Hello, I''m working on a logo for my next game. If there''s no problem, the animation will be a black screen, then will appear a pacman(the character, the yellow ball...), and it will cross the screen... when it goes crossing, will appear my company''s logo... Can I have any trouble doing this? is the graphic character copyrighted? thanks for your questions... Marc Casas P.S.: Sorry for my bad english...

Its copyright by Namco - they use the character as their company ''logo'', so could call it a trademark device.
Although not necessarily illegal to use, think of it this way: could you afford top lawyers ($$$) to defend yourself if they did sue you for "passing off" ?

9 times out of 10 they probably wouldn''t (other people have publicallly used the Pac-Man symbol without permission, and haven''t been sued), but if you did something which became commercially successful and/or you''re unlucky, you *might* have problems.


We developed an official Pac-Man licenced game (Pac-Man: Adventures in Time) a while back, and I can promise you Namco take any use of the Pac-Man character very seriously!


--
Simon O''Connor
Creative Asylum Ltd
www.creative-asylum.com

Well, so I can''t use a pacman... but can I use a pacman''s skeleton, or I''ll be under copyright infringment too?
thanks for the answer...

Marc Casas

The rule is if people think it''s probably pacman, it''s illegal.

So, skeletons, blue pacmen, pacmen with a symbol on the side, all problematic.

Why do you want to co-opt someone else''s logo anyway?

quote:

---

Original post by Anonymous Poster
The rule is if people think it''s probably pacman, it''s illegal.

So, skeletons, blue pacmen, pacmen with a symbol on the side, all problematic.

Why do you want to co-opt someone else''s logo anyway?

---

Well, when I asked here in the forum i didn''t know that pacman was Namco''s logo... (yes, i didn''t do ANY research about pacman or his owner... )
So now I''m sure that I will think another logo/animation... And thaks for the replies.

Marc Casas