Legal Issues

Hello everyone, im creating a serie of small games where you talk with well known personalities or fictional characters that already exist, my question is, does i have legal issues with it? I give an example, i want to introduce in a game, a version of Dolly Parton, can i do it? Even if i change her name to something similar? Im not sure if i can do it.

im not sure how persons of public life are handled in your country. But mostly slightly changed names will do the trick... But ik no lawyer :p

I think it depends on if there's also a brand, I mean Alice Cooper would be a no no.. even he screwed up and still has to pay royalies to the original band members.. originally Alice Cooper was the band

To be honest it depends on how much of a dick they are, historical figures are usually ok, if its a free game it'll probably pass un noticed

Changing the name is usually funner anyway

Hum... ok =) i suppose ill go for the changing name point of view =) it will actually be fun =P

Change the names and include a legal statement at the beginning saying that similarities with real people are coincidental , etc. 

"similarities with real people are coincidental" thats a nice trick =) ill problably use it.

"similarities with real people are coincidental" thats a nice trick =) ill problably use it.

Thank you

Should technically be something like: "Any similarities to living, dead or fictional characters, names or locations is purely coincidental."

Quick note: this doesn't really protect you from anything, but if you take someone elses work, say the name of a character that someone else created & change the name of the character slightly & maybe a few features here & there of the way the character looks, then you can turn around & say I created this, regardless of whether or not you blatantly ripped it off someone else & did the equivalent of asset flipping (where people take existing data & stick it straight into their media content with or without modifying it).

Actually all the artwork would be created by me, i suppose changing the name, adding "Any similarities to living, dead or fictional characters, names or locations is purely coincidental." would do the trick, at least i expect so =)