Legal stuff when it comes to visual novels

[InvertMouse]

Hey folks ! Hope you are all doing great.

 

Recently, I have come across a few "travel" visual novels (travel novels maybe? hoho) like Go Go Nippon or Shan Gui. They feature real locations, with links to wiki pages etc to learn more if the player chooses to.

 

Steins;Gate also takes place in Akihabara, which is a fairly common setting in anime, VNs, etc. The difference is, it seems that in the Steins;Gate VN, it seems like many of the shops are shown exactly as they are. Animate, Taito Station, etc. Is it okay to do that? Maybe they have asked the shops for permission?

 

As I am sure a lot of us have noticed, in American TV dramas, if a character drinks a can of coke, the label would often be covered up. Is it because they want to avoid getting sued by Coca Cola? Some say it is just because they do not want to give Coca Cola free advertising, and that they have no need to fear legal actions against them.

 

Sleeping Dogs would be another example. The game takes place in Hong Kong. Well, who "owns" Hong Kong? Sleeping Dogs also has many street signs throughout the game, but their names are slightly changed from their real life counterparts. The district names, however, remained the same. North Point, Kennedy Town and Central. So who "owns" Kennedy Town, for example? I would be interested in knowing what the rules are.

 

Returning to Go Go Nippon, they can mention Akihabara without changing the name, yet the store names might be a different story. How about Initial D's famous mount Akina? The real place is named Haruna, I believe, and they decided to change that.

 

Thanks for reading the ramble folks ! I wanted to see if anyone had some insights into this matter .

[Nosebleed]

As far as my knowledge goes, public spaces can be featured in whatever you want, you can use their real names too.

Because locations are not registered trademarks. They do not, in any circumstances, fall under copyright laws.

(Correct me if i'm wrong please)

 

However, brand names (store names, product names, etc) can not, because they are, more often than not, trademarked and are protected by law.

 

The thing is that I'm not too knowledgable about Japan's copyright laws, and copyright/trademark laws can be different even between prefectures, so I'm not sure how far you can go in Japan, but I'm almost 100% sure you'd still need permission from the trademark owners to use any mentions of their product/brand in your product.

 

But the location one is something I have no clue about.

 

One thing is for sure though, Japan likes to mention, every time, that the events/places happening in the VN are entirely fictional, so I think this is likely linked to why they change location names so often.

[Deep Blue]

Logic dictates that if they show it as it is then it's because they can do it without having legal problems, when they can't they don't (many words or trademarks are changed on steins;gate while many others are not, I'm sure their legal team are aware of what can and cannot show without running into troubles. I'm sure that if a vn doesn't show a brand or something like that even if when they are allow to do so it's because they are scared of having some kind of legal issue later on, so it's better to be safe than sorry for a small team.

 

BTW everything depends on the country's law, for example here in my country you can film things without running into any problems even if it's used for commercial purposes but I know that in many other countries the thing is different, in some states of USA you need to paid the state to do so.

[Decay]

Japan has a very weak fair use law, while the US's fair use clause is pretty strong. That said, I'm uncertain on your coke example. I think mentioning coke on your TV show is perfectly legal in the US. It might even be legal to show it. These companies take advertising very seriously, and companies pay money to have their products featured on TV shows, which means they don't want to do it for free for anyone. In the US, you can call out specific people, make references to other works, and do all sorts of stuff without paying a dime in royalties, but in Japan they're very strict about that. You can't mention anyone or anything by name because fair use is so flimsy there. That's why you hear occasional censorship bleeps or see so much clever rewording, it's a legal issue there. 

 

In Steins;Gate's case, they probably had to get permission to use real life locations. Japanese copyright law is too strict to freely allow that, while a VN produced in America would be able to show that without any problems. All of this is one of the reasons why parody isn't as common of a comedy style in Japan, it's hard to skirt around these issues.

