Using an actual club as a setting?

[astuffedshirt_perv]

I went to Bondage-a-go-go while visiting San Fran. