Talking about great classics of literature in a game

Hello.

Would there be any legal problem if, in my game, I talked about famous classics of literature (for example: Machiavelli's Principe, Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia, Manzoni's Promessi Sposi...)?

If it is useful, the game is free.

Thanks in advance.

I think that would be fine, you're talking about works written by authors that died a considerably long time ago. You're not claiming anyone else's work as your own, and you're not making any profit off a free game.

Sounds interesting! I'd say, go for it.

Thank you, Robbie  :D

Even if it were a paid for game, you can discuss these.

Legally, if the copyright has expired on the items, which I'm sure it has for classic works (i.e. those before 1900 or so), you can reference, quote or do anything you want with classic works.

Probably anything up on Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org is legal to use, at least in the US.

Anything more recent, I'd be careful, just to be on the safe side.

Well, since you're just talking about the books instead of doing anything that might count as plagiarism or copyright violations that makes things easier too.  My understanding is that you're able to do that as long as you don't hurt their reputation, damage their ability to sell their product, or lie about them.

Certain works are part of the public domain because of because the original copyright owner is dead, because he/she lived before the existence of copyright laws, and/or because of age.


A lot (if not all) of classical literature, and classical music is like this.


Just do your research.


Machiavelli and Dante Alighieri certainly fall into that category. You could make an entire game pretty much off of the stories/premises of these books, sell them, and face no legal action because there are no-one there to press charges or sue you. The same applies to playing and profiting off of most (if not all) classical music.


Where a lot of people mess up so that they don't understand the difference between the original work, and recreation of the original work.


While the compositions of Mozart and the writings of Machiavelli are public domain,


modern recordings of Mozart released by a record company, or modern translations of Machiavelli released by a publishing company are not, and are the intellectual property of whomever released it, and as such, cannot be used without permission.


Here are some sites for you to look at


Headliner on this page explains public domain in literature


http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread435830/pg1


Pages that have loads of public domain works of literature


http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page


https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/public-domain


This page explains public domain and copyrights even better, but in regards to music(same principles apply though)


http://www.shockwave-sound.com/Articles/010_Copyrights_in_Public_Domain_music.html


Have a look.