Where to look for copyrighted names? We (me and my team) are working on a (software) project and are trying to pick a name for the group/team. We have settled on &quot;Watchdogs&quot; (due to the project's nature). However, there is some concern that the name might be copyrighted and might get us in trouble. I'm aware of the game, however that's called &quot;Watch Dogs&quot; (two separate words). Where should i start looking for this kind of thing? Like if a name is copyrighted and may get us in trouble or if it's fine to use?
Names cannot be copyrighted at all, in any country. They can, however, be protected as trademarks. The general idea is that if one uses a name to identify a product or service, or a creator of products or services, others cannot use the same or a similar name to identify their products or services in such a way that a reasonable person might be confused into thinking that the two came from the same source, or one was endorsed or approved by the other. Trademarks are limited in scope to a particular country, A name that is protected in Canada, say, will not be protected in the US unless steps have been taken to protect it there. In some countries a trademark must be officially registered to get any protection, In others, such as the United States, merely using the mark can give a degree of protection, although registration give more protection. Each country maintains a trademark registry which can be searched for existing marks. There are search firms that will do such searches for a client, and also search for marks in use but not registered, for a fee. Trademark protection is generally restricted by the type of product or service involved. An anti-virus program, say, called &quot;Guard dog&quot; would probably not interfere with a fantasy game called &quot;Guardog&quot;. A private security service of the same name would pretty surely not interfere. The range of protection depends on how widely known the product is, but &quot;software related&quot; is a very wide area, and except for famous marks, a mark protected in connection with one area of software will not be protected in a very different area of software. Names that a purely invented, such as Kodak, are more strongly protected than descriptive marks such as &quot;Best Pizza&quot; Particularly famous names such as &quot;Microsoft&quot; get additional protection even outside their usual areas, so &quot;Microsoft Pizza&quot; might be a problem. Logos and other graphic marks can also be protected as trademarks, but that is not what the question asked about. The styling of a trademark, such as a particular font, choice of colors, and so on, can also be protected. This is called &quot;trade dress&quot;. A disclaimer making it clear that a somewhat similar name is not related, and the is no affiliation can help avoid avoid an infringement suit. For example: Pear brand kites are in no way associated with, sponsored or approved by the makers of Pear smartphones. On this site we cannot give specific legal advise, so we cannot evaluate whether a specific proposed trademark would or would not infringe an existing mark. It might be well to consult an attorney with trademark experiences before finally choosing a name and doing marketing under it.
Each episode of the show as a whole, and all the individual images in it, are protected by copyright, but the idea of a holophonor, or indeed any idea, is not. The more closely anyone else's drawing of a gadget resembles one from the show, the more likely it would be to be found to infringe copyright. The same is true of a character image. The more distinctive and original the image, and the more closely someone copies it, the more likely a finding of infringement would be.
This is known as "film novelization"(For example, the novelizations of the Star Wars movies are film novelizations, created under license), and is copyright infringement unless made under a license from the copyright holder. Specifically, you would be making a derivative work of the original, by changing the medium. One of the rights provided by copyright is the right to control the transference from one medium into another. This, in my (non-lawyer) opinion, is unlikely to be found as fair use. There are four test factors for determining fair use(source), decided on a case by case basis: Transformative Character of the Derivative Work: Unlikely to be found in your favor, as nothing is transformed ("I don't change anything, the name are the same, everything is the same, it's just a conversion to textual form"). Nature of the Original Work: A narrative entertainment film, thus unlikely to be found in your favor. Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken: You've taken all of it; not in your favor. Effect on the Potential Market: You are essentially providing a free version of what copyright holders can often charge for; negative effect on their potential market. Not in your favor.
Depends if the artist is a contractor or an employee Let's say I am the person who created Spiderman, but my artist came up with the design of the costume and everything Well, it certainly looks like you didn’t create Spider-Man - the artist did. If they are your employee then you, as their employer, own the copyright. If they are a contractor, then they own the copyright which can be transferred to you under the terms of the contract or otherwise. What if the design was written in paper and then the concept artist represented the written design graphically, does that make any difference? Not really. Here the artist has created a derivative work but since they did so with your permission, that’s fine. The derivative work is a seperate work with its own copyright owned as stated above. How can you make sure you don't face this problem if you hire an artist for your work? You set out in the contract who owns the copyright.
