Hello everyone!

I know that the law board isn't really my thing, but nevertheless, here I am...

Okay, what is happening is that I have a friend in the US (WA) and has one of the projects as publishing and putting on sale, a comic. And you probably guessed right, there is a copyright issue which could be raised.

Well, the comic is about Pokemon and this is a copyrighted name, as well as all the creatures and their names. She is planning to go to see the company at the branch in the US to ask for permission, but I would like to know if there could be any advice given before she gets there, just to avoid trouble and such.

I tried looking online, but there are several Copyright Acts, and I just don't know which one to refer to, since the trade name is owned by Nintendo in Japan and I have seen that different countries handle copyrights differently at times (and law was never my forte... ).

Soo... anyone? :o

In the US she can use trademarked names without permssion only under the "fair use" doctrine, which allows for some specific uses of trademarks owned by others for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. You can read about it here: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Your friend's work does not fit any of these purposes - instead she wants to profit directly from the Pokemon characters. So your friend will definitely require permission, and I can almost guarrantee that permission will be denied. The Pokemon brand is worth a lot of money to Nintendo and they would not want to risk damaging the brand through actions of an outsider over whom they have no control.

Suggestion: perhaps she can work out a deal with Nintendo to develop and market a comic book, but they would most definitely insist on full control of content and ownership rights of the final product. My niece recently did something similar with the "Hunger Games" sci-fi brand - she actually wrote a cookbook that is based on the elements of the stories, but it was under full control by the Hunger Games Publishers - you can see it here: http://www.amazon.com/Unofficial-Hunger-Games-Cookbook-Groosling/dp/1440526583/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322760828&sr=8-1

Ahh, so there's not much that can be done then, but hope they will accept her request :(. Oh well, thanks ebaines :)

And yes, I too was thinking about the part ownership Nintendo would claim or even the total ownership, and I guess it'll be worse if that comic gets popular. =S (she's already very popular in her field :p)

EDIT: Hey, that's nice! Congratulations to your niece :)