Copyrights on odd names

[Aegrus]

It's ridiculous for someone to try to copyright a conventional name, like Bob. No one can do that. But if a name is odd, say, Lord Oddnameexample, could that by copyrighted?

I wouldn't think so, as then where do you draw the line between a common name and an odd one? Still, I'd like to know for sure.

 

[Spring-Gem]

Names can't be copyrighted, but they can be trademarked.

 

[ThinkerX]

There is a resteraunt not too far from where I live that was forced to change its name because 'Seasons' was part of that name.

 

[Steerpike]

@ThinkerX: If that happened, it was almost certainly a trademark issue.

@Aegrus: As Spring-Gem said, names aren't generally covered by copyright. This is because they're so short. If you came up with a 2000-word "name" for your book, you'd probably have some copyright protection in the name (but not many readers).

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

I think if you have a charcater called Harry Potter who is a kid in wizard school...you'd have a few problems. Voldemort, might be another.

On a normal basis, unless you are borrowing unique names from other books, as well as what the characters were in those books, there isn't much to worry about. If your worried about a name you come up with, I wouldn't get to concerned. It comes down to this, if HP didn't do so well, and only had mediocre sales, you could use most of the character names in different stories and not be too concerned with getting sued.

I guess it depends on which side you are concerned with, but most people who lack the creativity to come up with their own names, probably lack the creativity to create a story that anyone would really want to read, or that would do well.

 

[Steerpike]

Use of Harry Potter would also be a trademark issue. You could run into some copyright issues in the depiction of the character in narration, perhaps, and certainly if you reproduced pictures of the character.

 

[mirrorrorrim]

I think some of the lawsuits relating to the Harry Potter series are a good illustration of what you can and can't do:

In 1999, Nancy Stouffer, an American author, sued Rowling and her publishers for the use of the word "Muggle,"
which Stouffer had invented for a fantastical race in her book "The Legend of Rah and the Muggles." She lost, because not only did her Muggles have little to no similarities to Rowling's, but it was impossible to prove that Rowling had used Stouffer's work as her source for the word. She also sued because another of her books was entitled "Larry Potter and His Best Friend Lilly," and the character Larry Potter's appearance was somewhat similar to the one Rowling used to describe Harry. Stouffer also lost this case.

So, you can use other people's unique words as much as you want, so long as you're not using them to refer to the same thing, and so long as you don't confuse would-be readers into thinking you are. You could probably have a character named Voldemort, for example, so long as you made him (or her) clearly distinguishable from the dark wizard of Harry Potter fame, and don't have your cover jacket say something like "Read the untold origins of Voldemort!".

On the other hand, there have been multiple unauthorized Harry Potter sequels, almost all of which have been found to be illegal, due to the fact that their Harry Potter is the exact same character as the one found in Rowling's books. This has been true even when his name and those of other characters have been changed.

My source for all of this was the wikipedia article on it: Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regarding an earlier post, business names are a different matter entirely. Usually, you can use a name so long as there isn't another business in the same market using the same name, or one so similar customers could become confused. The latter part seems to be particularly important, which is why it'd probably be illegal to use the name of any large, well-known company, even if the service you were offering was completely different. For example, I don't think an ice cream shop called "Wal-Mart" would pass muster, simply because everyone already has an idea about what Wal-Mart is, and so consumers would be likely to think the ice cream shop was somehow associated with the grocery store chain.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

I hope to one day to write something good enough that others create fan fic of it.

 

[SeverinR]

I use names from many sources, only once(knowingly) have I read a character name and decided to use it in one of my books.
It was not a overly unique name, and I believe I might have seen it before in another fantasy story.

Like others have said, names are common, there are thousands of Harry's out there. There are probably several real people named Harry Potter, if for some reason they wrote a book about themselves, they would not be confused with the popular Harry Potter(unless that is why they are writing the book). Harry Potter, I assume is trademarked, I am not sure how that would be handled if a book became popular enough to make the real person Harry Potter conflicted with the tm Harry Potter.

 

[Voldermort]

You need to speak to a lawyer.

Apple lost a case in China where they were not allowed to use "iPad".

It gets complicated.

 

[Steerpike]

That was a trademark case in China. Names generally get no copyright protection. If you use the name as a trademark, then you can get some protection that way, but enforcement would have to be for trademark infringement, which has different requirements than copyright infringement.

 

[SeverinR]

Side question,

Does anyone TM something* in a book, or is it more of a movie thing?

*names, slogans, etc.

Even the big name writers, I can't picture them TM an item in a book.

 

[Steerpike]

Side question,

Does anyone TM something* in a book, or is it more of a movie thing?

*names, slogans, etc.

Even the big name writers, I can't picture them TM an item in a book.

Putting the TM there doesn't necessarily mean anything. It tells people you consider the word or phrase a trademark, but whether you can actually have any trademark rights in it is an entirely separate issue.

If you have a name of a city in your story, for example, you can "TM" it all you want, and you are unlikely to get an ounce of trademark protection for it in that context.

You have to actually use something as a trademark to accrue trademark rights.

 

[The Blue Lotus]

Trump Said he was going to Cr and TM his name after giving a group of little old ladies guff about them holding "Trump" night.
I don't however know if he was successful or not.

Personaly, My business went through some ugly naming issues because someone decided it was too similar to the S&P stock exchange, that is until I pointed out that S & P stood for Siva and myself...

Some people are just Ugh! A name in my opinion is just that, I can't tell you the number of people that I went to school with that had the same name as I, which is prolly why I changed it to one NO ONE has! which kinda makes the "p" a misnomer but ... oh well.

How many Bob's do you know? ...

 

[Steerpike]

You can get a trademark on a surname, for example, but you have to show what is called 'secondary meaning.' You can't just register it as a trademark right away. You have to show a continuous use over years such that the name has actually come to be associated with your product in the mind of the consumer. So "Campbell" for soup, or "Kellogg" for cereal are protected even those they are names and there are plenty of others out there with those last names. But if you try to file a trademark application on your own surname, and you've only just used it as a trademark, you're going to have a bit of an uphill battle in the trademark office.