Say I wrote a spy novel, in which some character refers to my protagonist as &quot;Mr Bond&quot; suggesting that he thinks of himself as a &quot;master spy&quot; like the movie character. Would that infringe a trademark on &quot;James Bond&quot; (assuming, for the moment that that name is trademarked)? No it would not. Or suppose my main character mentions having met Bond years ago during training, or on a previous mission. Would that infringe? Again, No. Or suppose I write a brief, one-paragraph walk-on scene in which the James Bond character appears? Infringement? Again, no. Or suppose my spy character is waiting for a meeting, and stops for a meal, and i mention that he has a Coke. Would that infringe the trademark on Cocacola? No it would not. All of these are forms of nominative use, and none of them are &quot;uses in commerce&quot;, so there is no trademark liability. (Interestingly, there was a series of stories set in an alternate world, written by Randall Garrett in the 1960s-90s. Some of these are spy stories, and his major spy character is &quot;Sir James le Lien&quot; Now a &quot;lien&quot; is a French-derived legal term for a secured debt. The most common English-derived term for a (slightly differently) secured debt is &quot;bond&quot;. No one ever tried to sue Garrett for trademark infringement.) The game &quot;Cards Against Humanity&quot; includes, as I understand, many brief references to real-world and fictional things and characters, some of which are trademarked. But none of these uses are &quot;in commerce&quot; and no reasonable person would be confused into thinking that the game was sponsored or endorsed by any of the trademark holders, nor are these trademarks being used to promote or advertise anything. So, No infringement. Now if the game were advertised as &quot;The only card game to feature super-spy James Bond&quot;, that might well be infringement. at least a case could be made for infringement then. But as it stands? I don't think so. Also, use of the R-in-a-circle symbol is totally optional when one makes nominative use of someone else's trademark. It can help, along with a disclaimer, to make the point that the user is not claiming ownership. Something like: {X}® and {Y}TM are trademarks of {Z-corp}. They are used here to refer to {Z-corp}'s products. The use here is in no way approved of by Z-corp, nor does Z-corp endorse, sponsor, or recommend this product. No ownership of these trademarks is claimed. However such a disclaimer is not in any way required, any more than the ® symbol is. One exception, if a trademark is used with permission, the owner may make use of the ® symbol a condition of the permission.
No, it does not fall under fair use: It is commercial use in nature It is a copyrighted work It is hard to say what portion of the copyrighted work you'd be using based on your description, so test three is inconclusive It could be argued in your favor that the infringement would not have an impact on their potential market, but it could potentially impact the value If discovered the owner of the copyright could pursue action against the company you work for.
Names of people, institutions, and events are not protected by copyright. Things that have occurred at events like math tournaments are facts, and may be recounted, in your own words, with no fear of infringing any copyright. Facts are never protected by copyright, although a particular description of facts could be, and so could a particular selection and arrangement of facts. Specific math techniques and their names are not protected either, and may be described without infringing copyright. The items you mention in the question are: video game / movie references and names No copyright issue here. common integration bee problems No copyright issue here. names of a university / math competition organizers No copyright issue here. integration techniques and formulas No copyright issue here, unless you copy an extensive description of a technique without rewriting it in your mown words.. using someone's Overleaf Latex package to format the book This depends on the license for the package, but there is not likely to be an issue. In short I think you are worrying over issues that are in fact non-issues.
The words "proprietary format" are important. Are you sure the format is proprietary? If it is, then it's likely protected in which case they might have grounds to sue (but that does not mean they would definetly win). If the format is not proprietary, and so long as you don't share data which is proprietary then I believe you fine. I'm not a lawyer - but I cite GIF files as an example. They were still protected by the US and some other countries until at least the late 90s and there were various threats to open source linux companies who shared code that used the file format. I'm not aware of anything other than threats and never heard of any company being sued, let alone winning or losing. Another example that comes to mind is the RedHat ISO format. My understanding is RedHat could not stop anyone from sharing open source, but they could prevent folks from sharing the format they assembled and shared the open source. Again, I am not sure if it was ever tested in any court of law anywhere.