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I just purchased a kickstarter for a computer game, and in it, I won the ability to name a city in their game.
Well, I want to name it after a Pathfinder character I had recently, and her name is Lady Doloura Rasivrein. As you are no doubt aware, both of those names are derivative of the names of Drow Noble houses from Pathfinder.
So what I'm wondering is, would it be a problem with you guys if I used one or the other of those for the game's city name? Would it be better or worse if I changed the spelling on it? Like would you prefer that I change it to "Razivrane" or some such?
I don't know if those names are copywritten, and I don't want to break any rules. That's why I figured it best to be upfront about all of this. But if possible I'd love to pay homage to my character and have her immortalized in a computer game as a Dark Elven city. If that causes issues with you all, then obviously I won't do it. But I figured I'd ask! :)
Either way, no offense taken, love your game and products and will be a PF fan forever. :)
Thanks for listening.
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What game?
-Skeld
"Worlds of Magic". If you happen to recall an old game called "Master of Magic", it's being created as a spiritual successor to that. It was my absolute favorite computer game when it came out (an age ago in pc game terms, 1993 or 94), so I'm thrilled about this. So far everything I've seen about it is very promising.
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Not a lawyer, but I believe in this case you should be worrying about "trademark" rather than "copyright".
Trademarking means a name cannot be used in advertising or in used in any way that might cause confusion between two products. Which is why we can have a car and a movie and a game called the same thing, because while the names are trademarked they're in such different fields there's no confusing the two.
Pathfinder is creating an MMO/video game, and both products sound like they're fantasy products. But the name of town being shared with some noble houses is not likely to cause confusion between the two products. However, it's better to be safe than sorry, so minor respelling might be a good idea, to avoid confusing Google searches.
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Not a lawyer, but I believe in this case you should be worrying about "trademark" rather than "copyright".
Apologies for the incorrect terminology, and thank you for the clarification.
Pathfinder is creating an MMO/video game, and both products sound like they're fantasy products. But the name of town being shared with some noble houses is not likely to cause confusion between the two products. However, it's better to be safe than sorry, so minor respelling might be a good idea, to avoid confusing Google searches.
OK, I can certainly do that, if necessary.
No offense meant against you, but I would prefer to hear some actual reply from Paizo as well on this if possible. Hopefully they can get with me in the next day or so. If not, I will follow your suggestion because that's the best I've got.
Creative Director
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It's probably best if you avoided doing this, unfortunately. While I do understand how cool it would be to see your character immortalized in print... the names are not open content and are part of Paizo's product identity. Changing the spelling would solve the problem, as long as the result was a different word and not just a phonetically-identical word, I suppose.
You could do something like this if you were using the community use license... but that license says "no fair using this to make money." Since "Worlds of Magic" will be a for-sale product, it can't utilize the community use license.
Thanks for asking, though! And sorry for the bad news!
But yeah this is absolutely a case of "better safe than sorry."