what are the laws around using the names of real people, organizations & companies in games (that parody society & real life)? can I call a boss in my game "mecha-clinton" or have helis / trucks driving around with "Soros Inc." labeled on the side dropping off antifa grunts? should I rename starbucks to "Marxbucks" but use the same font, color and style? etc
also, given how litigious Matt Furie is, I want to use a character close to Pepe but just different enough that I'm free from any legal headaches.. any ideas?
I want to make this thing but don't want to get sued into oblivion. please help frens
bump please this is not a LARP i have coding experience and have made games before, but i dont know much about the legal stuff for parodies i know how GTA5 made up a new name for everything, ex. facebook is "lifeinvader"
Nathaniel Hill
If something is copyrighted or trademarked you can't use it. I'm sure you can call a boss Clintzilla. You wouldn't be able to use the Starbucks logo either but you could alter it possibly.
The only way you would get sued is if you start making money off of it.
Tyler Bell
do you know how much I might have to alter it? I'll post an example (give me a sec)
what about names of people? tons of hats, t shirts, etc are already being sold with clinton and trump's face/name on it
Parker Peterson
I'm sure you could get sued for slander. I'm not a lawyer however if you're serious about making a game like this and selling it you should seek professional legal counsel.
Safest thing would to completely alter names of whatever famous people you will feature in the game. You could have them look the same I think.
Leo Carter
Please just make a wolfenstien 3d mod with mecha clinton, it shouldn't be too difficult.
Camden Price
pic related is approx how much i would change things and yes i want to take the safe path to minimize / completely avoid the need for legal counsel, if possible
from your gut instinct: if I called clinton "shillary" and soros "scrotum eyes", would that be safe? (I know you're not a lawyer)
Robert Barnes
i have other plans, not an FPS idea more of a street fighting game with weapons, and some jumping / platformer / exploring stuff
I'll share the idea here for feedback once I have it clearly written down and fleshed out better
Adam Foster
Well it seems that Richard Simmons lost his defamation suit against The Star because being rumored to be trans is not necessarily a "disparaging" term. I suppose there will never be a CONCRETE interpretation of libel or slander in our lifetime. Meanwhile Those Who Embrace Degeneracy shall be those who judge one who just wants to be left alone?
Lucas Mitchell
If you wanna be a massive faggot which im sure you do, and you want credit and you want to be free and clear of getting in trouble...
make a generic but moddable version of it and quitely drop an anonymous "mod" for it that gets the point across somewhere and then laugh and post how funny you thought it was and how clever it was and just rub it in like a total cunt.
It will probably just be a reskin for objects and descriptions of things so expose that for modding. and plant the mod yourself.
Nathan Campbell
I guess the key is to put a big " all persons fictitious" disclaimer at the start of the game, and change the names and likeness of the characters just enough that nobody would bother trying to pursue it, but everybody knows who you really mean
Kayden Roberts
I don't know your wacky leaf laws, so I don't know what will land you having to wrestle a moose in a trial by ordeal out behind the Crown Prosecutor's Tim Horton's. But in America at least, clear parody is protected speech.
Using your examples, Mechaclinton would be perfectly fine. Marxbucks, also fine. Soros Inc dropping off antifa goons, that might be a problem. It's only dubiously parody; people actually say he does that shit, He doesn't drop them off in charter buses with his name on them, but it's close enough to the rumors that it's less satire than slander. Or maybe libel? I don't know which it would be in the medium of electronic games.
But anyway, that's about how our laws work.
Ryan Evans
a wild tactician appears thank you user ideally the names and likeness would be strong enough that such a mod would be unnecessary
Brayden White
>Mecha-Clinton
Bentley Sanders
>having to wrestle a moose in a trial by ordeal out behind the Crown Prosecutor's Tim Horton's kekekek
what if "Sorrows Inc." dropped off the antifa goons?
Samuel Richardson
Wtf just use Boros and Blinton like grooooommmmmpppppffff
Jeremiah Johnson
Pedro the Toad?
Logan Robinson
kek yes just enough
Camden Rodriguez
The best thing for you financially over the long run is to receive and ignore a cease and desist order. Don’t be a bitch OP.
Jackson Moore
Now there's an idea. Alter stuff in a way THEY "might" to "cover up" their activities.
Anthony Cruz
Soros wont get you in trouble because its just a name. if you depict the owner of that name and hes an evil jew named george then you have a problem. if you call him bob soros hes alright. but calling him heiram soros would be funnier.
Can use a likeness but you wanna make it transformative, so if you wanna do hillary obama as a villain and its literally hillary with an afro youre good. logos and things are trickier.
Isaiah Richardson
And make him emperor of the kikocracy stealing everyone's shmeckles and eating babies.
right, because if you say a character is billary blinton the former US senator from NY in the united states of america from 200x to 200x with her daughter chelsea and her husband bill... youve added to the specificity of the person in a way where its 99% her with a small change which would clearly intend to fuck with that person.
The Donald Rump assasination thing got away with it because 1 trump doesnt care, 2 your goal is to NOT kill him and 3 we dont know anything about the guy other than his name and uncanny likeness to the guy running for office.
Grayson Thomas
>spoiler alert during a story cutscene, before you actually face off against her as a boss, you see her giving a speech.. with a team under the stage carefully moving her and making her talk, corpse full of animatronics and embalming fluid preservatives
turns out she's already been dead for years
Ryder Miller
You can do anything you want as long as you frame it as satire.
Something you CAN'T do, and you're Canadian too so maybe you'll appreciate this:
Todd Mcfarlane did a storyline in his Spawn comics that featured gangster/mafia type characters. He named these characters after active NHL players at the time i.e. a character named Jeremey Roenick, Keith Tkachuck, Tony Twist (if you are old enough to remember him).
Long story short, you can directly parody/satire people and get away with it, but you can't create an original character and name it after an actual person.
Make sense? Of course not. It's Canadian law.
Benjamin Wood
thanks for the info and link. i think the best thing is to use a character with a name that nobody in real life has, and a likeness that is similar but not the same, so i avoid all risk, but nobody is unclear on who the character is intended to be
John Bennett
I haven't read the rest of the thread, pardon if this is already said.
If it's not for profit, though, you can lampoon anything you want, pretty much how you want in the US.
For a retail product, there's way way more restriction.
Jack Brooks
what if the character is Shillary Clanton, with no other info given other than she is the leader of the Democrat party and running for office in 2016?
also, can I name the Republican & Democrat parties? holy shit this is a lot to consider
Kevin Hughes
Scrotum Ocular Refugees Output Stagers incorporated, or S.O.R.O.S. for short, run by a guy named Scrote-Eyes who just cohencidentally resembles a certain billionaire...
Luis Richardson
That sounds like a plan. Keep in mind Canadian laws are different than american ones obviously, so just pay attention as you are researching.
Like for instance I don't totally understand how shows like Lil' Bush and the upcoming Donald Trump cartoon can get made. Pretty sure stuff like that can't get made here but I have no clue.
Dominic Ramirez
I... hmm. I like you. Seconding this. Then it could be a retail property too.
Luke Ross
thanks, if I dump a lot of time into it I would probably want to make something just so it's worth my time (I'm still in school and don't have any money)... and it could also be nice to have some money to donate for causes like printing more IOTBW posters and such, or supporting some of /ourguys/ and /girls/ (real, non-LARPing, effective, non-scammy ones, which do exist)