Using real places in a novel

Dragonwriter · Feb 12, 2015

justMANGO said:
As a person with some understanding of law I'd err on the safe side because heck, who wants to be up against the big corps? But as an author I'd just write whatever I please. It's a story, for goodness sake, if trouble comes, it comes and shall be dealt with then.

Good point. I'm a tiny fish, and I doubt Disney would ever even find out. I think I'll go ahead and publish it the way it is, and if they complain about it I'll be flattered that they noticed and change it (since it will be self-pubbed, it'll be easy enough to pull it down and make changes).

Thanks!

Neegh · Feb 12, 2015

shadowwalker said:
Just out of curiosity, I looked (or tried to look) for lawsuits by Disney against authors. I found a lot of lawsuits because people were using actual Disney characters for their businesses or in movies, and I found a lot of people suing Disney for a variety of things including plagiarism, but I couldn't find anything about books and/or authors and/or publishers of said books. Nada. So are there actually lawsuits out there or are those other trademark cases being morphed into paranoia about novels? Just seems if those other suits (threatened or implemented) get talked about, there ought to be some mention of novelists/novels. ??

Would you find them on a Google search if they were settled out of court? Many times all they have to do is contact you (your lawyer or publisher) and you'll buckle under.

justMANGO · Feb 12, 2015

Neegh said:
Would you find them on a Google search if they were settled out of court? Many times all they have to do is contact you (your lawyer or publisher) and you'll buckle under.

Yea, Google isn't the greatest place for looking up law suit dockets. In the profession we use far more specialized databases precisely because Google doesn't do a good job. And you're exactly right; most of them do get settled out of court (because litigation is expensive), and once they do you won't find much in terms of case documents.

Old Hack · Feb 12, 2015

Dragonwriter said:
Good point. I'm a tiny fish, and I doubt Disney would ever even find out. I think I'll go ahead and publish it the way it is, and if they complain about it I'll be flattered that they noticed and change it (since it will be self-pubbed, it'll be easy enough to pull it down and make changes).

Thanks!

This is a really terrible idea.

You've had it explained to you why a large corporation would take exception to being portrayed in the way you're portraying Disney in your books; and it's well known that Disney is very keen to defend its reputation, and is highly litigious.

Being willing to change something after the event isn't the same as not doing it in the first place.

If you publish now, you'll essentially be telling Disney that you don't care about any of that. They won't be happy. And don't believe that you're too small for them to notice: they've noticed plenty of other small fry in the past.

Neegh · Feb 13, 2015

justMANGO said:
Yea, Google isn't the greatest place for looking up law suit dockets. In the profession we use far more specialized databases precisely because Google doesn't do a good job. And you're exactly right; most of them do get settled out of court (because litigation is expensive), and once they do you won't find much in terms of case documents.

And the ones that settle before documents are even filed you'll find nothing at all.

justMANGO · Feb 13, 2015

Neegh said:
And the ones that settle before documents are even filed you'll find nothing at all.

Yup. Which is why there's a perverse part of me that wishes that more things ended up in court despite all the cost. Would love to see all the things (ahem, bullying) that go invisible.

shadowwalker · Feb 13, 2015

I realize that many lawsuits get either tossed out or settled out of court and thus won't be in "court documents", but many of the other cases appeared in the news and were cases that never got to court or hadn't reached that stage yet. And considering how 'vocal' most authors (and their friends) seem to be, I just found it odd that there was no mention at all of such actions.

I'd just like to see some factual/substantiated information on these lawsuits (or threats of) instead of "Disney has a reputation for ..." "my friend was ...". So many authors seem to be running scared and I'd like to know if there's actually a reason for it.

Neegh · Feb 13, 2015

You don't have to believe me but, the level of--as JustMANGO put it, "Bullying"--that goes on is way more prevalent than you'd expect. And the reason you wont hear more of it is because of the non-discloser contract that the poor sods had to sign.

justMANGO · Feb 13, 2015

Neegh said:
And the reason you wont hear more of it is because of the non-discloser contract that the poor sods had to sign.

This. Yes, settlements often contain nondisclosure clauses (aka confidentiality). Some of them will put limit on what you can talk about, some won't even let you mention that there was a settlement to begin with.

shadowwalker · Feb 13, 2015

So what about the cases that hit the news before a settlement, as these other non-author/novel cases? I'm not trying to be obstinate, but it's just sounding more and more like 'urban legend' territory to me.

Neegh · Feb 13, 2015

shadowwalker said:
So what about the cases that hit the news before a settlement, as these other non-author/novel cases? I'm not trying to be obstinate, but it's just sounding more and more like 'urban legend' territory to me.

If you hear about someone attending an author workshop and the said author says that it might not be such a good idea to depict certain entities in your novels, why would you have a hard time believing that there may be a good reason to just not go there?

