Copyright infringement and your character name.

From the Cubic Castles Terms of Service:
4.You will not submit content that is copyrighted or subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy, publicity, trade secret, etc., unless you are the owner of such rights or have the appropriate permission from their rightful owner to specifically submit such content;

I know that many children don't understand this so I will explain it for you. I have seen characters in game named after tv, movie, anime and book characters. You need to know that those names are actually the property of the people who created them. Here's an example.

J.K. Rowling created the name Harry Potter. She owns it and is entitled to be paid real world money any time anyone uses that name. Therefore, in game you cannot use the name Harry Potter or any kind of version of it such as HaRry Potter, Harry Pott3r, or any other name that includes Harry Potter unless you have written permission from JK Rowling. This means that you can not use the name even if your own real name is Harry Potter. I know that seems unfair, but that is copyright law.

The problem with using copyrighted names is this: no one is going to sue a seven year old, but they may (quite rightly) sue Cosmic Cow for lots of money which would result in losing a very nice game.

Here is my suggestion if you are using a copyrighted name. Contact CC support and explain that you did not realize that you didn't know that your character name was not useable, and ask them to allow you to change it.

Copyright law is a real law, not just a Cubic Castles rule. It applies to all the games you play where you create a character name for yourself.

Hoping you do the correct thing,
Shaanti

Comments

  • This is just stupid. In ANY MMO or heck, any game where you name your character, many will use copyrighted names. I have a hard time believing that theyll come down on CC instead of other places first. People don't have to worry about Cosmic Cow getting sued because little Bob named himself ]-[4RRY P0TT3R.
  •  gdog gdog Retired Moderator
    It's not for cc to police this. It's the copyright holders who need to enforce their copyright.
    There has been one case of a user made clan event that needed to be renamed.
    I forget what it was called. It was changed when the ip owners reached out.

    Most companies are fine with it. Even wish people to use names, characters, themes etc.
    Look at youtube. All gaming videos are allowed by the publishers. They even want people to do it. At the same time all gaming videos are copyright infringement. No one enforces it as it would be bad for business.

    If anyone should be protecting their copyright is cc themselves.
  • off topic but @gdog lmao
    I saw a place called 7-MART next to a 7-Eleven
  • I absolutly agree with you Shaanti, I would like to add more from the Copyright law.

    The Universal Declaration of Human's Rights say that any person got the right of protection of her moral and material interests that come from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which she is the author (article 27).

    This is a real law! Copyrights aren't here for no reason! They protect every artist of using and get profit from their own production.

    Here is an exemple, for infringement of copyright, in France, from 2004, this offense is punished of "3 years of imprisonment and € 300 000 fine.

    But you don't have to mix some things. Of course, from the Berne Convention, the copyright protection is automatic. That means that wht you created from scratch is protected by copyrights. For example, The Cubic Castles Awards is a copyrighted event. All rights are reserved to me.

    Only a written permission from the author can allow you to use his production. For example, if you're running the exact same even as mine, I'm allowed to claim a compensation from you (most of the time financial).

    But don't mix it with a parody. Parody isn't the same, it just supports the main production and this is not the same.

    Guys, we're talking about real laws. As Shaanti said, CosmicCowGames can lose a lot of money if any copyrights is applied from a player name.

    So please be careful with your in-game names and in other games too! You can easily destroy a game and lead the company to close.

  • Guys, we're talking about real laws. As Shaanti said, CosmicCowGames can lose a lot of money if any copyrights is applied from a player name.

    No, Cosmic cow will lose no money if everyone on Cubic Castles bought a nametag right now and renamed themselves to Harry Potter. It simply does not matter. Rowling will not be browsing various games to make sure no one is named Harry Potter. As Gdog mentioned, most companies like and benefit from people using their names, as it is *Free Advertisement*. This whole thread is pointless.


  • Guys, we're talking about real laws. As Shaanti said, CosmicCowGames can lose a lot of money if any copyrights is applied from a player name.

    No, Cosmic cow will lose no money if everyone on Cubic Castles bought a nametag right now and renamed themselves to Harry Potter. It simply does not matter. Rowling will not be browsing various games to make sure no one is named Harry Potter. As Gdog mentioned, most companies like and benefit from people using their names, as it is *Free Advertisement*. This whole thread is pointless.

    Ye, companies like names from movie sbecause its advertising.


    Why do you think movies censor scenes that have an advertisement or a company name on them?

    They always censor anything that could spread and make a popularity crisis.


    Ex:
    In August Rush, a truck had an advertisement for a real life brand. It was censored.

    In Steven Universe, instead of naming the Fryman Shop McDonalds and calling the employees Speedee and Ronald, they were called Peedee and Ronaldo.

    Again in Steven Universe, a scene in the song What Can I Do For You was censored, worried that it was a bad influence on straight people and encourage the LGBT community.

    Here is the vid of the censored part of the song:

    https://youtu.be/5dtGvucmFBc

  • Guys, we're talking about real laws. As Shaanti said, CosmicCowGames can lose a lot of money if any copyrights is applied from a player name.