[InvertMouse]

I see! Thanks for the responses folks . Yeah, it seems like every country has different rules, and each state probably differs as well, further complicating things (>3<)~

 

As a quick note, here locally in Sydney, I heard that our Sydney Opera House is not allowed to be filmed for commercial purposes. In fact, I heard it is not allowed to be filmed at all, but nobody is really that strict about it. A pretty grey area indeed.

[krill]

Japan has a very weak fair use law, while the US's fair use clause is pretty strong. That said, I'm uncertain on your coke example. I think mentioning coke on your TV show is perfectly legal in the US. It might even be legal to show it. These companies take advertising very seriously, and companies pay money to have their products featured on TV shows, which means they don't want to do it for free for anyone. In the US, you can call out specific people, make references to other works, and do all sorts of stuff without paying a dime in royalties, but in Japan they're very strict about that. You can't mention anyone or anything by name because fair use is so flimsy there. That's why you hear occasional censorship bleeps or see so much clever rewording, it's a legal issue there. 

 

In Steins;Gate's case, they probably had to get permission to use real life locations. Japanese copyright law is too strict to freely allow that, while a VN produced in America would be able to show that without any problems. All of this is one of the reasons why parody isn't as common of a comedy style in Japan, it's hard to skirt around these issues.

 

what about doujin games and manga featuring trade marked characters and settings iv seen a lot of those on vndb and even seen some for sale online. and there's no way all the dojin games and manga creators get permission from the trademark owners and original artists to use their work for porn parodies. i doubt many would allow it and those who do would likely want a licensing contract made and payments made to all parties with a stake in the ip. and for a doujin circle i believe thats pretty much out of the question.

[Nosebleed]

Doujins are on a grey area, Japan doesn't make a big deal out of them because they don't really sell all that well in comparison to more official stuff and if anything they'll bring awareness to the original work so most companies usually don't bother with suing doujin artists, it's just not worth the effort.

Also important to note many artists in Japan start as doujin artists, so most companies understand that doujins are important in the market as a whole.

One of my favorite artists of all time, Aoki Ume, still releases doujins despite working on major things.

[Darklord Rooke]

As product placement in television and film becomes more prevalent, it was only a matter of time before intellectual property silliness had to follow. For example, we've seen such wonderful cases of egocentrism as a copyright claim over a painting shown in a movie. Couple that with product placement examples that are awkward for all involved and you've got a recipe for litigious fun not seen since a murder trial involving a former Buffalo Bills running back.

 

Reader Chris writes in about a story that appears to be a nice crossroads of these two aspects of product placement, in which several alcohol companies are apparently upset that their products are being shown in the movie Flight doing what those products do: get people drunk.

 

Anheuser-Busch said Monday that it has asked Paramount Pictures Corp. to obscure or remove the Budweiser logo from the film, which at one point shows Washington's character drinking the beer while behind the wheel.

 

Budweiser is hardly the only alcoholic beverage shown in "Flight," which earned $25 million in its debut weekend and is likely to remain popular with audiences. Washington's character frequently drinks vodka throughout the film, with several different brands represented. William Grant & Sons, which distributes Stolichnaya in the United States, also said it didn't license its brand for inclusion in the film and wouldn't have given permission if asked.

 

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why didn't the film get permission to use the products in their film?" The answer is about as complicated as a straight line; they don't have to. Studios are not required to ask for permission to include every little brand in their movies -- even if some companies now think that's the case. True, Denzel Washington's character in the film is a drunk and Budweiser may not be pleased to be associated with that aspect of the story, but the law isn't concerned about Budweiser's pleasure. Trademark law isn't about making sure you're always happy about how your product is displayed. 

 

Even going beyond trademark law, it's not like they were "misrepresenting" anything. I, for one, can assure you that the depiction of beer being able to get a person hammered is spot on accurate, and if you won't take my word for it, I'll give you the phone numbers of some of my neighbors who can relate their experiences living near me on NFL Sundays. The point is that there's a reason these companies didn't give their permission: nobody asked them for it.