Wow…two split-infinitives in one week!

I must be on a roll.

shadowwalker · Feb 13, 2015

Neegh said:
If you hear about someone attending an author workshop and the said author says that it might not be such a good idea to depict certain entities in your novels, why would you have a hard time believing that there may be a good reason to just not go there?

For the same reason I don't not do other things because someone, somewhere 'heard' that someone else, somewhere else got in trouble for doing it, and yet I can't find any hard evidence that that someone else even existed. One author saying it might not be a good idea is exactly that - one author saying it might not be a good idea. So?

Old Hack · Feb 14, 2015

shadowwalker said:
So what about the cases that hit the news before a settlement, as these other non-author/novel cases? I'm not trying to be obstinate, but it's just sounding more and more like 'urban legend' territory to me.

It isn't an urban legend.

I've been involved in several such cases.

Ravioli · Feb 14, 2015

Are those real places public or private? I mean, Tel Aviv is a place, so is its gay Gordon Beach. Why make up an equivalent if you have the perfect thing for real that readers can identify with?
I guess it's a difference whether a place is literally and entirely OWNED by someone with all the rights to it, such as Disney Land indeed, or, uh, Jerusalem. I use real places. I may change around names, but in my story there's a pet shop next to an office supplies shop at the Haifa outskirts just as in real life and see if I care.

Disney in particular doesn't worry me no matter how gigantic they are. Every damned falafel joint has a Disney character painted on their window, every kindergarten decorates their signage with Pluto and Mickey. Uncreative no-goods on deviantART trace screenshots from Disney movies and offer tham as "bases" to recolor by other no-goods who don't bother to draw their own pictures.
Where are the lawyers? Exactly. Disney is probably too huge to care about those victimless violations of copyright.

Old Hack · Feb 14, 2015

NaeimGiladisLegacy said:
Disney in particular doesn't worry me no matter how gigantic they are. Every damned falafel joint has a Disney character painted on their window, every kindergarten decorates their signage with Pluto and Mickey. Uncreative no-goods on deviantART trace screenshots from Disney movies and offer tham as "bases" to recolor by other no-goods who don't bother to draw their own pictures.

Where are the lawyers? Exactly. Disney is probably too huge to care about those victimless violations of copyright.

Disney in particular should worry you.

Disney is notoriously litigious and it definitely does care when people infringe on its copyrights and trademarks. You really don't want to infringe on any of its copyrights in any way.

cornflake · Feb 14, 2015

NaeimGiladisLegacy said:
Are those real places public or private? I mean, Tel Aviv is a place, so is its gay Gordon Beach. Why make up an equivalent if you have the perfect thing for real that readers can identify with?
I guess it's a difference whether a place is literally and entirely OWNED by someone with all the rights to it, such as Disney Land indeed, or, uh, Jerusalem. I use real places. I may change around names, but in my story there's a pet shop next to an office supplies shop at the Haifa outskirts just as in real life and see if I care.

Disney in particular doesn't worry me no matter how gigantic they are. Every damned falafel joint has a Disney character painted on their window, every kindergarten decorates their signage with Pluto and Mickey. Uncreative no-goods on deviantART trace screenshots from Disney movies and offer tham as "bases" to recolor by other no-goods who don't bother to draw their own pictures.
Where are the lawyers? Exactly. Disney is probably too huge to care about those victimless violations of copyright.

Depending on whether you use the place's name and what you say, you may end up caring, or not.

About Disney, you should worry.

They're not too huge to care - they care a lot.

As a writer, you should know violations of copyright, or those violations of trademark, btw, are not victimless. They're diluting and, at times, denigrating a serious brand. Disney absolutely goes after people, big and small. It simply takes a while to get to them all, but they do go after people.

They've gone after random people selling stuff with unlicensed Disney art and rip-off Disney art on Ebay and etsy, they've gone after places like daycares and shops using unlicensed or fake characters in advertisements. They do this all the time. There's a lot of it.

Same as McDonald's will come after your ass if you start selling a Big Mac, or calling your restaurant MacDonald's with a big yellow M in the logo.

Companies spend a lot of time and money creating a brand - it doesn't make sense to not protect it.

Old Hack · Feb 14, 2015

cornflake said:
As a writer, you should know violations of copyright, or those violations of trademark, btw, are not victimless.

Agreed. We have to respect the copyrights and trademarks of others. If we don't, who is going to?

shadowwalker · Feb 14, 2015

Old Hack said:
It isn't an urban legend.

I've been involved in several such cases.

And simply because Disneyland was the setting or some Disney character was mentioned?

