Copright and names

[HeartwoodBond]

Can I use the name of a film or a book within my story? Or how about a character from a book or film?

I could imagine that if somebody tried to call one of their characters "Captain James T Kirk" and make him the "Captain of the Starship Enterprise", then somebody from Paramount might get very upset.

But is it against copyright to name or mention the title of a film or to say that a character "looked like" Mr Spock?

[kater]

Not at all, you can have any of your characters reading a book by Stephen King, watching a film with Kirsten Dunst in etc. There is also nothing preventing you using names like James Kirk, they can't be copyrighted, but writing a story using the actual character James Tiberius Kirk and or the Star Trek world in any form would be a breach of copyright and it's a safe bet they'd come down on you like a brick wall :)