Use celebrities photos in game ...

Hi all,
I have a good idea for my next game but I need to use celebrities photos for that.
Can I do that without have issues with Google policy?
Is it legal or I should worry about legal problems?

Definitely NOT legal. Not because of the celebrities… but because the photographer owns the IP rights to the photo!

Unless you buy the photos and the license allows you to use them in an android app…

ok :frowning:

Anybody know why the “Logo Quiz” is not problematic? It’s been on the top downloads for months. I wonder if it’s just a matter of the corporations not complaining since it amounts to free advertising for them.

Theres hundreds of apps that get away with using other peoples brands. Just look at all the family guy sound boards. As a serious developer I would never do this though, it would only take a couple complaints to loose your account.

Don’t do it, bro!!! :slight_smile:

Even if you took the photos yourself, I believe that celebrities have certain privacy and publicity rights that prevent you from using their images on merchandise.

(Politicians may be exempt from this; not sure exactly.)

Some references:

http://www.onlineartrights.org/issues/depictions-real-people/basics

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/can-use-celebrity-images-tshirts-40638.html

http://www.threadless.com/info

Now these articles seem to talk about USA law. I don’t know if/how it differs in other countries.

Every single human as privacy rights and you are not allowed to publish any picture of anyone.

You need to get written permission (mostly) of every subject (or the owner) - even if it is a church, a museum whatever - everything which is not your property is not allowed to be photographed and publicated without prior permission. There are some exceptions, but easy speaking: Not your intellectual and(!) material property -> disallowed to publish

talking about europe btw. … and also true: as long as noone sues you, it doesn’t matter :wink:

@megasoft you can look out for different sources of phototgraphs where there is permission to use them commercially - but they will be rare

Hi guys,
thank you for all your comments.
In my next game I don’t necessary need celebrities photos or people photos.
It was a nice idea but I agree with you that is a bad thing to do.

I’ll check how to do my game without them :slight_smile: