Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Use of real organization in fiction

It is legally unproblematic to use institutions that are of a quasi-timeless nature such as the catholic church, the United States, or the egyptian pyramids. If you have "a president of the USA" i...

posted 6y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:59:05Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30121
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:59:05Z (over 4 years ago)
It is legally unproblematic to use institutions that are of a quasi-timeless nature such as the catholic church, the United States, or the egyptian pyramids.

If you have "a president of the USA" in your novel, this person will be understood to be a fictional president and not the current one (unless you make it clear that he is).

Institutions that are perceived to be a part of our present times, on the other hand, will always be identified with their real counterpart.

If you have "Microsoft" in your novel, every reader will understand everything you write about your fictional Microsoft to be representative of your opinion of the real company.

I would therefore always and without exception choose a fictional company, institution, or person.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-09-07T08:35:22Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 0