements for this exact reason; they have a very frank and functional relationship to the art they want the reader to take into account in their own roleplaying.
Seamus: the specific example you mention seems utterly non-problematic to me. Your reference to the other people's work is not used in marketing here (which might cause a trademark violation), and it certainly has a clear function in the overall structure of your work. No reason at all not to reference other works in this way that I can see.
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