Copyright Infringement?!?

Pyrotiger

Pyrotiger
It's a bit of a shock when you meet your heroes.

Well...I've just been interdicted by Squall Leonhart. Yep, the angsty emo hero of FF8.

(And a month ago, it was Noam Chomsky.)

Now, I can see the fun side, but quite frankly it kind of is...ridiculous. Surely this would not be allowed, as it is a trademark in another game?
 

KonigWolf

KonigWolf
Spacebaboy said:
It's a bit of a shock when you meet your heroes.

Well...I've just been interdicted by Squall Leonhart. Yep, the angsty emo hero of FF8.

(And a month ago, it was Noam Chomsky.)

Now, I can see the fun side, but quite frankly it kind of is...ridiculous. Surely this would not be allowed, as it is a trademark in another game?
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Not positive... But I don't believe it's infringement unless the character likeness is there... A name is just a name.
 

Shadowdancer

Shadowdancer
For one, trademarks and copyright are sorta kinda different things.

Then, trademarks are very specific in what exactly they protect, if they are registered at all. Registering one costs actual money on a recurring basis, and you need to specify what type of goods or services it's used for (and the more of those, the more it costs). So random precious flowers from video games will have bugegr all trademark protection, and just writing down the name somewhere without being in the same genre or using a visual representation moves it to a point where everyone just goes "meh".
 

Siranui

S
There is an NPC out there who bears the name of the company I used to work for.

I stumbled across him in a Rez months ago and gleefully fragged him. We are now 1-1 following me seeing him again - this time elite in a FAS, with his Elite FAS buddy, and me in a Courier.

Spacebaboy said:
Now, I can see the fun side, but quite frankly it kind of is...ridiculous. Surely this would not be allowed, as it is a trademark in another game?
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It's classified as 'Fair Use'. It is a name, and nobody is making money by using it. Crucially: It's parody. Parody is not illegal, thank goodness. Anywhere that parody is illegal would be a horrific place to live. Parody is a crucial part of free speech.

Imagine a comedian not being able to mock politicians; for them to be arrested for it. Imagine being unable to make any kind of social commentary through the medium of comedy.

Thankfully we are not quite at the stage in our society of suing people for using a word that we say we invented first and have some paperwork to prove it... at least when there is no money at stake. Obviously we do it when money is at stake. Because small fast food shops in Scotland that have been open for decades and bear the owner's own name NEED to be shut down if called 'McDonalds' because they are impacting the corporate brand.
 
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Dbrn47

Dbrn47
People paid to name NPCs in the game. These NPCs bear no likeness to any out of game characters. They are literally just names.
 

reg

R
Love the accidental use of famous peoples names. Its not copyright infringement (Madonna tried to copyright her name a few years ago and it got thrown out of court - slightly more famous use of the name a few years before Borderline came out).

Other famous court cases was Lucas suing 2-Live Crew over Luke Skywalker and Billy Connelly trying to take back an eponymous domain name when the bloke who ran it claimed it was named after his dog :D

I always make a point of heading off to a station named after one of my favourite authors/directors - even Ballard which was a fair few LS's away.

One of the witter aspects of the game I think, Ridley Scott selling 1 leathery egg etc
 
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DaveB

DaveB
First off, I am not a lawyer of any kind, let alone an intellectual property specialist.

However I have been a coder contributing to various open source projects and I am a content creator for various online environments so my business does require a little knowledge of copyright and trademark law.

Generic names, even if they are "real world" names - since there can easily be multiple people with the same names - aren't covered by either.

Character-specific names may be covered by copyright and if the owner of those rights chose to take action based on that it's a dodgy area whether use of them would count as homage or parody (which are protected) rather than infringement. That's how fanfic publishers survive. If the rights owner chooses not to pursue something that might be infringement that's no skin off anyone's nose, doesn't have consequences for either party.

Trademarks are a whole different ball of wax. Use somebody elses trademark in your product and unless you are in a totally different business field and there's no possibility of confusion between your use of it and theirs they HAVE to legally slap you down, or they may lose the exclusivity rights to the trademark. Kinda like "Hoover" became a synonym for "Vacuum Cleaner" and therefore the original Hoover company lost the trade mark rights because they didn't defend it.
 

reg

R
DaveB said:
Character-specific names may be covered by copyright and if the owner of those rights chose to take action based on that it's a dodgy area whether use of them would count as homage or parody (which are protected) rather than infringement.
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IIRC the George Lucas/2 Live Crew case was George saying it debased the brand due to the content (can't remember if he won, think he lost). Lucas did the same with the US gov's use of Star Wars for the proposed defence system. [When Adam and Joe did the parodies using Star Wars toys he sent them a fan-letter].

In the galaxy of Elite, I'm sure not only do they not have a legal leg to stand on, but the names used would be thrilled.

I'd put forward Martin Amis and Steven Speilberg as future names as they are both space sim fans.
 

DaveB

DaveB
reg said:
IIRC the George Lucas/2 Live Crew case was George saying it debased the brand due to the content (can't remember if he won, think he lost). Lucas did the same with the US gov's use of Star Wars for the proposed defence system. [When Adam and Joe did the parodies using Star Wars toys he sent them a fan-letter].

In the galaxy of Elite, I'm sure not only do they not have a legal leg to stand on, but the names used would be thrilled.

I'd put forward Martin Amis and Steven Speilberg as future names as they are both space sim fans.
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Pretty much, yeah. If your character is unique and distinctive enough in your context you can make it a trademark, but if you;re relying on copyright alone you'd have to be as specific as "Commander Shephard" in Mass Effect or "Lara Croft" in Tomb Raider for it to be actionable, and even then you'd have to prove that it wasn't a legit parody or homage.

I think FD are on pretty solid ground.

Even if they were not, simply removing those names from the NPC database would be enough to make such a case go away.
 

Privata

Privata
I have met
-Kyle brennan (guess he got lost again)
-Anakin skywalker
-Albert einstein
-DVD

Lots of silly names here and there... wish we could hide them to be more in universe (not that I did not smile at kyle and anakin)
 
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