I am not sure of the proper terms so I will ask it best I can. Say you are writing something and you may have added in your story, "Bill told him that it is not like we can time travel in a blue box." That is a reference to a TARDIS. You make no claims to owning that but you referenced it in your story. What about direct references? Say you are writing about someone with a super power. "Bob says to Jane she could be scaling walls like Spiderman." Complete reference to a Marvel character, but only made to compare the character who can climb walls, or something. Or just parodies or other pop culture references like "Enterprise," "You went over my helmet," or "down the yellow brick road." When you include something like that in your story what is done to protect you from just referencing things from other works? Or is this over thinking because you are not putting claim to ownership of any of it and, just like the end of movies where it states: This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and location portrayed and the names herein are fictitious, and any similarity to or identification with the location, name, character or history of any person, product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional. Thank you.
If I understand what your asking about, the term in the gaming world is Easter eggs. I would suggest googling the term "fair use". There are rules that allow you to use a limited amount of another's work. That search should lead you to them. Beyond that, the best advice is consult a lawyer who deals with copyright law.
I do believe "Spiderman" is a trade-mark, and would fall under different rules. See https://trademarks.justia.com/732/40/spider-73240050.html Simply referring to a time-traveling blue box is generic, but "Spiderman" is quite specific.
Best to go straight to the source. https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html Beyond that if you still have questions, best thing to do is consult a legal specialist in the field. if a publisher accepts the work, they should handle this type of issue, either getting you any required permissions, or having you rewrite the section that causes a problem.
Good stuff. Thank you. This helps. I may ask what seems like basic, common knowledge questions to other. To me, lots of research becomes overwhelming at times for someone like me and sometimes asking my own questions and getting fresh feedback is very helpful in focusing on what to look into. In this case, terms like copy write, fair use, and watching trade marks. Gives me notes to jot down here and look into. Thanks for this.
Basically, you can make references to products under "fair use." As long as the references are positive or neutral, you're fine. If you're making negative references, you can get in trouble. There is also "brand diminishment" which can come back to bite you. For instance, if I mention a "styrofoam cup" instead of a "Styrofoam cup," I'm using the brand in a generic way that the company doesn't like. Seems like Xerox went after people back in the day for "xeroxing copies." Or calling a cotton swab a q-tip in a generic way, that was an issue too. Whenever you're reading a story and you see a very careful use of capitalized brand names (e.g., ChapStick), that's what that's about. Personally, I don't agree with any of it. The laws should be changed to favor free speech. Trademarks decide the day though, and that's where we're at. Oh, and check with actual legal sites about this. I'm just quoting what I've read in articles. Nothing you read here counts as legal advice.
