Hello Dear Friends ! I was thinking of opening a forum about GTA 4 ! I have bought a domain name which contains the word gta4 in it ! So i would like to add some images and other things which are related to GTA 4 ! Will I have any problems for doing so ? Thanks Olgi
You shouldn't have a problem with that. I wouldn't see a problem because you would be promoting GTA 4 for them.
I don't think you will get any problem ..But maybe you can get if you use there copyrighted logo without there permission isn't that ? I am not sure about this. --DarkX
Can you have a problem? Yes. Will you? Who knows. Most game companies don't mind if you're positively promoting their product. One sure-fire way to know is to contact the company. Yeah, I know it's a foreign concept around these parts.
Once again, marketjunction is right on target. Companies are funny about this stuff. They will probably never tell you it is OK simply because the lawyers will never want to sanction anything where they can't control it and eventually take every dime you make. However, there is also the question of goodwill, enthusiasm, etc. which is not aided by shutting down fan sites and angering a large group that clearly will spend lots of dollars on their games. So while I agree with mj, I don't know that you'll ever get any approval. Likely they will "reserve their rights" to do whatever they want. I usually don't worry as long as I'm not profiteering, e.g. opening up a site called buydiablogame.com and selling copies of windows while having a forum open too...
It can be worth approaching the company. We have built many similar sites for clients and most the companies we have approached have given conditional authorisation - some simply that the site must be NFP others that they could request comments to be removed. It is an inevitable question though of if it is worth just staying below radar but then never having an overly successful site and risking them finding and suing or ask permission and risk them saying no
You could try looking at the official GTA4 site and see if they have a "fan site kit". Any images and content you find in them would be perfectly legal to use. I tried to check myself, but rockstar has the most horrendous site design I've ever seen...
You should be able to use some game images under fair use standards, since you are only advertising the game for them. I doubt that you would have any true problems as long as you don't do anything ridiculous against them.
If the forum is revenue generating (even if it is not profitable) then you will almost certainly exceed the fair use standards
You will have no problem using Logo's/Screenshots etc. This comes from me being a big GTA fan. Another thing which comes from being a big GTA fan is knowing about a site called gtaforums.com. It's a huge forum for anything GTA, and thats going to be your rival. You will have a hard time making a GTA IV forum successful.