Creating a game with main character as hisorical person

Development Character & Animation
,
1

Do you need to pay royalties to anyone if your game has a main character such as Hernán Cortés or Christopher Columbus? If so, can you reference to them without paying royalties?

2

If the person has living relatives that control their estate and your purpose is not covered under fair use then yeah. Most likely for those people no

3

Thanks for the reply.

How would I go about finding out if the people I would like to reference are under an estate which is copyrighted? Do I need to get in contact with a lawyer?

4

I know very little about the subject, but I can tell you (the same thing DarthViper said, but expanded) that (Do you live the the United States?) if your game does fall under fair use, and the person is long dead, you can make a game about anyone.

Your main concern is if the person is either alive, or fairly recently dead like Walt Disney or something, and if you somehow were to “offend” the person or estate in some way, enough for them to sue you. Some examples:

  • You make a game about Donald Trump where you mercilessly mock him and belittle him.
  • You make a game with the main character (or side character) as Bruce Willis. ( This believe would have a very good chance of getting you in trouble, especially if you a making money off of it)
  • You make a game about Walt Disney of any kind (cuz Disney is probably sue happy)

So yeah, I know very little here, but if you are talking about people that died over 150 (arbitrary number I picked - 150 has no significance) years ago then you are almost certainly free to use whatever historical character you want. ( Assuming you are talking about the USA ).