It has been discussed before, but in a general point of view.
My situation is more particular.
As ergas suggested in a PM to me, using non official names for teams and players could be frustrating for the customers and could really affect the sales.
I was using names like "Liverpoolz, Arsenalz" etc, adding the final "z" letter to all real names.
I removed this, because I don't think they can sue me only for the name of a club, also because the players names are completely random :p
Then I started to look around for other soccer/football games, and found 3/4 other games: with a little disappointment, not only they were using OFFICIAL NAMES (like "David Beckham"!) but they had also a PHOTO of players on the main page!!! :D

Now I wonder how they can do that... for sure they cannot afford the rights to have Alex Del Piero pictures on front page... :P

Maybe for shareware games is safe to use real names, because big companies won't bother someone making less than 500$/month with a game??

If anyone have any suggestion, I am willing to hear it...!

Hi there,

Yes they can't afford. I remember Ronaldo not giving rights to EA in 1998 and there was a Brazilian man something like Rondino instead.

I asked the same question to a lot of friends. They encourage me to use real names. They say that the day you are concerned with legality you will be as rich to fly away. But this could lead me and Celso meet in the prison of course :D

ergas

They say that the day you are concerned with legality you will be as rich to fly away. But this could lead me and Celso meet in the prison of course
ahem... not a great perspective to me!!! LOL

For now I changed the real club names. To write all real player names would take about one week of work (if not more since I have 6 league x 20 teams x 25 players each....!!)
So better make an editor and let players do that :))

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
To write all real player names would take about one week of work (if not more since I have 6 league x 20 teams x 25 players each....!!)

Only a week? Go ahead by yourself.

or you could read in the Championship Manager data and write it back out in a suitable format.

or you could read in the Championship Manager data and write it back out in a suitable format.

hmmm you really want me in prison, don't you? :D hehe joking

I can't see what would be wrong with that. If you read the file, output the data to a text file. Who's to know where the original names came from - you could have just typed them all into a file yourself. Might save you a bit of trouble.

maybe because the db's will be exactly the same, MISTAKES and all. Don't you remember in school that your teacher caught you cheating not because you had the same answers right but because you had exact the same answers wrong ? :)

And either way, it is still illegal, but I don't think risk running into trouble.

Yes it is illegal. It is also illegal to use the names of real teams/players without their permission.

I think you'd better make up your own names. I think that is the only right thing to do.

IANAL, but I do believe it is not generically illegal to use the names of players or even their photographs without permission (or where would the tabloids be, eh?) but there are dodgy issues with using them to promote sales through trademark infringement laws. The case would have to be individually assessed in a court of law. This is why games get endorsed by FIFA or whatever they're called - it keeps everything above board and sees them cream off a % to stop them from hassling you. It's worth looking into.

Cas :)

Originally posted by ergas
Hi there,

Yes they can't afford. I remember Ronaldo not giving rights to EA in 1998 and there was a Brazilian man something like Rondino instead.

I asked the same question to a lot of friends. They encourage me to use real names. They say that the day you are concerned with legality you will be as rich to fly away. But this could lead me and Celso meet in the prison of course :D

ergas

I also remember Michael Jordan not showin for the same reason in some NBA title (one on one something) since he wanted too much. instead they put "John Doe" with his shadow as a picture, but everyone knew it was him