If I write a novel with lightsaber, am I allowed to use the word "lightsaber"?

lin said:
You might copyright "Ewoks", but pretty tough to copyright "spaceship" or "transporter" or some such.
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Spaceship and transporter are both words you can find in a dictionary with generic descriptions, so you can use them without fear of being sued.
 
Actually no, Tolkein didn't invent the word "hobbit" -- he borrowed it from folklore. Ditto orcs. So people can use the word hobbit, but it is so associated with Tolkein that they usually don't and just use gnomes instead. Though orcs are popular. And you can use the word "blaster," "raygun," "laser pistol" without fear of retribution from anyone.

But the word "muggles" might be a bigger problem, although another author used that word before Rowling, tried to sue her for stealing and lost out because Rowling didn't borrow it from her. It's basically just a corruption of the word "muddle." "Jedi" is copyrighted. I'm sure that if you tried to market a toy as a light saber, then you probably would have lawyers down on your ass for it. But I don't think in terms of print that the word is trademarked.

But again, it's tied so strongly to Star Wars that it's really not of much use to other writers.
 
I agree with Lin.


Why would you want to?

An important aspect to writing.. or being creative in any media:
"If it's been done before... don't do it again!




Far better to speak with your own voice.



.
 
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jeff p said:
"If it's been done before... don't do it again!"
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Well then, I guess I'd better find myself another vocation. Maybe gardening or beetle breeding...

Everything's been done before, to one degree or another. "Nihil novum sub solis." It's no excuse for being hopelessly derivative, but I always say that the how is more important than the what.
 
James Carmack said:
I always say that the how is more important than the what.
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Good thoery. How can it be true that history always repeats it's self if everyone is always doing something new. i agree with James that in some way all things have been done all we can do now is put a new spin on them. so call it something else.
 
Im my story RuneStar, I use lightsaber type weapons but I do call them plasma-swords.
 
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Well, that's unfair as Tolkein didn't invent the word "hobbit." I'd like to see them try it with dwarves. :) And now we have the answer to the lightsaber question, I guess.

Rowling is suing the publisher of the book, not the website it's based on, because it's something being put in print and sold for money, unlike the website, and because the website contains potions and spells from the books, so the Lexicon book would be reprinting Rowling's text without permission. Fan freedom only carries you so far.
 
Using something called a lightsabre in your book that performs just like a lightsabre will get you sued.
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This is absolutely and completely untrue.
 
This whole thing on "you'll get sued" is much more frequently invoked than observed.

Take a look at the "argumentum ad dictionary" above. So it somebody puts the word "lightsaber" in a dictionary, it then becomes okay to use it? But until then it isn't it?

Kleenex, aspirin, band-aid, rollerblades, windsurfer...all these were once not just words in stories but actually trademarked brandnames. They lost that status when they fell into common use.

So if you run around suing people you run the risk of losing. At which point you lose your right to the word.

That's why you see all the ads in writer magazines begging you not to use
"caterpiller" and Xerox as verbs or common nouns. Now would they do that if they could just sue people for using them?

This is an area in which attorneys are cautious in giving hard and firm answers...but of course laypersons on the internet have it all figured out.


What I keep coming back to is: why bother? If you aren't smart enough to come up with groovy weapons, hang it up.
 
I agree with all those who say 'don't use light sabre'. It will come across as derivative and all people will see when they read your book (which they won't because prospective editors will run a mile when they see 'light sabre') is dear old Obi Wan, Luke and Mr D Vader etc.

Lin, I agree, I very much doubt you'd get sued for using the term in a book. Lucasfilm are going to be much more concerned with people trying to rip off Star Wars gadgets and concepts overtly to make money.

As for Kleenex etc, well, who'd want to sue if their brand name became the byword for an entire genre of products? Marvellous.

BTW, always been confused about how a lightsabre might work. If it's supposed to be a laser, why does it stop after four feet? that is not a property associated with any laser I know about. Anyways, just ponderin'

Back to work, book due at end of month. Eeek.