This is what bothers me about these discussions. Fair use would indicate that placing a scene in a particular place or mentioning a trademarked or copyrighted character would get any such lawsuit tossed out on its ear. The cases I found were where people or businesses were openly violating trademark or copyright by using characters or locations to enhance their own business. So understanding the circumstances where a lawsuit would have any validity is what would seem to be important, not just "don't do it".

Bing Z · Feb 14, 2015

Old Hack said:
It isn't an urban legend.

I've been involved in several such cases.

If you don't mind, can you tell us a little?

My understanding so far has been (using Disneyland as an example):

a) If in the book a family goes to Disneyland and has a fun time and the teen daughter meets a boy there and the rest of the book is about the development of a romance after they've returned home. There's nothing wrong and Disney has no ground to (and won't) come after you, self-pubbed or via the Big 5.

b) If in the book a group of kids and teens goes to Disneyland and they do drugs and have orgies there and an 8yo gets raped and killed. Heck, I'll bet $1,000 to $1 Disney is going to come hard on you even if you were from the Walton family.

Old Hack · Feb 14, 2015

I can't be specific about the cases I've been involved with or have knowledge of, sorry. But I can give you general guidelines, on the understanding that I am not a lawyer and this is not definitely going to protect you from legal action.

You can mention your characters going to Disneyland or similar places so long as they're all nice people and have a good time there.

The moment you start sending fictional criminals there, or implying that bad things might happen there, you're open to legal action.

You can show your characters drinking Coke and eating Warburton's bread, or visiting KFC etc. so long as it's a positive experience.

You can't show your characters doing those things and then having food poisoning as a result without risking trouble for you, the writer.

I hope that's a help.

shadowwalker · Feb 14, 2015

Old Hack said:
I can't be specific about the cases I've been involved with or have knowledge of, sorry. But I can give you general guidelines, on the understanding that I am not a lawyer and this is not definitely going to protect you from legal action.

You can mention your characters going to Disneyland or similar places so long as they're all nice people and have a good time there.

The moment you start sending fictional criminals there, or implying that bad things might happen there, you're open to legal action.

You can show your characters drinking Coke and eating Warburton's bread, or visiting KFC etc. so long as it's a positive experience.

You can't show your characters doing those things and then having food poisoning as a result without risking trouble for you, the writer.

I hope that's a help.

Yes - much better than the boogieman of "Oh don't mention them or you'll get sued!".

Ravioli · Feb 14, 2015

Old Hack said:
Disney in particular should worry you.

Disney is notoriously litigious and it definitely does care when people infringe on its copyrights and trademarks. You really don't want to infringe on any of its copyrights in any way.

Really? I see their characters all the time all over the place with no consequence. And I don't get this obsession anyway. It's good publicity, what harm could the depiction of their jointless black mouse possibly do?

cornflake said:
They're diluting and, at times, denigrating a serious brand. Disney absolutely goes after people, big and small. It simply takes a while to get to them all, but they do go after people.
Same as McDonald's will come after your ass if you start selling a Big Mac, or calling your restaurant MacDonald's with a big yellow M in the logo.

Protecting the brand I understand, but when I say "victimless" I am saying that I don't see how it hurts Disney for some daycare to paint a Donald on its window.
I'm not saying negative mentions are victimless, but how can a neutral or positive mention harm Disney?

Same as McDonald's will come after your ass if you start selling a Big Mac, or calling your restaurant MacDonald's with a big yellow M in the logo.

But that's something totally different from a brand mention in a bigger product unrelated to the brand, or an ugly doodle of a licensed character on a daycare window... It's as if selling something called a BigMac, were the same as writing in a novel, "She bit into her BigMac". The daycare doesn't make better business with Pluto on its wall. Many daycares have their kids paint whatever they like; sue because a kid doodled on a wall? This is why we can't have nice things...

Companies spend a lot of time and money creating a brand - it doesn't make sense to not protect it.

From what? What's the harm in mentions and doodles as long as the money does not actually come from the use of the brand? Could Hollywood Undead sue me, or am I doing them any harm, by writing that a character is listening to a song of theirs? I had a scene where one dude put on Muse and the other complained about that song getting him down - am I actually in danger of legal action for THAT?

Bing Z said:
If you don't mind, can you tell us a little?

My understanding so far has been (using Disneyland as an example):

a) If in the book a family goes to Disneyland and has a fun time and the teen daughter meets a boy there and the rest of the book is about the development of a romance after they've returned home. There's nothing wrong and Disney has no ground to (and won't) come after you, self-pubbed or via the Big 5.

b) If in the book a group of kids and teens goes to Disneyland and they do drugs and have orgies there and an 8yo gets raped and killed. Heck, I'll bet $1,000 to $1 Disney is going to come hard on you even if you were from the Walton family.

