How exactly copyright works with "free games"?

I'm creating a game at Rpg Maker MV, for people at my forum [one piece forum] play it. It's about pirates. So, I don't understand about coryright...

1. I can use a One Piece Anime theme music, if I give credits? "Music rights are from One Piece Anime"

2. Can I use a One Piece character picture [Luffy], if I give credits again?

3. If I have a image and even after search, still have no idea who is the creator, what I do? Just put "Image X is not mine, credits to whoever did it"

4. Can I use a Metallica music in the game, again giving credits for Metallica for the music?

My game don't have any profit intention, it's free to play and just for something like 3O people to play it. If someone could answer my questions I would be happy!

All right reserved by default except stated otherwise.
Did you find a statement that you could use one piece music for your game?

Well I just believe that if I'm using it just for fun, with no intention to get money with it, I don't see a problem here.

I mean, I see everyday that naruto sad music at instagram videos and it's okay x.x

1. No.
2. No.
3. In most cases no. You can get public domain or royalty free assets though.
4. Don't know what that is, but probably not.

The intention of making a profit is not related to copyrights at all (except in the amount of money to be paid as penalty in a lawsuit).

Check this legal guide for more info:
The Creator's Legal Clinic: Advices and Explanations

No. Copyright doesn't depend on whether you are giving your game away for free, or selling it.

Just because you see something every day, doesn't mean it's okay to do.

I think the only way any of those could be fine is if you don't distribute your game at all. If you're just showing it to friends but never actually give the game to anyone, it might be fine to use One Piece or Metallica stuff in it. Probably better not to though, because what if you give it to one person and that one person uploads it somewhere?

Even in that scenario it doesn't make it okay. If you do something not legal and don't get caught, it doesn't make it okay.

you can't do any of the stuff you're talking about without permission from the copyright holders. you may be confused about the concept of Fair Use, but that only refers to a very specific set of things you can do with a work. you can quote from an article, play a snippet of music, show a sample graphic, etc, for educational, commentary, or satire purposes. Fair Use is very restricted and does not generally cover what you're talking about here.

whether you're selling it or not is irrelevant. some people or companies will allow you to use their intellectual property if you're doing something that is promotional or building up their community, IF you have permission. check their terms and generally seek positive confirmation that you're permitted to use their work in your own projects.

I'm not going to comment on whether or not it would be okay in that scenario, because I'm not a lawyer. However, it was my understanding that distributing derivative works is a key point in copyright violations. If I was wrong on this, then I apologize for the confusion.

Without permission No on all fronts regardless of if you intend to make profit from it.


I see drunk ppl get behind the wheel of their car almost every day too... Doesnt make it right, doesnt make it legal. Just makes them... You can fill in the blank.

Well, the music I'd say is a no-go, but the characters themselves you can make an argument for transformative work. After all, wouldn't a game starring the One Piece characters be in the same vein as any other fanart/fanfiction? This one's just in RPG form.

Well, it's just a luffy photo, something like "... and this was my master, Luffy!"

It is illegal? I believe it is more likely a promotion to one piece instead of something bad for its image hmm

Hmmm... Could you explain the concept further? Is this a story of your original characters in the universe of One Piece? That should still count as a fanfiction, but I'm not a lawyer. However, if it's a completely non-One Piece related game and Luffy just randomly shows up, that might be a problem...

However, don't go into this with the mindset of 'well it'd be good promotion', because that's not how the owners of these IPs think. They don't need promotion, they have marketing teams and budgets for that. Their only interest is protecting their IPs, and the only thing that will stop them really is if your work counts as a transformative fan work.

Without intending to sound rude, your belief doesn't enter into it. Using copyrighted materials that you don't own violates copyright law except under very specific circumstances with specific kinds of material. Those videos are not "okay," it's just that the entity owning the copyright hasn't seen it or doesn't care at the moment to file a complaint. The moment they do, Instagram/Youtube/whatever host would immediately pull the video.


There's no such thing as legal dispensation given to fanfiction. There is, as I describe above, only copyright holders that do or do not care to pursue action about it. Some entities have given public consent on their Web sites for their characters to be used in fanfic, while others (I know of several popular authors) are very vigilant about having references taken down.

