Does using Yoda in my brand name violate copyright law of United States? I have registered a website yodaguru.com. I intend to use it as a domain name for a product I am building. Does it violate the copyright law of the United States? This character first appeared in the movie The Empire Strikes Back (1980). George Lucas, the screenwriter of the movie is still alive. It is speculated that that name may be from the Sanskrit word &quot;Yoddha&quot; which means warrior, or the Hebrew name &quot;Yodea&quot; meaning &quot;One who knows.&quot; The copyright law of the United States says that exclusive rights generally expire 70 years after the author's death or 95 years after publication. Law talks about the derived word, does it also applies to the character name?
Copyright is irrelevant, because names are not protected by copyright. Trademark is relevant: a name can be protected by a trademark. &quot;Yoda&quot; is a registered trademark owned by Lucasfilms, a subsidiary of Disney. There is a list of goods and services where the property right is asserted, so for example you could get sued for peddling art books under this name. It just depends on what your business does. For instance, a plumbing business isn't competing with Lucasfilms w.r.t. that class of goods and services.
It is probably a word that can be used, but not definitively. Many words of general applicability coined by authors enter into the general lexicon. The process is similar, but not precisely identical, to the dilution of a trademarked term to become a generic descriptive term for anything in the category of items so trademarked. Early examples of originally trademarked words that entered the general lexicon are &quot;elevator&quot; and &quot;escalator&quot;. For example, the word &quot;grok&quot; coined by Robert Heinlein, is now part of the general lexicon, as is the word &quot;quark&quot; coined by James Joyce (although its current meaning has shifted). The word &quot;robot&quot; from K. Čapek's play R.U.R. ‘Rossum's Universal Robots’ (1920), would be another example of a word coined in fiction that has entered general use. The scene a faire doctrine also authorized public domain use of tropes and terms that have achieved wide use in a genre. As a rule of thumb, if three different authors have used a term to mean the same thing, or an author who is no longer in copyright has done so, it can be used freely. For example, regardless of who originally used it, the term &quot;mecha&quot; would not be protected by the doctrine due to its used by multiple authors and commentators in a particular science fiction sub-genre. &quot;Mentat&quot; is a close case, because it is overwhelmingly used in a specific series of books written by Frank Herbert and his son with licensing from his estate, and because the series has produced so many published properties, not only in books, but in TV and movies, it has been close to maximally protected from an IP perspective by the Herbert Estate, his publishers, and his audio-visual licensees. There is at least a colorable argument that use of the term in a fictional setting would be a derivative work, intended to evoke and be derived from the extended series of creative properties. The best counterargument that the term has entered the general lexicon, or in any case is not a protected derivative work, would comes from use of the term in a non-fiction sense which is not negligible, even though it isn't terribly common. Wikipedia notes two (probably unlicensed) commercial uses, one as a trademark and the other as an IT company name, in addition to two minor fictional uses, one with a similar meaning and one with a somewhat shifted meaning. Further, to the extent that the non-fiction use was great enough to show that it entered the general lexicon, at that point, fictional use would no longer be a derivative work because the work could be derived from many sources in which the Herbert estate does not have copyrights. A Google N-gram search could be used to evaluate that argument empirically. The use of the word in the early 19th century (before Herbert was born) is particularly promising, although the senses in which it was used pre-Herbert would have to be evaluated, and the context in which it was used post-Dune would also have to be evaluated (if all the uses are in his licensed books, it hurts the cause). A quick scan suggests that in the early 19th century that it was often used as a Latin or French word used untranslated for foreign flavor in English language works, so there is an argument that it is really a loan word not specific to Herbert. Much of the modern use is in fair use commentary expressly referencing Herbert's works and in obvious misspellings of the word &quot;mental&quot;. Particularly encouraging in the N-gram search are the uses of the word in independent science fiction novels including &quot;The Search for Snout&quot; (2014) by Bruce Coville, &quot;Dorsai!