I am preparing to release a series of videos and going to upload them on youtube(starting on May 26). I have never really uploaded anything on youtube before and I don’t know exactly on how to deal with the trademarks and those stuff.
Do I say
“Halo is a registered trademark of Microsoft” or what?
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/developer/rules
This is most, if not all, what you need to know
I have quite a similar question. I’m currently preparing a few songs for an upcoming musical project (let’s call it a “one-man band”). I have always felt that my “name” should be a sort of hommage to my favorite video game - Halo, you got it. AND my favorite weapon, which is the Covenant Carbine (RIP).
The question is : am I allowed to use “Covenant Carbine” as my artist name? I mean, the words themselves do not necessarily refer to Halo, right? Or is it actually trademarked? It’s not like I plan on doing Halo-related content, it’s just the name.
It’s within game content usage rules yes. Monetization around Halo content is allowed as long as it is a disclaimer that the content is both not representative of Microsoft’s or 343 Industries action/views/opinion and made by Microsoft & 343 Industries.
Thing is, as far as I’m concerned, it’s not “Halo content”, it’s just a name. But the goal is to sell albums that I will produce under that band name. Isn’t that a problem? Can I just get away with it by simply putting this disclaimer?
I want to be sure of what I’m doing, as I think it’s a cool name and I don’t want to face trademark issues with it. I’ve tried contacting Microsoft about it and they couldn’t even tell.
They don’t own the name, I think the names just fine.
If you have a paper trail of them not saying no explicitly I would just go for it. You can probably even trademark it.
The GCU rules apply where you monetize IP, so like if you made a song and it was literally Halo music you ripped from the game to play over or sampling that. Covers of songs may fall into this too. Its clear they are very loose letting YouTubers create a livelihood with game footage and so on, I’m sure its not a big deal if you begin your career with a name from in universe like many have already.
I started several companies with Halo themed names, one of them being straight up ‘Black Box AI’ and we’re reverse engineering data from video games to store and aggregrate.
Thanks for this clear and complete reply! I see things more clearly now