Product Placement/References to Brand Names

[Obscura]

How does reference to a brand/household product work in a visual novel?

Let's say a character is discussing a Nintendo game with another character.

It sounds like in books, you may be able to do this if it's:

1) not reflective of any endorsement
2) isn't defamatory
3) accurate about the product

It also seems like you might want to add something in your book that says the game is a product of Nintendo, etc. etc.

How do rights like these work in a visual novel or video game? I recall seeing a post here long ago, but I might be just my imagination.

Would you advise against referencing the product? I really don't want to use a parody name because the conversation gets very specific, and I'll probably need to eliminate the conversation altogether if I can't use the actual name of the game.

Thanks!

[PyTom]

http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2010/12/ ... in-my.html

Seems like a reasonable guide. I'd suggest that VNs go a step further - if you depict the product, you start running into copyright law, assuming the product is something that can be copyrighted. So you could likely have a character say "Let's play Splatoon!", but if you use a screenshot of splatoon - or even an original drawing of one of the characters - you risk running into problems.

IANAL, of course.

[firecat]

you could also do this, where a anime show only lets people see it half the product under 5 seconds.

pause to see the 2 products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bguj5H4aNFM

[SundownKid]

Sometimes it would be ridiculous to say a fake brand name like "McRonalds" when everything else in the universe is realistic.

In that case you would say the real brand name. Unless it's defamatory about it, you can use it without fear of being sued.

Saying something like "I love Final Fantasy, it's so fun!" and so forth would be well within your rights. At least it should be, despite me never remembering any games that mentioned other games specifically. Maybe because their legal departments are just paranoid.

[Tempus]

I'm pretty sure it's okay even if you had something like, "fuck McDonald's and the bullshit healthy image it tries to present." There's no law against hating a company/business or putting that opinion in writing or profiting off that opinion, whether it's your own or your character's. If a law like that did exist it'd make opinion pieces about businesses impossible—everything written about them would have to be a pleasant, non-official advertisement which is absurd.

The only place you're likely to run into trouble is if you present a negative opinion as a fact when it's not—defamation, in other words. So "'KFC kills millions of people every year,' said Gary hotly, eating his fries" would be fine in a fiction work where the character has an opinion. But if you were presenting the same sentiment as though it's a fact with the air of a documentary then you'd have a problem. (Though in this case it probably IS true; come at me, KFC.)

Obviously I'm not a lawyer, and absurd laws do exist.

[PyTom]

I'm pretty sure it's okay even if you had something like, "fuck McDonald's and the bullshit healthy image it tries to present." There's no law against hating a company/business or putting that opinion in writing or profiting off that opinion, whether it's your own or your character's. If a law like that did exist it'd make opinion pieces about businesses impossible—everything written about them would have to be a pleasant, non-official advertisement which is absurd.

You need to be careful about trademark tarnishment as well. There have been cases where car logos were blurred out, rather than have the brand associated with the movie villians. Would that hold up in court - well, let me ask a different question. Can you afford to take it to court?

I'd probably avoid negative references to real companies.

[Tempus]

You need to be careful about trademark tarnishment as well. There have been cases where car logos were blurred out, rather than have the brand associated with the movie villians. Would that hold up in court - well, let me ask a different question. Can you afford to take it to court?

I'd probably avoid negative references to real companies.

Yeah, I had originally written that as an addendum but left it out. As you say, it's almost irrelevant as to whether what you're doing is legal when you're talking about pissing off big companies with correspondingly big war chests. Absolutely despicable the way they can wield lawsuits—or the threat thereof—despite being in the wrong. Though you're likely to get something like a cease and desist order or some other formal contact before having a lawsuit filed against you.

One other thing you can do, provided the mention is positive or at least incidental, is ask the company for permission. I've tried this in the past... and it didn't work. No response. But companies differ and some are quite permissive.

[Keinart]

Sometimes it would be ridiculous to say a fake brand name like "McRonalds" when everything else in the universe is realistic.

In that case you would say the real brand name. Unless it's defamatory about it, you can use it without fear of being sued.

Saying something like "I love Final Fantasy, it's so fun!" and so forth would be well within your rights. At least it should be, despite me never remembering any games that mentioned other games specifically. Maybe because their legal departments are just paranoid.

I work in QA linguistics for videogames and I know of a few instances where we had to remove entire lines just because these paranoids instances. I knew of a really small game that had a reference to Mario where all they would say it's "an Italiam plumber jumping around" or something like that, and they had to remove it just for that. There were two reasons, the first because they were being published under another company so they don't want to mention anything about their enemies, and because if you put references to things that may be considered not appropiated for the brand they may complain, just like what Tom said before about car brands.

I think it's not too bad in our sector since they are mostly small games and they are not so paranoid with us, most of us are indies with no publishers so it's not that of a big deal, the moment you are under a publisher they may want to make sure you don't mention more than necessary though.

[Shakezula]

I refuse to even acknowledge what country the events of the story takes place in. To me the more uncapped, open ended the experience, the better.

[Taleweaver]

In Max Barry's novel "Jennifer Government", the US of A are practically owned by large corporations, with employees expected to marry the companies they work at and take their brand names as last names, so people end up as John Microsoft or Bill Volkswagen. The plot revolves around a Nike exec who, in order to give their latest brand of sneakers the necessary "street cred", hires someone to kill buyers of said sneakers in public and make it look as though gangs are willing to murder for these shoes.

Yup, that's a published novel.