&quot; (2013) by Gordon R. Dickson, &quot;Eye of the Storm&quot; (2009) by John Ringo, and &quot;The Ghost Brigades&quot; (2007) by John Scalzi. Also, particularly notable is the use of the word in an independent non-Dune novel in &quot;Clockwork Lives&quot; (2015) by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart, since Kevin J. Anderson was a co-author of some of the Dune novels and would have contractual obligations to the Herbert Estate as well as copyright obligations; signifying a concession of non-ownership of the term by the estate. This use in five independent fictional cases in the same genre in works published long enough ago for the statute of limitations for infringement to have lapsed (with late filed suits used to muddy the waters). This strongly advances the scene a faire doctrine validation of the word. The term is also used in a scientific journal article in 2008 in the Indian Journal of Experimental Biology, but in a related but not identical sense of the word. Another litmus test regarding whether a word is part of the general lexicon is whether it appears in more complete dictionaries, such as the OED, or Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, or in a notable published thesaurus, None of the dictionaries and no thesaurus that I have in hard copy have that word, but this could be because mine are dated. An updated dictionary and thesaurus search would be probative evidence of this question. A thesaurus search for &quot;genius&quot; or &quot;prodigy&quot; that came up with &quot;mentat&quot; listed would be a good thing to look for. A third issue for general lexicon v. derivative work analysis would be whether the word can be derived by obvious use of affixes and suffixes and retroflex letters from words that are in dictionaries. For example, a word plus -ology (for the study of), or -itis (for medical conditions) would not generally be beyond the scope of legally permissible public domain use. This again is a close call in the case of &quot;mentat&quot;. Single words are also harder (but not impossible) to protect as derivative works, if not trademarked as well, than extended passages either verbatim or paraphrased or translated, which would weaken the derivative work claim, although it wouldn't be entirely without merit just because it was a single word.
The code is copyrighted. You are not given any permission to use or copy any part of it, nor to create a derivative work based on it. There is no way for you to "make the copyright null". The code was copyrighted in 2005, and the copyright will not expire until 70 years after the death of the author, under US law. The period would vary in some other countries, but in no country that I know of will it expire in the next few years. That the author is dead, or the publisher out of business, does not change this legally. Someone, probably the author's heir, or perhaps whoever bought the remains of the publisher's business, will own the copyright. However, the ideas and programming techniques shown and discussed in the book are not protected, and you may use them freely to write programs, commercial or non-commercial. You need not even acknowledge the book as a source of ideas, although to do so would be nice. Of course, since the author is dead and the publisher not active, if you were to infringe the copyright by copying code from thsi book, there is a reasonable chance that no one would notice, but if someone did notice, the current owner of the copyright could sue you for infringement, and could perhaps win sizable damages. It would be safer to write your own original code using only the general ideas from the book. In future, do not ever assume that you can just take someone else's code (or other creative work, such as a book) and reuse it without permission, unless it is in the public domain, for example because it was published before 1923.
Under Swedish copyright law, a work such as a movie is protected for 70 years after the death of the "creator". It is unclear who the copyright holder is, but it has not been 70 years since the film was made. Unless it was explicitly "released into the public domain", it is still protected, so you can get sued.
&quot;LearnIT&quot; and &quot;Learn it&quot; are both descriptive, and thus are generally weak trademarks. It is not unlikely that a challenge would result in cancellation of any trademark on either, or in allowing a similar trademark in an unrelated category of business. For the matter of that, you don't seem to have determined whether the other company is making any trademark claims. In some countries there is no trademark protection unless a mark is registered. In others, including the US, use without registration can create some protection for a mark. It will also be relevant where the other company is doing business, and where you plan to. Trademark protection is always specific to a particular country, and generally requires proof of use in commerce in each such country (or of a plan to start such use in the near future). Domain registration is a different thing, and is not necessarily tied to a trademark (although registering a domain that infringes an existing trademark will often be disallowed). It appears that &quot;learnit.net&quot; is listed as available. That does not mean that a dispute filed by the other company would not be successful. The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) states in section 2 that: By applying to register a domain name, or by asking us to maintain or renew a domain name registration, you hereby represent and warrant to us that (a) the statements that you made in your Registration Agreement are complete and accurate; (b) to your knowledge, the registration of the domain name will not infringe upon or otherwise violate the rights of any third party; (c) you are not registering the domain name for an unlawful purpose; and (d) you will not knowingly use the domain name in violation of any applicable laws or regulations. It is your responsibility to determine whether your domain name registration infringes or violates someone else's rights. If you register a domain name, and another person or firm complains that the name is &quot;confusingly similar&quot; to an existing name or to a valid trademark, you might be required to participate in an arbitration proceeding under the UDRP, or else forfeit the registration. Note that nothing happens if no one complains. Section 4(s) of the policy reads: You are required to submit to a mandatory administrative proceeding in the event that a third party (a &quot;complainant&quot;) asserts ... that (i) your domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and (ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and (iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith. In the administrative proceeding, the complainant must prove that each of these three elements are present. &quot;Bad faith&quot; can be shown by evidence that you obtained the domain for purposes of selling or renting it, not for use; that you intended to prevent a valid trademark owner from obtaining the name, and have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; that your purpose was to disrupt the business of the other; that you intended to attract users who were looking for the other site. The page &quot;What Are 'Look-Alike' Domain Names?