Copyrighted References in Gaming

Questions & Answers
1

I was “Googling” this the other day, and couldn’t find a good answer. I’m sure I wasn’t searching well enough.

Let’s say, one of us, in one of our games, references something like one of the following, in a cutscene or some sort of character dialog: (just the quote, not referencing where it’s from)

“Who put this thing together? Me, that’s who! Who do I trust? Me!” - Scarface

“Every Day I’m Shufflin” - LMFAO (band)

“Every guy here would love to have a monkey” - Dane Cook

“I’m Lovin It” - McDonalds

-or-

Referencing a branded, trademarked product or service directly:

‘Damn that’s cooler than THE LION KING’

‘Yeah maybe I’ll start talking to you again when you join BLINK 182’

‘That DANIEL TOSH is a funny ass B&$!H’

More interested in the answer to the referencing rather than to the direct quote, but I’m sure I’m not the only one on here that would benefit from knowing the legal ramifications of any of this in our games. A LOT of us reference things without knowing, and if anyone has had first-hand experience in this, it would be appreciated.

2

Hehe, nice list! =D
Did a couple of minutes googling for you, let’s copy-paste some things:

Some things said in public are definitely subject to copyright protection. Books, articles, songs, poems, and other textual works are protected by copyright law whether they are published or unpublished. You need permission to quote from them unless an exception to copyright protection applies. Note that some categories of text are not copyright-protected. These include extemporaneous speech that is not recorded, short phrases and slogans, and works that are in the public domain.
95Read More About Staying Legal When Using Quotes95

Some things written down are not subject to protection. Depends on who wrote it, when it was written, how much of it you quote, your purpose in quoting it, and many other factors.

If something is copyrighted and you want to be sure not to get any troubles, you should ask permission of the author or wait 50 years after his/her dead before using it, read: List of countries’ copyright length.

What’s the Licensing Fee to Use a Quote? Licensing fees for quotes have no firm standards and are completely negotiable. The licensing fee to quote from a book or periodical might be $25 to $200+. The licensing fee to quote lyrics might be a few hundred dollars to $1,000+. Criteria that impacts the licensing fee includes how well-known the quote is and how you plan to use the quote.

I don’t think you’ll get any problems with a reference to the lion king or blink 182… The other ones, are a bit harder to tell… I got a lot of songs with Scarface quotes in it so I would be amazed if he would be the one that’s going to sue you… And I think LMFAO would be ROFLAO when they play your game. Can’t make any promisses however.

Your use is more likely to qualify as a fair use if the nature of your work is criticism, commentary, news, educational, or parody.

95Want to know more about US Fair-Use, read this95

3

Thanks stylizer, I need to research more on fair-use for parody purposes. I think that’s where most of us in gaming tend to fall. Similar to how shows like South Park and Family Guy get away with their use of referencing EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD.

I already have vague references to various brands, etc in what I’ve worked on, but I’ve stayed way far away enough to not be liable for anything, and wanted to make the giant grey area as black and white as possible.

4

Here is a good reference for anyone else interested in using Parody. It’s a giant grey area, but this clears up what Fair Use through parody is.