Hey!
I am developing a game that has 30-100 artists. Currently they are on their real names, but hand drawn pictures. Is this somehow illegal? If so, in which countries it is legal/illegal?
There is always the chance to modify the names by one letter or so, but it seems like a stupid idea, given that the funny part is to have very differing artist in your band. (Yes, it's a band game..)
- Peksi
Very illegal. I have friends who are very famous musicians and the lawyers they have protect their name and image.
This is something that is always tough because celebrities usually protect their image and likeness with a copyright.
This link is about using their image on a t-shirt, but I think the principle still applies to board games:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/can-use-celebrity-images-tshirts-40638.html
If the person is deceased you might be able to get away with it, but some celebrities (like John Lennon and George Harrison) still have an estate that handles legal affairs and will definitely not want you to use their image.
When it comes to using existing people/property/produced work, the general rule of thumb is to avoid it if at all possible. If your work depends on other people's images, etc. (which I contest it shouldn't ever come to that), then you might want to consider changing the name and one aspect of their look (just so it can't be said you copied a picture of an existing person.)
Last resort is to contact the agent or lawyer for these people and try and get permission - that is the hardest route and will take you a lot of time or money to accomplish.
Good luck with your design, hope this doesn't discourage you!
You'll find that most creative work that involves other people without their consent usually use aliases or changes the names slightly because of this.
Depending on how you're using your theme you could try using wordplays with the names to make them funny, like Johnny Debit or DAvid Growl as a silly example or you can create names that reference the original artis like, I don't know, Larry Urchin. How you're handling your theme will tell you what the best approach will be.
I had a similar, though not identical, problem designing a science-fiction game. Just mentioning it here to help clarify the boundaries a bit.
The consensus was that the ships could simply be named Armstrong, Gagarin, Leonov, Schmitt and Tereshkova without explanation of where the names came from. Players might go off to Wikipedia, but that's okay.
This is different from your situation because the ships would be named after people, whereas you're dealing with the actual people. In this case you either need explicit permission or alter-egos. One possibility would be to just use first names (if that doesn't cut down your options too much).
Thanks! :)
I spoke to a friend. He said as long as you make sure it's a parody and it's satire you should be good. Also avoid anything with actual songs.
You could save yourself the hassle of nobody being able to actually answer your question by simply reading what the Copyright office says. It really is simple to read & understand.
The answers you have gotten here are kinda right. Read the rules for yourself & then go do the research.
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Hey! I was kinda expecting there to be an issue with copyrights and whatnot. I might as well change one or two letter in their names and it wouldn't mess up the mechanics.
Thanks! :)