Trademarks, Brand Names, Song Titles, and Specific Place Names

[Emilymcplugger]

Hello All,

I'm new to writing fiction and really love reading the stories here. I'm started an account to try my hand at writing some stories of my own. One of the things I'm struggling with is the use of real trademarks & brand names (e.g., Uber, Starbucks, etc.), real song titles, and real place names (e.g., named landmarks like the Walmart down the street, or such and such theatre). Is there some sort of fair use rule when using these in fiction? E.g.:

She was waiting for her rideshare with a latte when it pulled up blaring a popular teen-pop song on the radio.

or

She was waiting for an Uber sipping on her Starbucks when it pulled up blaring WHAM's "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go"

Thanks for all your insight!

Pat

Okay so you can mention stuff by name that’s fine. The problem is when you use lyrics in songs instead.

If you have a character singing along and you’ve got the lyrics down then that might go outside of fair use unlike if you just say that a song was playing.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Okay so you can mention stuff by name that’s fine. The problem is when you use lyrics in songs instead.

If you have a character singing along and you’ve got the lyrics down then that might go outside of fair use unlike if you just say that a song was playing.

I think you can get away with quoting a line or two. We've discussed this before, and there were debates about fearing the moderators, or fearing the record labels, or the moderators fearing the record labels. There were discussions about bots combing the the Internet. I don't think we resolved it. So use some discretion but don't obsess about a short quote.