The only way to use copyrighted material without explicit permission is if you fulfill the conditions of fair use. One of those four criteria is that it's for educational/research/parody purposes, which is not the case here. Additionally, the fair use situation is not legally predefined, but is evaluated on a case by case basis in court. So the only way to be sure your work is fair use is to do your best to make sure you can explain how you're fulfilling the four criteria in the event the copyright holder files a cease and desist against you and you contest it in court.

You might feel that it is a promotion of sorts, but the IP holders might not want that kind of promotion - they might see it as doing more harm than good.

It's like people who ask for free resources and offer "exposure" in exchange - unless they're well known and highly respected, the "exposure" they provide doesn't mean very much.

You should look into the legal battles that have occurred between fanfiction archives and copyright holders. It's actually a long, complicated history - moreso than you would expect - and there have been battles in court over what should be allowed and what is copyright infringement. The site Archive of our Own is an example of this. You can post fanfiction of whatever you want, and they have legal teams to protect you from any legal consequences. There is a lot to be said about the legality of transformative works, and there are laws to protect creators of fanworks - unfortunately, I only have surface level knowledge of these things, so there isn't much else I can say on the matter without the high risk of being wrong ^^'

I'm not sure how that would even be promotional, considering it'd be presented on a forum dedicated to the thing you're promoting. Your target audience might be a tad saturated.

Other than written permission from the IP holders, the only way you could legally do this is creating a parody like: the buccaneer adventures of chewing gum lad, Gooey, who wears a bowler hat, and sails to claim the lost treasure of "Maillot".
In which case it includes zero official characters, names, images or music, rather it has things that look/sound like they can fit into a recognizably similar universe or music genre at a glance but are completely original creations.

You seem like trying to find a hole in this legality.
If we started to say something like "fan games are okay as long as you know the risk", "free games are mostly okay", which is slightly indicating that is okay (or any other phrases that is basically the same), you're going to do it anyway.

So here is the question for you.
Do you understand what we are trying to tell you that using something that you have no permission is always illegal? In real life, you even need permission from someone to use something that isn't yours.
Do you understand fair use?

This. IP owners don't want their IP associated with certain things and there are many laws in place (at least where I live) to protect it. I don't think you can make a fair use argument either.

fairuse.stanford.edu

I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice but I'd say you do not meet either category. Also I believe using rips is against the site rules.

There are so many grey areas here that it's probably going to require more analysis than it's worth. I'm debating the use of my project to set off a Rickroll gag as a sort of show-off (I was originally going to do it as an on-site prank before Covid19 upended the convention scene) but obviously there's no way to guarantee that the right people will be in the video room who would understand the intentions enough to 1: ask how you did it and 2: have the resources to raise it over 9,000, much less 3: be able to negotiate the matter to satisfaction in terms of actually making it happen.

The bottom line: don't specifically count on it, or your work may very well be contested against both your intentions and for compliance (and not necessarily in a good way if you're not careful). Ask and receive is a far better strategy for these matters, just so everyone who's involved in the process understands what you're trying to do (and with minimal problems, of course).

EDIT: Here's an example of what I'm referring to. It's download only because of the content - I couldn't get it to process as a direct view, and I obviously don't want to risk my YouTube account. I also apologize for any quality issues, but unfortunately my development computer has been rather wonky to the point of blue screen errors if I don't turn down the settings on the encoding process. And of course if there's any issues the mods can redact this accordingly.

Also, as @michaelmartin341 pointed out the rip rule does exist, so you definitely can't post or discuss any direct examples in that respect.

EDIT 2: Updated with the correct presentation. There is a small control panel at the top from the debug session, but for the purpose of the video its presence is not a relevant matter. Rest assured that the controls seen at the top will not apply to any final release. Also, I forgot to mention the first time but the scene is a bit on the heavy side due to its content, so if you're easily spooked by matters related to medic evac and emergency treatment protocols I do apologize for that and ask that you exercise full viewer discretion where necessary. (For the record, all matters related to the invocation of the "Rickroll gag" are intended to break up the monotony of what is otherwise a very serious kind of situation.)