Question about fair use of places in a story.

[KitsuneGary9]

I have a few chapters in my story that take place in disney land riding a few of the rides. It's just pretty much a fun filled day where I explain their own take and experiences riding a few of there most iconic rides in the park. Would that be considered copy write if I use the park in that way? Would it be better to make the park a generic name and call the rides something else?
In future chapters they will also enjoy las vegas at some point can I call it that and even name the casino's under fair use? Like watching their shows and interacting with the different attractions the city offers or should I also name that something else?
It's not a huge majority of the story just a small part. I would apprecaite someones take who knows about this kind of stuff.
Thank you in advance!

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Depends on the country and the medium.

Short answer, probably not, to be safe you could always just make allusions to where the place is rather than naming things directly.

However in honesty your story is small enough it likely doesn’t matter. This site has Naruto fanfics that certainly aren’t fair use of copyrighted material, that will get way more views than your story and they all have yet to have any legal trouble.

 

[KitsuneGary9]

Depends on the country and the medium.

Short answer, probably not, to be safe you could always just make allusions to where the place is rather than naming things directly.

However in honesty your story is small enough it likely doesn’t matter. This site has Naruto fanfics that certainly aren’t fair use of copyrighted material, that will get way more views than your story and they all have yet to have any legal trouble.

So instead of calling it splash moutain I call it log flume? But I could still fairly explain the experience just never refer to the actual name? Also when it comes to Las vegas, what if I just called it sin city without using Las Vegas. What about just saying pirate hotel instead of treasure island? Maybe just thinking of a new name and an alternate earth all together would be the safest. I plan to atleast attempt to sell it on Amazon Kindle at the end so I want to make sure it's not infringing on anything.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Your story has places in Disney, and Disney is something that is notorious for 'protecting' their creative rights even when the 50-year period already lapsed. So to be safe, change names, or suffer being blasted by the Legal Mouskatool.

As for other places, I don't know much about US, but in my place, using public names like city or district names is fine. Corporate-owned stuff, though often overlooked, can be a cause for some lawsuit, especially if not publicized well (i.e., SM Mall of Asia, which is owned by SM corporation).

 

[KitsuneGary9]

Your story has places in Disney, and Disney is something that is notorious for 'protecting' their creative rights even when the 50-year period already lapsed. So to be safe, change names, or suffer being blasted by the Legal Mouskatool.

As for other places, I don't know much about US, but in my place, using public names like city or district names is fine. Corporate-owned stuff, though often overlooked, can be a cause for some lawsuit, especially if not publicized well (i.e., SM Mall of Asia, which is owned by SM corporation).

Thanks for the advice, yeah I will probably just change all the names and leave it Ambiguous.

 

[Ai-chan]

I have a few chapters in my story that take place in disney land riding a few of the rides. It's just pretty much a fun filled day where I explain their own take and experiences riding a few of there most iconic rides in the park. Would that be considered copy write if I use the park in that way? Would it be better to make the park a generic name and call the rides something else?
In future chapters they will also enjoy las vegas at some point can I call it that and even name the casino's under fair use? Like watching their shows and interacting with the different attractions the city offers or should I also name that something else?
It's not a huge majority of the story just a small part. I would apprecaite someones take who knows about this kind of stuff.
Thank you in advance!

That is not fair use. Fair use is generally used for commentary, satire or education. Describing a scene is none of those. It is unlikely that you will be hit with a lawsuit as long as you're an amateur author who doesn't make money from your stories. And as long as you don't use any of Nintendo's IP.

All those stuff you said are intellectual property and you could get sued for it. Even the names of the attractions such as Pirates of the Caribbean is trademarked and simply writing the name could get you in trouble.

Do this:
Instead of Disneyland, say Walter Park.
Instead of Pirates of the Caribbean, say Pirate Ship.
Instead of Landscrown Casino, invent a new casino.