&quot; states: An essential element of any domain name dispute is whether the domain name bears some important resemblance to a relevant trademark. The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) refers to this as the “identical or confusingly similar” test. In many cases, a disputed domain name actually contains the trademark, and in other cases it may contain a typographical variation of the trademark (such as by omitting a single letter; transposing two letters; or substituting one letter for another, often adjacent to it on a keyboard). Yet in other cases, a disputed domain name may simply look like the trademark at issue, even if the domain name doesn’t contain the trademark or fall into any of the popular cybersquatting tricks described above. I refer to these simply as “look-alike domain names.” You may wish to determine if the operator of the learnit.com site has in fact obtained a trademark on &quot;learn it&quot;. Most national trademark systems provide a means to search the trademark registers. This will not be conclusive, but may give a reasonable idea. One option is to consult a lawyer skilled in trademark law. Another might be to reach out to the exposition firm and ask if they would have any objection to your proposed blog. If they don't object, the will be no problem. Another option is to choose a domain that is not as similar to that of the existing site. One technique that can help avoid an accusation of bad faith is to provide an notice where someone first opening the blog site will see it, something like: This is XY.net. You may have been looking for XX.com,which is about {short description} If co, click here. with a link to the other site. Such a notice might help establish that you were not using the domain to improperly attract traffic looking for the other site.
This kind of quotation, for commentary, criticism, or reference, is generally allowed without obtaining permission. In the US, this falls under fair use (see 17 USC 107. In the UK and most commonwealth countries, it falls under fair dealing. In other countries there are various exceptions to copyright that will probably cover this. Even answers that do not directly quote the rule books often use information from those rulebooks to write an answer. Facts and ideas are never protected by copyright, so this is not going to be an issue. See 17 USC 102(b), which provides: (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. As a comment by user Trish reminds, game rules are facts and are not protected, although their exact wording may be.
While the 12th century original is in the public domain, that translation was, if I am correct, published in 1996 and is protected by copyright. You will not be able to use extensive quotations without permission from the copyright holders. If you are in the US, you could probably use limited quotations under Fair Use. Exactly how much could be used depends on the specific facts -- there is no general rule. If your use would be likely to harm the market for the translation or to replace it, that would weigh against a finding of Fair Use, but there are four factors and they must all be considered. Note that fair use is a very specifically US concept, and will not apply elsewhere.
You would be in poorly-tested waters under US law. The invented name &quot;Cthulhu&quot; as appearing in a novel is not protected by copyright. A collection of invented names and other words assembled into a dictionary (e.g. of Klingon) might be found to constitute a copyright-protected creative work. In Paramount Pictures v. Axanar Productions (complaint), plaintiffs partially base their claim on infringement of language; defendants sought to dismiss the suit on various grounds (&quot;questions of law&quot; rather than questions of fact), but the court denied defendant's motion for summary judgment. Subsequently, defendants settled the case. Constructed languages are highly creative expressive works whose elements are deliberately selected for an artistic purpose, and they are not naturally-occurring facts. The copyright office has no position on copyright protection of a constructed language, and any such position would have to come from so-far non-existent (definitive) case law. The dismissal in Paramount v. Axanar doesn't clearly indicate that a constructed language is protected. The primary legal question would be whether the database that you copy into your system is protected. There is a colorable legal argument that a collection of language-like objects. The statutory language in 17 USC 102 does not specifically preclude protection of a wholely-creative database, and the copyright office does not say whether a conlang can be protected because the courts have not ruled one way or the other. The situation in Feist is very different from the case of a work which invents a language from nothing.