I just found out about this. Well, the truth is that I should have imagined it. From what I discovered, looking for more information about it, it seems that is not very common to happen.

If you make an amateur movie on the topic of Star Wars for example and use things like light sabers or characters is no problem. It seems that George Lucas took a generous stance accepting without problems that the fans of the series of films would have fun in that world that he had created. Good for him.

This is an example of what may be acceptable, an incredibly well-made fan-film about the Star Wars saga.

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But it is very different if you use it in something that is going to give money.

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It turns out that the first time George Lucas's company LucasFilm threatened litigation on the subject of light sabers was in 2010 against a Hong Kong company called Wicked Lasers. This company sells lasers as its name indicates and one of them is the Artic Spyder.

That it can become a Lightsaber.

Of course they finally came to an arrangement. It seems that the concern of LucasFilm was due to a security problem with the laser and Wicked Lasers agreed to put to their devices additional security features and also added safety glasses.

An example of not ilegal use of lightsabers in a Hollywood movie is the movie "Spaceballs" by director Mel Brook.

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In it come the lightsab... I'm sorry, better said "Schwartz Rings", the equivalent of light sabers in "Spaceballs" ;) . And of course, not only light sabers were copied on it, much of "Spaceballs" is based on "Star Wars" in terms of Art and Characters. I read in one of the writings on this subject that Mel Brook gave a copy of the script to George Lucas before he started producing the film and George gave him the approval. There is also a legal exception in the Copyright Law called "Fair Use" which could have helped in case of legal problems. This law allows any material to be used for parody or satire.

The latest litigation was against Lightsaber Academy "A Consortium for Academic, Stage Combat, and Sport Dueling Lightsaber Instructors" in 2016. This time not only for light sabers but also because the logo of the academy is very similar to the Jedi logo.

From what you can see, Lightsaber Academy has it very complicated in this case. As far as I know, the process is still running.

And well, it seems that the lightsaber is not the only spoiled Star Wars boy for the company LucasFilm ( I know that Disney bought it but still has its own name ). They have also had Copyright problems for Stormtrooper helmets, the word "DROID", "JEDI", for a Leia hologram and even the name "Star Wars".

May the Force be with you.

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