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There are names and there are brands. Lots of people have the same name and it is not reasonable to expect that no fictional character to have a name that no one else does. Brands, on the other h...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2020-01-03T20:41:51Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25026 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:41:55Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25026 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:41:55Z (over 4 years ago)
There are names and there are brands. Lots of people have the same name and it is not reasonable to expect that no fictional character to have a name that no one else does. Brands, on the other hand, enjoy a degree of uniqueness protection that ordinary names do not. Some actor's names are not only names, they are brands. But merely having a listing on IMDB does not make your name a brand name. The protection of brand names is by no means absolute. It only covers specific protection against commercial confusion. And the fair use doctrine allows a fair amount of leeway for literary use. IANAL but is seems unlikely that the usage you propose is in any way conflicting with anyone's commercial rights. On the other hand, people, and publishers, tend to give such issues a wide berth because they don't want the hassle of defending a nuisance suit.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2016-10-24T16:13:58Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 0