NOM
 
Goodness, the lack of knowledge demonstrated by such intelligent people. Okay let's go over some basics:

Copyright is the protection of works of literary, or other non-visual art, memorialized in written form such as a manuscript or musical score. The protection is of the work itself, and does not extend to the individual words or marks that make it up, or to titles, names, etc., or to the ideas or concepts underlying the work. If I want to title my next book The Shining there's not a thing that Stephen King can do about it. Copyright is not a verb. An author does not 'copyright' anything. Literary works are automatically protected by copyright when they are memorialized in permanent form. Registering a copyright provides more protection and makes statutory damages available for a violation. Copyright does not equal plaigiarism, meaning that a copyright violation does not require exact duplication. Lifting characters and settings and plotlines wholesale from someone else's work may violate the copyright.

"Lightsaber", as an individual word and a single concept, cannot be protected by copyright*. The exact expression in Stars Wars, however, such as "... a more elegant weapon from a more civilised time ..." then that would violated Lucas' copyright. Having a Ghedi knight named Duke Skydancer wield the lightsaber to defeat his evil father Parth Nader will also violate Lucas' copyright.

A Trademark is a distinctive, descriptive word or image that identifies a specific product or entity. It must be registered with the Patents and trademark office to be enforceable. It applies only to protect against the use of the same or substantially similar word or image to identify a different product or entity.

Therefore, when Lucasfilm or Lucasarts (or whoever) produces a physical product identified by the registered trademark of "Lightsaber", then it is entitled to enforce its legal protections against anyone else that makes a similar product called "Lightsaber" or "Lightsabre" or "Lyghtsaber".

Because you are using the word lightsaber in a literary work, not to identify a product, it cannot constitute a violation of the trademark.

NOM, supposedly the lightsaber is a loop of plasma constricted by a magnetic field into what appears to be a single beam. Seems rather unlikely to me, but it was damn cool.




*neither can Hobbit or muggle or any other such word.
 
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Aha, the lawyer weighs in. I knew hobbit couldn't be trademarked. :)

That all makes sense to me, but I will say also that publishers are a little careful in publishing works re the trademark issue. I've had author friends told that they couldn't use Pepsi as the name of a soda or call Barbie-like dolls Barbies. It may have eased up in recent years. But those are the names of actual products. While Lucas has made toys that are lightsabers, there is no actual light saber in existance. It is a fictional creation. So the toys are trademarked, but it makes sense that the word itself can't be.
 
KatG said:
Aha, the lawyer weighs in. I knew hobbit couldn't be trademarked. :)
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Actually, hobbit can be trademarked. The thing about trademarks is they apply only to one product, goods, or service; one trade. If you want to call your new fMRI machine Hobbit, you can do so, provided nobody else has it trademarked.

KatG said:
That all makes sense to me, but I will say also that publishers are a little careful in publishing works re the trademark issue. I've had author friends told that they couldn't use Pepsi as the name of a soda or call Barbie-like dolls Barbies. It may have eased up in recent years. But those are the names of actual products. While Lucas has made toys that are lightsabers, there is no actual light saber in existance. It is a fictional creation. So the toys are trademarked, but it makes sense that the word itself can't be.
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You can, if you choose, call a soda Pepsi in your story provided, of course, that you are talking about a Pepsi. The thing about trademarks is that you are not restricted from writing about them in the same way as copyrights.

Many publishers object to trademarks in stories because it is free advertising. In other words, if some else benefits from your story, they should pay for the privilege.
 
Not sure how the light sabre works, but one possible explanation could be a weapon I read in a SF book back in junior high called a "variable sword". (Might have been a precursor??)

Handle flashlight sized. Trigger causes a thin wire, held rigid by a field to extrude from the grip to whatever length the user dials in. The wire is the matrix for a plasma field, so it cuts through anything.

The one in the book would be extended from short size for cutting off handcuffs to a hundred yards for just slicing down buildings and such horseplay as that.

Nice item.

And notice that (though it doesn't matter because it was first) it ISN'T a "lightsaber". Just another cool thing, similar but with its own nifty little story.

Which is what you want to pull off, not repeating the gizmos of others.
 