This is what I mean. I scenario a, no harm is done to Disney, on the contrary. So why sue? Boredom? Insanity? Being a bully?

dondomat · Feb 14, 2015

A little over a decade ago I told a friend that he should stop carrying his pot with him in his pockets, because he had a vibe that constantly had people picking on him, and in particular--cops doing a stop and search on him.

He replied to each such attempt with a tirade about his right to enjoy himself and do what he wants to.

I replied every time with why are you telling ME this? Am I the one craving to bust your sorry ass in order to make career points?

Every single time I tried to convince him to follow basic safety procedures vis a vis the police, he would counter with an oratory about the state, the corporations, etc. He enjoyed feeling heroically invulnarable, and then once the feces hit the ventilator--heroically downtrodden.

Now he's older and wiser, but boy it took a lot of situations in which pure luck had to carry him through.

cornflake · Feb 14, 2015

NaeimGiladisLegacy said:
Really? I see their characters all the time all over the place with no consequence. And I don't get this obsession anyway. It's good publicity, what harm could the depiction of their jointless black mouse possibly do?

It's not necessarily good publicity - what if the place is crap? What if they make their own characters and they're messed-up?

Protecting the brand I understand, but when I say "victimless" I am saying that I don't see how it hurts Disney for some daycare to paint a Donald on its window.
I'm not saying negative mentions are victimless, but how can a neutral or positive mention harm Disney?

See above. It hurts Disney because it's not Donald Duck. Same as it hurts Louis Vuitton when people sell knock-off bags. They're not right - they're not the same look, they're not the same quality, but they pretend to be.

That's why Disney bans adults in costumes from park property - because they may be mistaken for Disney costumed characters and that's not ok. You may love Snow White and want to dress up like Snow White and go to Disneyland and think it's just good for Disney that more people would be there as Snow White, providing more publicity.

To Disney, you're not getting past the gate dressed up, because they will NOT take the chance that some kid sees you dressed as Snow White, runs up and you don't see the kid and ignore them, or they run up and your skirt isn't exactly the correct length or your hair isn't done *exactly* the correct way. Then their Snow White isn't THE Snow White character and it confuses the issue and damages their brand. If some nursery school paints a fugly Donald Duck wearing Levis, yeah, Disney is going to have a problem with that. Donald wears what he wears. He looks the way he looks. If a nursery wants a picture, they can buy one. If someone wants an LV bag, buy one.

But that's something totally different from a brand mention in a bigger product unrelated to the brand, or an ugly doodle of a licensed character on a daycare window... It's as if selling something called a BigMac, were the same as writing in a novel, "She bit into her BigMac". The daycare doesn't make better business with Pluto on its wall. Many daycares have their kids paint whatever they like; sue because a kid doodled on a wall? This is why we can't have nice things...

No, they don't sue a kid for doodling Mickey. They will indeed sue a daycare for using an unlicensed character in a window, yeah. It's being used as promotion. They ARE trying to make better business - kids love Disney characters. Look, we have things kids love. That's why they use them.

From what? What's the harm in mentions and doodles as long as the money does not actually come from the use of the brand? Could Hollywood Undead sue me, or am I doing them any harm, by writing that a character is listening to a song of theirs? I had a scene where one dude put on Muse and the other complained about that song getting him down - am I actually in danger of legal action for THAT?

This is what I mean. I scenario a, no harm is done to Disney, on the contrary. So why sue? Boredom? Insanity? Being a bully?

Protecting their brand from misuse, dilution, and from being used commercially.

neandermagnon · Feb 15, 2015

cornflake said:
That's why Disney bans adults in costumes from park property - because they may be mistaken for Disney costumed characters and that's not ok. You may love Snow White and want to dress up like Snow White and go to Disneyland and think it's just good for Disney that more people would be there as Snow White, providing more publicity.

To Disney, you're not getting past the gate dressed up, because they will NOT take the chance that some kid sees you dressed as Snow White, runs up and you don't see the kid and ignore them, or they run up and your skirt isn't exactly the correct length or your hair isn't done *exactly* the correct way. Then their Snow White isn't THE Snow White character and it confuses the issue and damages their brand.

It's also a major child protection issue if random adults can be easily mistaken for members of staff. Of course, the vast majority of adults that would want to dress up at a Disney park are not perverts, but it only takes one and they're not going to take that risk for the safety of the children and also of their reputation.

Going back to the OP... is there any reason why the theme park has to be Disneyland? I honestly can't see a reason for it to be, unless you're making some kind of point about Disney as a company, in which case I'd see why they'd be likely to get annoyed about it. If it's just a setting/background, then it could be any random, unnamed or invented theme park. If the story's involving illegal drugs then maybe somewhere a bit more "down market" from Disneyland would be more realistic?

Using real places in a novel

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