Clarity on destination guide and copyright

[asteriddle]

Hey, so I'm a bit confused on whole whole copyright infringement thing when it comes to submitting destination guide suggestions.

It's there in a bold red warning box;

Warning: Do not suggest content that is copyrighted or otherwise subject to another party's proprietary rights (including privacy, publicity, trademark, and trade secret rights) unless you own the rights or have the owner's permission. Content determined to infringe upon intellectual property rights is removed from our website and services.

Though when looking through some destination guide locations, some seem based off/inspired by copyrighted materials (some more heavily than others). 

So, my question is - is it alright to submit a location based off/inspired by a copyrighted* franchise (like a video game, book, or movie series), and where is the line drawn? Is the line drawn at using ripped/official assets from said media, or is it a quite literal 'don't have a copy of this copyrighted movie playing 24/7 or whatever'?

 

*I put this asterisk here because the location in mind is based off a media where the author is independent and has a very flexible copyright stance; i.e. creating works using the characters, world, and name is allowed freely without individual permission by the author as long as it's not on a massively commercial scale. Obviously though, this isn't the case for everything.

[animats]

16 hours ago, asteriddle said:

Hey, so I'm a bit confused on whole whole copyright infringement thing when it comes to submitting destination guide suggestions.

It's there in a bold red warning box;

Warning: Do not suggest content that is copyrighted or otherwise subject to another party's proprietary rights (including privacy, publicity, trademark, and trade secret rights) unless you own the rights or have the owner's permission. Content determined to infringe upon intellectual property rights is removed from our website and services.

Though when looking through some destination guide locations, some seem based off/inspired by copyrighted materials (some more heavily than others). 

So, my question is - is it alright to submit a location based off/inspired by a copyrighted* franchise (like a video game, book, or movie series), and where is the line drawn? Is the line drawn at using ripped/official assets from said media, or is it a quite literal 'don't have a copy of this copyrighted movie playing 24/7 or whatever'?

 

*I put this asterisk here because the location in mind is based off a media where the author is independent and has a very flexible copyright stance; i.e. creating works using the characters, world, and name is allowed freely without individual permission by the author as long as it's not on a massively commercial scale. Obviously though, this isn't the case for everything.

The Nolo Press books on copyright and trademark are useful if you want to understand what you're legally allowed to do.

If it involves Star [Trek|Wars|Gate|Citizen], or the Marvel Overextended Universe, don't go there. They have strong rights-enforcement departments, and besides, that stuff has been done to death. Do something original.