The "stupid little questions that don't deserve their own thread" thread.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The "stupid little questions that don't deserve their own thread" thread.

Uziel: Jun 28, 2004; Ask me about losing 200lbs, and becoming the Viking God of W&W.

This is probably a bit of an odd question, but how do names of saints work regarding copyright/trademark?

Example: I wanted to use the name of a saint as part of the name of a fictional organization. St. Patrick's Vigilantes, something like that.

There are parishes and churches as well as hospitals that use the name. Do they have rights to it or am I free to use it? The name of the organization would likely end up as the title of the work.

Uziel fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Mar 12, 2009

# ¿ Mar 12, 2009 19:57

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Uziel: Jun 28, 2004; Ask me about losing 200lbs, and becoming the Viking God of W&W.

Beat. posted:

You can use it. Just to elaborate a bit, if they had some kind of image associated with their name and trademarked that, you shouldn't use that. But just a generic saint's name? No issue.

Thanks. What about existing organizations? Say The Knights of Columbus had an internal council called "Knights of St. Patrick"? Is that available or would they have rights to that name?

# ¿ Mar 13, 2009 14:12

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