    No, Cosmic cow will lose no money if everyone on Cubic Castles bought a nametag right now and renamed themselves to Harry Potter. It simply does not matter. Rowling will not be browsing various games to make sure no one is named Harry Potter. As Gdog mentioned, most companies like and benefit from people using their names, as it is *Free Advertisement*. This whole thread is pointless.

    yeah but some companies don't do this kind of "free advertising". I agree with you but they can at any time apply their copyrights.
  • gdog said:

    It's not for cc to police this. It's the copyright holders who need to enforce their copyright.
    There has been one case of a user made clan event that needed to be renamed.
    I forget what it was called. It was changed when the ip owners reached out.

    Most companies are fine with it. Even wish people to use names, characters, themes etc.
    Look at youtube. All gaming videos are allowed by the publishers. They even want people to do it. At the same time all gaming videos are copyright infringement. No one enforces it as it would be bad for business.

    If anyone should be protecting their copyright is cc themselves.

    theres a thing in some show called too close for comfort(never seen the show) called cosmic cow too
  • edited September 2017
    I bet a industry dairy cow wishes this was her problem.
  • HrothgarHrothgar Member
    edited September 2017
    I feel like I have two change my name because my name comes from both Beowulf & The Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim.
  • Mcwolf the SaneMcwolf the Sane BangladeshMember
    Are memes allowed? Cuz this sums my feelings up pretty nicely:
    7fa.jpg 17.6K
  • This is a dumb thread. That's Pious' opinion on all this.
    And my name is Harry Potter.
  • SirKewberthSirKewberth EdenForum Administrator, Forum Moderator, Game Developer
  • HrothgarHrothgar Member
    edited September 2017
    The page this link leads to uses the word "troll" too much, so I don't trust it c:

    Also, they called me nerd...I called them an offroader >.>
  • ShaantiShaanti Member
    edited September 2017
    gdog said:

    It's not for cc to police this.


    Ok, but then why is it part of the terms of use if Cosmic Cow doesn't care? That makes no sense. I would certainly sue Cosmic Cow and all the other MMOs if someone used a character name that I had created. It's as Joystick said, copyright protects the creators' rights. Even though the gaming community doesn't care about it, it still exists. Cosmic Cow is setting a bad example for children if they allow this to go on. I was just pointing out what Cosmic Cow has in their agreement. I did not write the agreement; players agreed to the terms and should follow them.
    Hrothgar said:

    I feel like I have two change my name because my name comes from both Beowulf & The Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim.

    As for Beowulf, that work is now in Public Domain which means the copynright agreement has run out. But if Elder Scrolls has copyrighted the name Hrothgar as part of the game then you may not use it.
    As regards the movie Troll, if I were the writers I would be suing JK Rowling, but that all depends on what they have under copyright.

    As for the claims that people want free advertising: if they are that greedy, they could make more money suing because really, seeing a kid with the game name Naruto is not enticing me to watch anime. Seeing someone drink Pepsi in a movie does not make me want to drink Pepsi. I am sad for you if you are so easily influenced.
  • edited September 2017
    As with any company it is mandatory to have fine print to fall back on in any legal situtation that may arise. That is why it exists. Plus with a company you have to pick how to spend your resources. Taking the time to pursue something that trivial would be asinine.

    An example would be say a company decided to pursue a case against Cosmic Cow because there was a user with a copyrighted name. They would be able to raise their hands and say not our problem look at the fine print which would in turn shift the case to said individual not the company.

    Pursuing a company has a much larger profit margin and it be more of a tasty tangible morsel to pursue than an individual who has probably a non existent net worth. In such cases it is rarely about the law it is about potential profit gain or defending the existent profit margin.
  • CrepusCrepus Member
    edited September 2017
    So is my name copyrighted??
    I just coincidentally found out ;-;
  • huuu that world...

    My concern, Copyright just shouldn't exist.

    People who think that they "invent" something... how to say... they just discovered something that was in wait of being discovered.
    Any color, any idea, any musical note, melody or build will, by force of circumstances, be discovered or created one day, unless humanity turn to dust.

    We'll slowly come to that point : "I've already heared that music" "That scenario is just a copy of"....

    ...All of this because of the limit of the human sens.

    We need to materialize idea or concept with copyright... sad thing it is. But well i can't realy deal with it since we are living in a bath of mistakes and bad choices.

    Ha ha ! sorry for the drift^^
  • Guess there's more than one cosmic cow in the Outer Space Farm...no offense.

  • pious said:

    This is a dumb thread. That's Pious' opinion on all this.
    And my name is Harry Potter.

    I Agree With The Mighty Pious
  • lucaaa795 said:

    Well you copy: http://www.shaanti.co.uk/
    Please change your name so youre promoting your idea giving as example yourself
    Thanks.

    Thank you, Luca.
  • SirKewberthSirKewberth EdenForum Administrator, Forum Moderator, Game Developer
    Seems to be devolving a bit into argument so will close it up in the interest of harmony.
This discussion has been closed.