Can you copyright a title?

Like book titles? Movie titles?

I’m thinking no, because there are various examples of books and movies that have the same title but have nothing to do with each other.

I realize you can’t write a book and put “Star Wars” in the title without Lucas’s permission in some way, shape or form because it’s a copyrighted brand name, but somehow I don’t think Lucas owns the phrase “A New Hope” and I wonder if he would even bother as long as it was obvious you weren’t writing your own Star Wars book or making your own Star Wars movie.

Or if I made a movie called “Temple of Doom” but it had no relation to Indiana Jones, but rather was a movie about drug dealers in paris, would there be any repercussions?

And I do realize titles like “Return of the Jedi” would be problematic because “Jedi” is a Lucas creation and would be ipso facto Star Wars related.

I doubt if that’s true if your book is not related directly to the Star Wars movies. For example, I doubt if the author of this book needed permission from George Lucas.

Titles can’t be copyrighted (or Robert B. Parker would owe me a lot of money – my story “Playmates” predated his novel).

However, “Star Wars” and the various SW titles are trademarked. If you tried to use them, most likely your publisher would tell you to rename the book. They aren’t going to go to the hassle of defending the title in court, even if you are in the right.

If you insisted on using it, something like “A New Hope” would probably pass muster if there was clearly no connection to SW. “Temple of Doom” would probably be more of a problem, since it is so identified with Indiana Jones.

There is a huge difference between copyrights and trademarks. You’d be doing yourself a favour if you learn how to use the words correctly.

It’s possible that even “Star Wars” might be okay as a title for an unrelated work. Trademarks are limited in their range. No matter how famous it gets, Geroge Lucas can’t control every use of the phrase “star wars” (after all, it’s just two regular English words). Look at teh use of the phrase to describe various weapons systems. I’d be suprised to learn there were absolutely no “Star Wars”-titled works having to do with one or more of those. Trademarks apply to limited categories. Furthermore, you can’t stop people from using words in their literal sense.

I don’t know whether “Star Wars” is considered a “famous” mark (so far as the law is concerned, like “Coca-Cola”), but if so, then you’d have to worry about dilution by blurring or dilution by disparagement.

SDI: What Could Happen : Eight Possible Star Wars Scenarios, by John Rhea

New Light on Star Wars: A Contribution to the SDI Debate (Policy Study), by R. V. Jones

Mormonism’s Temple of Doom, by William J Schnoebelen

You cannot copyright a title.