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Locations and Copyright (or, Is Disney gonna sue)

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CSDylan:
Okay so I'm getting to the point in my first book where it looks like it could actually be considered publishable, there's just one problem. At least one scene features Busch Gardens, a theme park/zoo in the Tampa Bay area, and I have no idea if I'm allowed to do that.
For those who don't know, Busch Gardens is/was owned by Anheuser Busch (Or InBev, whatever) which is, you know, a big beer company, Where as I am a half-broke lives-with-his-mother 20 year-old. Needless to say I could use without the lawsuit, but at the same time the park itself offers a wonderful setting (not to mention a scene involving an enchanted rhino).

So long story short I need to know if I can even submit the book with the scene, or if I have to find another way for it to work.

Fixed title...copywrite isn't the same as copyright. -Mickey

Starbeam:
There are a lot of books/movies that use real places for settings.  Off the top of my head, there's the Weather Warden series by Rachel Caine that's used a couple of hotels in Vegas, Ocean's Eleven did the same.  One of the Kitty Norville books was set in Vegas, as well, but I don't think it used any of the hotels, and the most recent Anita Blake only made mention(and had bad issues with fact checking).  Course, with Disney you should probably be really careful and make sure it's okay.  In this instance, it might be better to just pick a different name, but make it analogous to Busch Gardens.

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: CSDylan on July 08, 2009, 12:56:05 PM ---Okay so I'm getting to the point in my first book where it looks like it could actually be considered publishable, there's just one problem. At least one scene features Busch Gardens, a theme park/zoo in the Tampa Bay area, and I have no idea if I'm allowed to do that.
For those who don't know, Busch Gardens is/was owned by Anheuser Busch (Or InBev, whatever) which is, you know, a big beer company, Where as I am a half-broke lives-with-his-mother 20 year-old. Needless to say I could use without the lawsuit, but at the same time the park itself offers a wonderful setting (not to mention a scene involving an enchanted rhino).

--- End quote ---

I think you can do it; Cory Doctorow does not appear to have had any problems setting an entire novel in a Disney theme park in Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

CSDylan:
This is true, but he released it under Creative Commons or something. Eh, screw it, I'll just leave it as is and move on. The publisher will tell me if I could get sued, right?

Starbeam:

--- Quote from: CSDylan on July 09, 2009, 11:25:36 AM ---This is true, but he released it under Creative Commons or something. Eh, screw it, I'll just leave it as is and move on. The publisher will tell me if I could get sued, right?

--- End quote ---

That's pretty much the way I'm looking at it.  I'm not bothering to try to hide or create alternates for anything I use in my story.  My thought is that an agent might be able to better advise me on something like that than what I could find looking around online.  Or at least give a solid direction to look in.

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