History Main / WritingAroundTrademarks

* {{Cosplay}} troupes who dress up as popular Franchise/DisneyPrincess characters for birthday parties and other such occasions tend to refer to the characters in question generically, like in the case of Castle & Co. Entertainment. While they can get away with using Rapunzel, Cinderella or the Little Mermaid's names directly (owing to the fact that the Princesses are based on public domain characters to begin with; individual depictions however can be copyrighted), the same is not true with [[Characters/FrozenElsa Elsa]] or WesternAnimation/{{Moana}} due to their iconic status as pop culture figures, so they have to resort to generic terms such as "The Ice Queen" or "Island Princess" instead; [[Characters/FrozenAnna Princess Anna]] does seem to get a free pass for some reason. They do make a disclaimer about the arguably grey-market nature of their work as unauthorised portrayals of Disney characters though, knowing the company's legal zealousness especially with the ''Frozen'' franchise.

** ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' underwent a similar, though much less extensive, rebranding process -- which, since most of their factions were already fairly specific, mostly amounted to changing the names of the few Imperial institutions that were still in plain English to CanisLatinicus. Thus the Space Marines became the Adeptus Astartes (which they already were, but it wasn't the common name of the faction until the change), the Imperial Guard became the Astra Militarum and their stormtroopers the Militarum Tempestus (presumably to avoid the wrath of [[Franchise/StarWars a franchise]] that had been bought by [[Creator/{{Disney}} a company with even more lawyers]]), the Eldar became Aeldari (as the term "Eldar" is lifted straight from Tolkien's works) and the Tau inexplicably gained an apostrophe in their name. Amusingly, even in-universe everyone refuses to use Astra Militarum unless they're doing official paperwork for practical reasons; it's basically "Imperial Guard plus some other things technically in the same chain of command". Individual soldiers are still called Guardsmen, for example.

* The English localizations of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' use this extensively, thanks to the [[ReferenceOverdosed copious references]] to famous songs and musicians. Sometimes the translators find clever ways to preserve the references, like changing [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Josuke]]'s [[Music/PinkFloyd Crazy Diamond]] into ''Shining'' Diamond, calling Captain Tennille 'Captain Dragon' (Daryl Dragon is the real name of 'Captain' from ''Music/CaptainAndTennille''), or using homophones (such as calling Made in Heaven 'Maiden Heaven'). Most of the time, though, they just resort to using synonyms (like calling Music/KingCrimson 'Emperor' Crimson and turning Weather Report into Weather Forecast), sticking to nicknames ('FF' and '[=D4C=]' are used in both original and localization, but the latter insists they are the full names and not merely shorthand for Music/FooFighters and [[Music/{{ACDC}} Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap]][[note]]which is subtitled as "Filthy acts, at a reasonable price" when spoken in ''VideoGame/JoJosBizarreAdventureAllStarBattle'', ''VideoGame/JoJosBizarreAdventureEyesOfHeaven'', and ''[[UpdatedReRelease JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R]]''[[/note]]), or changing names outright (turning Sticky Fingers into 'Zipper Man' to reference his zipper powers).

* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing'', Mario's companion Olivia says "Shake it like a piece of outdated photographic paper". This is a reference to the Music/OutKast song "Hey Ya!", but with the word "Polaroid" swapped out with something more generic (while simultaneously incorporating a joke about how TechnologyMarchesOn, given that Polaroids haven't been in wide use since the early 2000s thanks to the advent of digital cameras).

* The fan-made ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' GameMod ''[[https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Back_to_Saturn_X Back to Saturn X]]'' was [[TitledAfterTheSong named after a song]] by the band Music/GuidedByVoices, and all the levels were likewise named after the band's songs. In 2020, the mod was made into an official add-on, available through Bethesda's UpdatedRerelease of the game. Given copyright concerns, in this release the mod was renamed to ''BTSX'', and [[https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Back_to_Saturn_X#Official_add-on_version all the levels had their names changed]]. The new level names typically mimic Guided By Voices's [[WordSaladTitle offbeat naming style]], without actually infringing on the copyright. Similarly, when James Paddock, one of the composers that made the music for the mod, released his songs as an album, he gave it the lawyer-friendly title [[https://jamespaddock.bandcamp.com/album/saturn-x-soundtrack-episode-1 "Saturn X Soundtrack"]].

* The English localizations of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' use this extensively, thanks to the [[ReferenceOverdosed copious references]] to famous songs and musicians. Sometimes the translators find clever ways to preserve the references, like changing [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Josuke]]'s [[Music/PinkFloyd Crazy Diamond]] into ''Shining'' Diamond, calling Captain Tennille 'Captain Dragon' (Daryl Dragon is the real name of 'Captain' from ''Music/CaptainAndTennille''), or using homophones (such as calling Made in Heaven 'Maiden Heaven'). Most of the time, though, they just resort to using synonyms (like calling Music/KingCrimson 'Emperor' Crimson and turning Weather Report into Weather Forecast), sticking to nicknames ('FF' and '[=D4C=]' are used in both original and localization, but the latter insists they are the full names and not merely shorthand for Music/FooFighters and [[Music/{{ACDC}} Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap]] or changing names outright (turning Sticky Fingers into 'Zipper Man' to reference his zipper powers).