Can I make a restaurant from a game and make it into a real business? Is it illegal to make a restaurant from five nights at Freddy’s and make it into a real life Restaurant? It‘s just a thought that randomly came to mind.
The game Five Nights at Freddy's and the other elements in the large media franchise of the same name are surely protected by copyright. In addition the name of the fictional restaurant in the game may well be protected as a trademark, and I would be astounded if &quot;Five Nights at Freddy's&quot; was not protected as a trademark. Other names and phrases may well be trademarked also. If the suggested actual restaurant was at all closely based on the images and descriptions from the games or the novels, it would be a derivative work. Unless one had permission from the copyright owner, creating such a restaurant would be an act of wilful copyright infringement. The owner could sue, and quite likely win. In the US the owner could get up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each work that was infringed, which in this case might well mean several of the games and novels, depending on just what images and descriptions were imitated or used. Or the owner could elect to receive damages and profits, meaning all damage provably done to the owner, plus all profits made by the infringer. In addition to either, the owner might well obtain an injunction against further operations of the restaurant. Beyond that, if the imitation used any of the trademarked names, slogans, or other protected trademarks, there could be a suit for trademark infringement. There could be no question that the marks were being used in commerce, and were not instances of nominative use. A restaurant is a very different thing from a video game, a novel, or a film, of course. No doubt it falls into a different trademark category. Normally trademark protection extends only to the category for which the mark is protected. But in the case of a &quot;well-known&quot; or &quot;famous&quot; mark, protection under US law is wider. Also, when the infringement might lead reasonable people to falsely belie that the infringing product or service has been endorsed, approved, or sponsored by the trademark owner, it may be a violation even in a significantly different category. This a successful suit for trademark infringement might well be possible also. Of course, if the new restaurant only vaguely resembled the one in the games and novels, and did not use the phrase &quot;Five Nights at Freddy's&quot; or the name &quot;Freddy Fazbear’s&quot; or any other distinctive names from the media franchise, That might not be copyright or trademark infringement. But that would not seem to achieve the effect suggested by the question. If the creator of the restaurant obtained permission from the copyright and trademark owner(s) then there would be no legal issue. But the owners might well not grant such permission, or might charge a high fee for it. I doubt that the idea is workable. As a side note, many years ago I regularly patronized a restaurant named &quot;Bilbo's Pizza&quot; It was decorated with murals obviously based on descriptions for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The intended reference was clear. They may have gotten permission from the Tolkien estate; I understand that Tolkien was rather free about granting such permissions. Or they may have just counted on word not coming to the copyright holder. But modern media franchise companies are probably much more watchful and much more quick to enforce IP rights.
Yes, this is a valid concern As written, every piece of IP you produce while employed belongs to the employer. This includes your hypothetical game. It also includes your weekly shopping lists, your Christmas card to your Great-Aunt Nellie, the … a-hm … private video you make of you and your significant other. As written this is overly broad and probably unenforceable. However, it’s always better to have clear and legally enforceable clauses in your agreements because unclear, arguably unenforceable ones lead to disputes. To be fair, the employer has probably lifted some (bad) boilerplate and hasn’t actually thought through what it means. Get it redrafted.
No First, gambling is not illegal - only illegal gambling is illegal. Lotteries are legal in the United States when operated by or under licence from a state (44) or territory (3). That's legal gambling. It's illegal when operated by somebody else. Clearly, Omaze isn't one of these; but they aren't running a lottery. They are running a sweepstakes. Not only is this legal, but it also isn't gambling because in a sweepstakes the players do not pay to play. If you look closely, you can see a link that says &quot;enter without contributing&quot;. Look even deeper and you can see &quot;NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT, OR CONTRIBUTION NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. Contributing will not improve chances of winning. Void where prohibited.&quot; No stake means no gamble.
There is no IP in ideas! There is copyright in writing it down - they can't use your exact words without permission. However, sending it to them in the form of a suggestion would give them a pretty much unassailable argument that you have given them an implicit licence. You can patent an invention (not an idea), claim IP in a trade mark (also, not an idea), register a design (again, not an idea) and hold copyright in an artistic work (once more, not an idea). They are required to keep confidences but offering them a suggestion probably doesn't count as supplying confidential information. I can see no risk in acting on customer suggestions. Hence, the idea to raise prices can be acted on or not at the discretion of the company.
A company does not cease to exist simply because it goes bankrupt. The company may wind down its operations, but it may just go through a process of restructuring its debts. If the company is merely restructuring, the bankruptcy would not probably not have much effect on its ownership of intellectual property such as copyright and trademark rights. So it would retain those interests in the video game, and the company making the sequel would need to obtain licenses from the original company. If the original company is going through bankruptcy in anticipation of shutting down completely, you can expect it to sell off all its assets, which would include its copyright and trademark interests in the game. In that case, the company making the sequel could either attempt to purchase those rights itself, or it would need to obtain a license from whoever does buy those rights.
