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...
