: Re: At what point is permission needed to reference meta-characters and works in my own? In this question it is mentioned that you can't use a character from another novel in your own novel. But

@Nickens642

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The short answer is: There is no hard-and-fast, bright legal line. If you were sued for copyright and/or trademark infringement, a judge would decide this based on the facts of the specific case.

In general, it's completely legal to refer to someone else's trademark as long as, (a) you don't water down the trademark, i.e. treat a trademark as if it was generic. The classic example of this is that you can write, "Bob drank a Coke", with a capital-C, but you can't write, "Bob drank a coke", with a small-C. You can refer to Coke as a specific product, but not as a type of product. If you said "Pepsi, RC, and other cokes", and it came to the attention of the Coca-Cola company, their lawyers would be contacting you. (b) You can't write libelous things about a trademark. If you say that Exxon-Mobil Corporation is engaged in a criminal conspiracy, they will have grounds for a lawsuit.

You get on dangerous grounds when you arguably appropriate someone else's trademark, like writing your own story using Star Wars characters.

If you made a passing reference that, "George was sued when he wrote his own story using Star Wars characters", I think you'd be completely safe. But if you wrote such a story, and then put a sentence in front of it saying, "George was sued when he wrote the following story:", just saying that a character did it instead of that you did it wouldn't protect you at all. If it did, that would be a gaping loophole in trademark law. Anyone could circumvent the law by just wrapping the whole violation in quotes and putting it in the mouth of a fictional character.

The problem for you is, there's no rule that says, say, "You can make 13 references to someone else's trademark legally, but 14 references is over the line", or any such simple rule. If you are sued, a judge decides if you crossed the line using subjective criteria.

Tangential to your question, I would say from an artistic point of view: Just don't. Tying your story to someone else's story just makes you look unimaginative. Create your own characters and fictional universe, don't try to hijack someone else's.

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