Las Vegas is the name of a city and therefore, cannot be copyrighted, trademarked or patented. So you're safe in using any city name as you wish.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

So instead of calling it splash moutain I call it log flume? But I could still fairly explain the experience just never refer to the actual name? Also when it comes to Las vegas, what if I just called it sin city without using Las Vegas. What about just saying pirate hotel instead of treasure island? Maybe just thinking of a new name and an alternate earth all together would be the safest. I plan to atleast attempt to sell it on Amazon Kindle at the end so I want to make sure it's not infringing on anything.

You don’t need to change the name of Las Vegas, but using real hotels and casinos would be copyrighted.

As for saying splash mountain or log fume, Disney doesn’t care, you’re nothing but an ant to them, they would gain nothing by sending you a cease and desist.

Personally as an author I wouldn’t use splash mountain or log fume. Unless you are writing fanfiction in a specific genre, or are doing academic writing for other professionals, it’s not good to assume your readers level of knowledge, beyond basic common sense. You don’t want someone to go ‘log fume? Is that like when you burn wood and smoke comes offf?’ Because they’ve never heard the term before. Basically what I’m trying to say is that this one of things that I think you should show don’t tell, describe what this ride is and how the characters are going to interact with it, and once you’ve given explanation and description you can attach a name such as splash mountain or log fume onto it for easier reference in future passages.

 

[KitsuneGary9]

You don’t need to change the name of Las Vegas, but using real hotels and casinos would be copyrighted.

As for saying splash mountain or log fume, Disney doesn’t care, you’re nothing but an ant to them, they would gain nothing by sending you a cease and desist.

Personally as an author I wouldn’t use splash mountain or log fume. Unless you are writing fanfiction in a specific genre, or are doing academic writing for other professionals, it’s not good to assume your readers level of knowledge, beyond basic common sense. You don’t want someone to go ‘log fume? Is that like when you burn wood and smoke comes offf?’ Because they’ve never heard the term before. Basically what I’m trying to say is that this one of things that I think you should show don’t tell, describe what this ride is and how the characters are going to interact with it, and once you’ve given explanation and description you can attach a name such as splash mountain or log fume onto it for easier reference in future passages.

Thanks for the great advice I will remember this when I complete those chapters in the future. Honestly, I might just cut it out all together and decide on something else. its only like 2 or 3 chapters of 150 in the story. Not a big deal if I replace it, but the scenes in my rough draft version hit very well. At least to me, so I dunno.

 

[Zagaroth]

Based on the success and lack of lawsuits for the Dresden Files, which makes many pop culture references and allusions, I think you would be fine within limits, such as making sure you do not cast anything in a bad light.

The MC's favorite fast food place is Burger King, he wear star wars t-shirts and makes Yoda jokes, etc, and this series was started in the 90s.

Here's a relevant professional article on the topic:

Can I Mention Brand Name Products in My Fiction?

Writers frequently ask whether they can mention brand name products and services in their fiction. The answer is "yes," provided that you t...

www.rightsofwriters.com

Then for a quick summary take, per: https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1eg9247

The example I remember hearing is Coke. A character drinks a Coke, it’s fine. A character drinks Coke and dies, you’re on the line. If it’s explicitly mentioned the Coke they drank was poisoned and they died because of the poison, you’re fine. If you say the Coke killed them, you’re not fine.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Strange Awakening makes use of some real places (Hotel Monteleone, the Hancock Center, some other Boston landmarks) but most action scenes are in purely fictional locations. I do make some mention of celebrities in passing, and some real companies as former clients of the firm Kelly works for, but the current clients are all fictional so far (or, if they aren't its coincidental naming).

Between Worlds has a bunch of pop-culture references (but, unless someone here wants their book to be mentioned as a comic book; could slip in two or three, especially if one is something a 20-something straight Jewish guy could be ribbed for following), all of the specific comic books the characters read are fictional, and all of the actual games, writers, artists and game designers have thinly veiled names.