Can I name a business (restaurant) after a fictional character (Jughead Jones from Archie Comics) I'm far from ready to start a business at the moment, but I'm definitely considering it and working towards being more ready. That being said, I'm mostly considering starting my own restaurant, and I'm thinking of naming it &quot;Jughead's Malt Shop&quot;, &quot;Jughead's Diner&quot;, just &quot;Jughead's&quot; or something very similar (I can format it in a different fashion, such as Jug Head's, if that helps the legality of this). I'm worried about the Jughead part of the name mostly - the name would be inspired by a very iconic comic book character that's copyrighted by Archie Comics. They would most likely never become aware of the business and seeing that they don't publish comics in my country and haven't done so since 1997 they might not even care...but I don't want to take my chances. (I'm based in Finland - I feel as if this might be very useful information) (Jughead's Diner might be the worst name out of those three to choose because it's both the most boring one as well as the title of a comic book that has been published)
Probably not, without permission. Images of the character are usually copyrighted. The characters themselves are usually protected by trademark. Using the name of a fictional character without permission would imply endorsement by the firm that published works with that character. I've taken day long seminars focused mostly on all of the things that comic book companies do to protect their intellectual property rights in their characters. Of course, if you live in Finland, it is likely that no one in the U.S. would decide to take up the case for a U.S. media property, either because they aren't aware of it, or because it isn't economically worthwhile to pursue.
Generally speaking pop-culture references, like literary references, are neither trademark infringement nor copyright infringement. Trademarks Often a referenced item is in fact not a trademark. Most character names, for example, are not protectable as trademarks, because they are not used to identify the product or service, nor to advertise the product or service for sale. Similarly many pop-culture references which are associated with various groups, events, or products are not being used to identify or promote those things, and so are not protectable as trademarks. Even when a reference is (or includes) a trademarked phrase, it is unlikely to be trademark infringement. As long as the user of the trademarked term or phrase is not using it so as to identify the product or service where it is used, is not using it to advertise or promote that product or service, is not using it in such a way as to cause confusion by reasonable people on what the source of the product or service is, and is not using it so as to falsely state or imply that the product ore service is endorsed, sponsore, or approved by the owner of the trademark, then the use is not in fringement. One may use a trademark to identify a related product or service, to indicate compatibility, or to make comparative claims, and that is nominative use (using the mark as the name of the thing marked). Nominative use is specifically not infringement. Copyright Names, taglines, titles, mottos, and other short phrases are not protected by copyright at all. See the US Copyright office Circular 33 -- Works Not Protected by Copyright, where it is stated: Words and short phrases, such as names, titles, and slogans, are uncopyrightable because they contain an insufficient amount of authorship. The Office will not register individual words or brief combinations of words, even if the word or short phrase is novel, , distinctive, or lends itself to a play on words. This circulart includes as exMPLES: The name of a character Catchwords or catchphrases Mottos, slogans, or other short expression As I wrote in https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/60965/what-are-the-fair-use-rules-in-the-usa-for-short-quotes-from-books-or-song-lyric Literary references, including short quotes, to other works of fiction are commonly allowed as fair use. They are usually appropriately attributed. There are several reasons for this. Such references normally do not serve as a replacement for the original. They normally do not harm the market, actual or potential for the original. And they are often transformative, that is, they re-user has a different purpose and achieves a different effect from the original. All of these factors are important in fair-use decisions, and all lean toward fair use for literary or pop-culture references. In fact, there are few cases to cite on such references, because it is so widely accepted that they would be fair uses that no on ever sues over them.
Words themselves are not protected by copyright. Curated lists of words, however, are (what's protected is the artful collection of words chosen for a purpose). Hence Hasbro owns the copyright in the list of playable words, though it is a matter for future possible litigation to see if the courts agree. If you have permission from the copyright holder, that permission (license) should state how you can use the list (it does not matter if there is a title). However, you may need to obtain the list from the copyright holder. The website operator presumably already has a license, the terms of which may allow them to prevent you from copying from the website. E.g. the author may have granted the website operator the right to use the list as long as they don't restrict redistribution; but that license may also require restricting redistribution. So you also have to study the website terms of use – or get a copy directly from the copyright holder (assuming that that is the original author).
No When I go into my grocery store, I can use the lettuce if I pay for it. The grocer does not explicitly state that I can't use the lettuce if I don't pay for it but that doesn't mean I can. Replace &quot;lettuce&quot; with &quot;software&quot; (or any other property you don't own) and you have the same situation.
No, this is not true. Copyright can be enforced selectively. You are confusing copyright with trademark. Company can lose its trademark if they aren't protecting it. All the meanwhile they can choose to ignore some copyright infringement while enforcing their rights on others with no legal problems what-so-ever. In order to illustrate the difference: for example, if someone would make a clone of Super Mario and would call their clone as well "Super Mario" and maybe even would call themselves "Nintendo", even if they have programmed the whole game by themselves from scratch and the art and music would be all different, they wouldn't be infringing the copyright but challenging protected trademarks. In your case, the naming was identical, the art and everything was too similar to the original and therefore the clone was challenging the trademark that needs constant protecting.
More generally, can anyone just copy an existing website (without copying the code or images)? Yes. Could I make a website that lets people post pictures like Instagram but call it MyPics? Yes. In general, copyright protects particular expressions of ideas, not higher level ideas or concepts.
Plagiarism is an academic concept, not a legal one. The issue you are concerned about is copyright infringement. A work based off of another copyrighted work is a derivative work. This requires permission of the copyright holder. Simply listing your source and saying &quot;no crime intended&quot; does not help. However, recipes are generally not copyrightable (at least in the UK/US). This is because they are a list of ingredients and instructions which is not sufficient for a creative work. The presentation of the recipe can be copyrighted, as can any descriptive text surrounding it. If you're just taking the actual recipe, making a better recipe from it, and presenting that recipe in a better way, you should be fine.
If you create a new work that is derived from or based on someone else's work, it is a derivative work, and you cannot do so without permission from the original copyright holder. If the original work is made available under a CC-BY_SA 4.0 license, you have permission, but it comes with conditions. One of those is that you must attribute the original work -- you must say what work yours is based on and who created it. Another is that you must license your own derived work under the same CC-BY-SA license (or a compatible one). This does not mean that your work is not copyrighted -- it is. But it does mean that you must grant to others the same rights that the creator of the work you used granted to you. That is what the "share alike" or SA part of the license means. if you don't like that, you should not use a work licensed under CC-BY-SA terms to create your own work. If you publish your work but fail to grant that license to others, you are infringing the copyright of the work you used, and could be sued. Note that if you had created a compilation rather than a derived work -- for example if you created an album of images from various sources, some of them under CC-BY-SA licenses, you would retain a copyright on the collection as a whole, and that would not have to be under CC-BY-SA. But in this case you say that you used the other person's image as a background for your own illustration. That is creating an "adapted" or derivative work, i am fairly sure, and invokes the share alike clause of the license. You might also want to consider the different case mentioned in If I include an unmodified CC-BY-SA work in a book, does the whole book have to be CC-BY-SA?