Hey. Just wanted to know whether there would be any legal issues if i used something form another source of media and put it into my game as a hidden object. For example could I hide the Dragon Ball’s from the ‘Dragonball’ series’ as a hidden object for the player to find, and get an achievement from doing so, without getting copyrighted or having any fines or problems?
I would quite like to know as I am feeling like I want to start this now so that I don’t forget to at a later point. Thanks.
Short answer is no. Long answer goes into licensing and your business model. You probably generally need to request permission from the rights holder to do this. However, you may also make a reference to those materials without using trademarked or copyrighted imagery or intellectual property. For example, if you’ve played Fallout 3 or New Vegas (can’t recall which), you can find a refrigerator with a fedora, whip, and skeleton in it, indicating that it’s a spoof of / reference to some Indiana Jones movie.