Copyright infringement question

[Carol]

bboyminn:
> 
> Just my opinion, but I don't think you are violating a trademark or
copyright by mentioning a brand name in a story.
> 
> Consider a recent Stephen King book in which one character comments
about 'the most popular book in history', and another character
replies 'Harry Potter?'. I think that is a fair and reasonable social
commentary which is allowed.
><snip>

> Now if you have your own characters and one of them is a boy wizard
named Harry Potter and another is a detective named Sherlock Holmes,
your pressing your luck.
> 
> As far as trademark, you can have a character mention 'Mars Bars'
and not get into trouble, but you can't market your own candy bar and
call them 'Mars Bars' or anything that smacks of 'Mars Bars'. <snip>
> 
> Now I suspect if you use a product name, say McDonald's, in a way
that defames the company or is slanderous, then they might have a case
against you, but not for copyright or trademark infringement. <snip>
> 
> I think when the context is consider, all the things you mention can
be considered fair use. 
> 
> Steve/bboyminn
>
Carol responds:

Thanks, Steve. Of course, it's also possible that in, say, the case of
Mars Bars, the publisher or premissions editor requested permission to
use the name as a courtesy (and was granted use of then name, in that
context, as a courtesy).

At any rate, I know that my client will need to request permission to
use some copyrighted song lyrics and that fair use will prevent her
from quoting the entire song. That much I'm familiar with.

As for involving famous people in scandalous fictional love affairs, I
realize that those references aren't copyright violations, but they
could qualify as defamation of character and discourage publishers
from accepting the manuscript. Better to be safe than sorry, IMO.

BTW, I found a statement on the back of the title page of "Sorcerer's
Stone" stating that Harry Potter and all related characters, which
would include Madam Hooch and Madam Pince, are trademarks of Warner
Bros. (JKR is not mentioned.) That's not quite the same thing as
copyrighted characters, though. I still haven't found a site that
lists all of JKR's copyrighted characters. All the fanfic writers and
website master/mistresses simply take for granted that Snape, Lupin,
et al. are copyrighted and belong to Rowling. (The site Tonks linked
me to seems to relate to applications to use those characters as
action figures or video game characters, which may be why you can find
results for "Snape" but not "Severus Snape" and for "Hermione Granger"
but not "madam Pince.") Please note that I'm *not* planning to use
JKR's characters in fanfic or anything else (other than commentary on
HPfGu), but I'd still like a link to a list of her copyrighted
characters if anyone has one (other than the one Tonks gave me, which
I've already searched). 

Carol, thanking everyone for their help and pretty sure that she knows
what to tell her client now