Re: Real names in a football game

[David Schleef <ds@schleef.org>]

On Tue, Sep 14, 2004 at 10:18:46PM +0200, Isaac Clerencia wrote:
> Hi, I'm the maintainer of the bygfoot package.
> 
> It is a football (soccer) simulator game, and currently it includes some "real 
> player" names.
> 
> I think this can be illegal (also team names?).
> 
> I already have a version without player names ready to be uploaded, removing 
> team names should take a little more effort.
> 
> What do you think?

Using team names (and especially team logos) is a good way to get
to the pointy end of a lawsuit.  The names and logos are almost
certainly under trademark protection, and generally aggressively
guarded, since licensing names and logos to shirt makers (and
game producers) is a huge revenue stream.

Names of people are (curiously) less protected.  It's probably
defendable to use players' names in a game, but (at least in the
US) it would likely attract annoying lawyers, too.  I wouldn't
recommend it.  But then, I morally feel celebrities deserve the
same protection in their own name as a corporation.



dave...