Legally protected haunted houses?

[Monsta]

Hi guys,

I am sure you can help me with this question.

Copying someone else's work for profit is not fair, but building on pieces of someone's work and developing it further and/or integrating it with other parts is the way to move the industry forward.

I have heard about many awesome concepts from other haunted houses and would love to include some of them in my show. Is that ok?

Are there any licences or other legal protection for haunted house concepts or practices?

Thanks for your advice.

Monsta

[andrewhaunter]

I would think if you are taking set ideas that would be OK. I don't know if I would clone something 100% because then you are differentiating from your competition.

[mrfoos]

"Good artists copy, great artists steal." -Steve Jobs

[drfrightner]

Lets get real here for a second... haunts entire foundation was ripping off the movie industry. Haunters to this day go to the net and find pictures of things as reference to build sets and things. Haunters go on haunt tours for idea's. Vendors make the same thing for multiple haunts and the list goes on.

I don't think you can protect almost anything. Look at the movie industry alone half the movies are nearly identical.

Larry

[morte615]

There are some intellectual property rights involved. If you try to do a Saw house with the logo and jigsaw you will probably get a Cease and Desist from Lions Gate. If you do a torture theme that uses a marionette character you will probably still get a Cease and Desist but you may be able to talk your way out of it.

Ideas and inspiration is fine and what the industry is built on. But don't take characters or themes wholesale and toss it in, that's wrong.

And the exception of course are the movie monsters. Frankenstein and Dracula and such are open game.

[drfrightner]

Anyone can do a saw themed inspired haunted house... anyone. You can even use the word 'SAW' they can't trademark that word. If you came out with a haunted house and called it SAW based on the movie and used their logos and stuff yeah you'd have a problem. Saw is just a word just like Nightmare, and a million others. You can't use the likeness of their logos, images, and characters. Overall however what I'm saying is that you can't really protect scenes you build from being copied. I guess you could try good luck with that. Larry

[Monsta]

That is what I thought but just wanted to make sure. Thanks for your answers.