- Jun 10, 2017
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[Note: I still haven't graduated from a law school, nor even attended one, since my last comment, therefore it's still an informed opinion, and not a legal advice.]
The goal behind the use of another words, isn't to avoid using a registered trademark, but to distance the story enough from the original story, in order to not fall under plagiarism and/or obvious copyright infringement.
Take a painting like Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, by example. It's one of the most copied painting. Many painters, among which Picasso, who made near to 30 painting inspired by it, made their own version of it. Would they have used the same composition, that it would have been a plagiarism. Instead, they transposed the global feeling and the context into their creation, and used their own style for this, what make their own version become a homage.
It's the same that have to be achieved here, and the reason why the most obvious names, even if they have no chance to be registered, have to be changed. The author is then inspired by the global universe of Star Wars, and goes as far as using some concept of the story, but did it by importing them inside his own universe, where the different entities have a different name, this to as a tribute to Star Wars, and not as a plagiarism.
[This is definitively not a legal advice]
In regard of the Law, you are innocent until proved otherwise. Therefore, the more there's doubt of an intention to infringe the Law, the less there's risk to be proven otherwise. It don't protect you, but it lower the risks, and it's already good to take.
It's not a question of copyright, but of similarity with the original. There's another word that is clearly not a registered trademark, it's "Force". But, if you put the words "Rebellion", "Empire" and "Force" into the same story, what will be the first thought that will cross most readers' mind, except "Star Wars" ?
The goal behind the use of another words, isn't to avoid using a registered trademark, but to distance the story enough from the original story, in order to not fall under plagiarism and/or obvious copyright infringement.
Take a painting like Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, by example. It's one of the most copied painting. Many painters, among which Picasso, who made near to 30 painting inspired by it, made their own version of it. Would they have used the same composition, that it would have been a plagiarism. Instead, they transposed the global feeling and the context into their creation, and used their own style for this, what make their own version become a homage.
It's the same that have to be achieved here, and the reason why the most obvious names, even if they have no chance to be registered, have to be changed. The author is then inspired by the global universe of Star Wars, and goes as far as using some concept of the story, but did it by importing them inside his own universe, where the different entities have a different name, this to as a tribute to Star Wars, and not as a plagiarism.
[This is definitively not a legal advice]
In regard of the Law, you are innocent until proved otherwise. Therefore, the more there's doubt of an intention to infringe the Law, the less there's risk to be proven otherwise. It don't protect you, but it lower the risks, and it's already good to take.
In fact all would depend of how many "objects" will be used, and their proportion in regard of "objects" coming from other universes, or not coming at all from a defined universe. Once again, to distance the story from the original universe, and fall more on the homage side, than on the plagiarism one.