Game mechanics are not copyright able. However, the images, words used, description of the rules are all copyright. If the original games is the source of the video game then the video game is a derivative work. If the original game is only the inspiration and the look and feel is different then this is OK. Which is which will turn on the actual facts.
united-states The license won't let you sell the .stl file. Probably you have created a derivative work, which means you can't sell it without a copyright license (and the CC-A-NC won't do). If it were licensed under CC-A you could sell it without problems (you'd have to give attribution, of course). You could also sell it under the CC-A-SA, but once you do you have no control over the result -- anyone you sold it to could give it to someone else under the terms of the license. This could work, though, if it were (say) a commission and you only expected to sell one copy. I don't know what the situation would be with the physical objects printed under any of these licenses.
at what point can you just leave? Is it always technically illegal in the UK to leave without paying the bill? Probably depends on what you mean with just leaving. If just leaving translates I haven't paid and I won't pay (because of the hassle with the card) then that's probably Making Off Without Payment, section 3 Theft Act 1978 (Thanks @bdsl). Could the restaurant just force you to wait until close of business if necessary? What if they still hadn't fixed the payment system by then? I don't think a restaurant can physically detain you. Not even the 45 min you have been waiting. But if you leave without paying and without an agreement with them how &amp; when to pay they can of course call the police because again that looks very much like making off without payment. According to your post, they did provide a payment system (cash) which was working all the time and that moreover has the special status of being legal tender. if you don't physically have the cash on you, you can be sued? You can be sued if you don't pay your bill (assuming the bill itself is correct) when it's due. In order to avoid endless hassle of the "I tried to pay via x, but they wouldn't accept this." type, legal tender defines ways of payment of a debt that the creditor/seller must accept. In many legislations, cash in the local currency provides such a fallback if other payment methods fail. Note that cash payment is very robust against internet failure, broken devices and power The UK (+ US) meaning of legal tender is that the restaurant must accept this means of settling the debt (at this time, the food is already eaten but not payed) - but they don't have to accept any other means of payment. (Note that e.g. for the EUR-countries there is at least a recommendation to make acceptance of legal tender mandatory also in retail, which includes simultaneous exchange food vs. payment). The 2nd important implication of this is that any argumentation along the lines that no reasonable means of payment were available would be very weak. You are not required to have sufficient cash with you to pay your bill if you can reasonably assume that some other way of payment will be acceptable to the restaurant. I see that like a spare wheel for a car: if you have a flat tire (card doesn't work) having a spare wheel (cash) allows you to deal with the issue with less hassle than if you don't: change your wheel vs. having to get your car brought to a workshop and wait until they put on a new tire (pay cash instead of waiting for the card to work again or a tedious hunt for another payment method). I'd like to point out that card doesn't work and not sufficient cash at hand (or forgotten purse) is something that happens quite often in general (rarely for any given transaction, but we have lots of transactions). I'd expect a restaurant or a gas station to be experienced in dealing with that. In any case, there are several possibilities to resolve the issue short of "just leaving": The key to all this is communication: talk to the restaurant to find a way to resolve the issue. Reassure them that you're not trying to use the opportunity to defraud them - that's what they are afraid of in this situation. "Where can I find an ATM?" Possibly offering a deposit: "And would you mind looking after my bag [phone] until I'm back?" Possibly showing them your ID card (or similar, if you have any) so they have your address: remember that so far you are an anonymous customer for them: which means that suing you for the money would be somewhere between too expensive and impossible. If you are a group, it should be sufficient if only one of you leaves in search of cash. Credit cards can be charged in a total offline way (MOTO = mail order/telephone order) where the credit card data is entered manually by the seller: the restaurant may be able to charge your credit card if fill in a paper credit card payment form. They may accept settlement via other payment systems: paypal &amp; Co. wire the money via your online banking account (even if that doesn't give an instantaneous transfer, ask them if that's OK with them if you show/forward them the "transfer accepted message" for now) allow them to withdraw the money from your account via direct debit or something similar I'd not expect a restaurant to accept this possibility as they're probably not familiar with it and it means a lot of hassle for them with their bank to get listed to receive money that way. if you are in a region where cheques are still in regular use, that may be a solution as well. Restaurants like any other business can write invoices. They usually don't like this because their risk of having costly trouble to get the money is high. While your printout bill is technically an invoice already, it can be turned into an invoice (+ copy for them) giving your name + address and specifying how and when you'll pay. Which would keep track of how you (pl. = you + restaurant) decided to settle the bill under the peculiar circumstances. This works even in case of e.g. a power outage that prevents you from getting cash from an ATM in the neighborhood.