As for Kleenex etc, well, who'd want to sue if their brand name became the byword for an entire genre of products? Marvellous.
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Not really. They hate it because they then LOSE that branding. Anybody can call their ASA tablets "aspirin", whereas once it was the property of Bayer alone.
 
goldhawk said:
Actually, hobbit can be trademarked. The thing about trademarks is they apply only to one product, goods, or service; one trade. If you want to call your new fMRI machine Hobbit, you can do so, provided nobody else has it trademarked.



You can, if you choose, call a soda Pepsi in your story provided, of course, that you are talking about a Pepsi. The thing about trademarks is that you are not restricted from writing about them in the same way as copyrights.

Many publishers object to trademarks in stories because it is free advertising. In other words, if some else benefits from your story, they should pay for the privilege.
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Okay, clearing up a minor misconception here: I did not say that the word 'Hobbit' cannot be a trademark; I said that it is not copyrightable. Trademark refers to a product or an entity, not to use of the same word in a literary work. Hence Gary, and many others, can write entire series of works featuring elves, or whatnot. There are, however, very good reasons not to reference recognized trademarks, one of which is what goldhawk said.

Trademark and copyright are very, very different legal concepts. For the most part writers need worry only about copyright, and producing good work. Remember that copyright is intended to protect a particular expression of authorship and does not protect the underlying concepts or ideas expressed. Thus a character or racial archetype is generally not subject to copyright protection, and Gary can write about elves. Writing about a specific character, on the other hand, is more murky. The status of fanfic is unclear at the moment. Lifting another's character or setting may violate copyright depending on how close the copy comes to the original. What publisher wants to invite a lawsuit? So they run away from anything smelling of fanfic (no matter how good it might be) unless it is licensed. Plus, no good wirter needs to do that sort of thing.

I do need to make one correction to what I said earlier. "Non-visual" should read "non-performance" as visual art is subject to copyright protection, but the actual performance of a play would not. The playscript or a video recording of the performance is protected however.
 
Fanfic is in another area of knockoff, actually. Characters. Characters are protectable. I'm not a legal expert on that, but one fact I think is significant is that the heirs to the Margaret Mitchell estate paid a writer to do a sequel to Gone With the Wind...
in order to continue their ownership of rights to the characters.
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Copyright, like most areas of the law, is not based upon bright line rules. I have said before that a character name is not copyrightable, and therefore if I want to name a character Harry Potter, then I can, quite legally. How close my Harry comes to J.K. Rowling's Harry is a different matter. It is certain that at some point along that spectrum a copyright violation will occur; exactly where that line is drawn is much more murky. Is my Harry 12 years old? Is he also an orphan? Is he also a wizard with a lightning bolt-shaped scar? Yes, yes and yes? Well then I've violated Ms. Rowling's copyright. Perhaps. The question is whether it is substantially the same character. Thus my 12 year old orphan wizard named Terry Snotter might also be a copyright violation.

Ah, but if it only were so simple. For one thing, there are exceptions to copyright protection. Parody being one*; which why the Barry Trotter books came out no matter what Jo-Ro wanted. A lot of fanfic could arguably fall under the rubric of parody. Bored of the Rings, for those of you old enough to remember it, fell under parody and there was nothing J.R.R. could do about that. That a particular piece of fanfic may not be very funny would not stop the writer of it from claiming that is was a parody.

All of this, of course, is essentially meaningless because a highly successful product is going to be defended vociferously if the fanfic in question is viewed as being threatening. Viewing Expendable's link, CBS is going to sic a whole bunch of extremely humorless lawyers on anyone it perceives as violating its copyright. They will sue you into oblivion. Who really wants to go through that?

There are two things that drive CBS's viewpoint on this issue. One is the perception that it is vital to stamp out anything sniffing of piracy before it gets a chance to spread. They don't want a literary version of Napster out there. Two is that copyright can be waived by doing nothing in the face of an obvious violation. Because, as I said earlier, a copyright violation can be hard to pinpoint, they are going to go after anything that might even come close.



* In addition to fair use, which I don't believe would offer much protection. Fair use allows one person to use limited portions of another's copyrighted work for academic or critical purposes. Thus a reviewer can include excerpted quotes from a novel without fear of violating the author's copyright. The exception, however, only applies to limited portions and not to most fanfic.
 
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