okay guys, so I’m completely blind about copyright
can title of a product fall under copyright issue?
so I found a title for my WIP and nobody in this forum have used it,
but when I google, I found like movies, novels, songs, and other artistic works using that exact title
mind you, their works and my work have nothing in common, it’s just about the title, would that be a problem?
I don’t think I’d become someone worthy of a copyright issue, but better safe than sorry
but when I google, I found like movies, novels, songs, and other artistic works using that exact title
Well that answers your question, doesn’t it? Works share titles all the time, it’s only legally problematic when you want to use a trademarked title like “Star Wars” or something.
Though if there are really that many products using that title of yours, maybe you should consider changing it for originality’s sake.
Last I asked, Hosted Games does not have issues with other works that share the same title… However, if your game shares the same title as another game they’ve already published, they might ask you to consider a new title.
That’s true enough, but since my project’s title is literally just a regular word, criticizing others for not playing nice with Google would feel a tad hypocritical. It’s not like I’ll ever reach the first page of search results, not while competing with the dictionary itself.
Most of the time single dictionary words are not copyrightable as book/game titles, but as others have said, but I’d recommend putting a extra part in your title to make it findable. (For example you could use “Speed” as your title but good luck having it found on a Google/game search.) .
Company names are trickier and can be trademarked with is different (ie you could call a game about farming “Apple” but you couldn’t start a company and and call it “Apple”. It’d also be very dicey to write a game about building computers and call it “Apple” due to the implied association.) Be aware of trademarked series/companies/names that may be in titles. ie Titanic the historical ship vs Titanic the movie.
There’s also context. If you write a game with the same premise and a similar/same name, you may hit grounds for a potential plagerism case.(Example, Jaws was largely copied and renamed “Great white” and they were found guilty of plagerism.) Can You Protect Your Book Title? Copyright and Trade Mark.
I don’t think you can copyright book titles. I’ve seen books use the same title of books that were famous a decade or two beforehand. A few years back a romance author made a nasty attempt to trademark a family name because she used the name in her titles. Thing is, it wasn’t a name like Wilson or Smith, but a word that not only was a double entendre but had a certain meaning on its own. She didn’t succeed.
Known titles like Star Wars (which has an entire line of merchandise) are a different story. Large companies like Ferarri are notorious for protecting their name. They let you get by if they approve of how you use it, but will turn around and sue if they don’t. You can check to see if the word(s) you want are trademarked and go from there.
sorry to bump my old thread, but something bothers me again
how about certain character/race/names that used widely across many literatures, would there be any copyright problems with that?
like dragonborns/draconians to define dragon-human hybric group/society within your worldbuilding, or other names that you found in someone else’s work but you think it’s commonly used everywhere so it’s free to use
Character names also fall under trademark rather than copyright. What that means is, even if you’re naming your character something ultra-recognizable like “Harry Potter” you’re legally fine unless you advertize your book as a “Harry Potter” novel or explicitely use characters owned by J.K. Rowling. Practically speaking, of course, neither is a great idea.
As for fantasy races and species… that’s kinda complicated. Some are protected by copyright, others aren’t, and that depends largely on their origins. “Orcs” are public domain since they’re actual folklore, “Uruk-hai” are not because they’re something Tolkien actually came up with. I don’t think dragonborn are protected by either trademark or copyright, but WotC can be stupid about that kind of stuff, so don’t quote me on that issue.