 

Trademark laws "don't exist to give companies the right to control and censor movies and TV shows that might happen to include real-world items," said Daniel Nazer, a resident fellow at Stanford Law School's Fair Use Project. "It is the case that often filmmakers get paid by companies to include their products. I think that's sort of led to a culture where they expect they'll have control. That's not a right the trademark law gives them."

 

Jay Dougherty, a professor at Loyola Law School, said the use of brands in films has generally been protected by the courts, even when the companies aren't pleased with the portrayals. "It wouldn't have been as effective a film if they used a bunch of non-generic brands," said Dougherty, who is also the director of the school's Entertainment & Media Law Institute. "In a normal situation, if the alcohol were just there as a smaller part of the movie, they might have created an artificial brand for it."

 

Unfortunately, with the wonderful garden of permission culture that IP laws have fertilized so well for us, companies think they can control...and control...and control. But just because sometimes filmmakers seek out product placement, that doesn't mean that all brand appearances need to first receive approval. Thankfully, thus far, the courts have recognized that they cannot keep their products out of film this way. Now let's all go have a non-generic beer.

 

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121106/08350120946/budweiser-asks-paramount-to-remove-their-beer-movie-flight.shtml

[Decay]

^^^^^^ Yeah, that's more or less what I thought. I knew I read about this issue before but I didn't have sources or a firm recollection. That only applies to America though, Japan is a whole different ballgame thanks to their different fair use laws/interpretations.

 

what about doujin games and manga featuring trade marked characters and settings iv seen a lot of those on vndb and even seen some for sale online. and there's no way all the dojin games and manga creators get permission from the trademark owners and original artists to use their work for porn parodies. i doubt many would allow it and those who do would likely want a licensing contract made and payments made to all parties with a stake in the ip. and for a doujin circle i believe thats pretty much out of the question.

 

In America that shit wouldn't fly, so it's ironic that the country with stricter copyright laws ends up being lax towards selling unofficial goods that violate trademarks. But ultimately, it's up to the companies themselves to police trademark. There are no governmental organizations that monitor this kind of thing, so each trademark and copyright holder has to be vigilant in protecting their property, and in Japan they intentionally turn a blind eye to doujin. That doesn't mean it's legal, just that the intellectual property owners don't act out against it. This happens for two reasons, one being that they acknowledge that these fan works tend to raise awareness for their brands and can actually promote sales of their own products. They don't compete, but complement each other. The other reason is that suing creators of doujin works for infringement earns a LOT of ire in Japan, even from people way outside the doujin's target audience. There have been controversies over this in the past, and it doesn't usually end well for the plaintiffs. So these companies would rather let sleeping dogs lie.

[InvertMouse]

Thanks for the in depth response Rooke ! Yeah, it is indeed interesting how doujins are pretty acceptable in Japan. And, well, I must say I am glad that is the case !

[Dragoon]

You usually have to obey the laws of the country you officially release your game in. However, don't quote me on that.

[jjm152]

I know something about this... for various reasons (ahem). 

 

In pretty much every country that follows trademark law, you are only prohibited from using trademarks as a trademark. This means you cannot use a trademark to draw a connection between yourself, or a product and the trademark holder. Using a product in a film for instance that happens to be trademarked, like a can of coke, even displaying the coke trademark, is generally considered to not infringe on this.

 

I suspect the reason why fake brands are used or trademarks are hidden on television and film is less about violating trademark and more about not giving away valuable advertising space (product placement). It's worth considering for example that Pepsi products never appeared in any Hollywood films until actress Joan Crawford ended up being on their board of directors after her husbands death. To put it bluntly - Hollywood didn't just discover a taste for Pepsi, but Joan, understanding how the business worked, paid Hollywood to start putting Pepsi brands in their films.

[InvertMouse]

I see~ Thanks for the further replies !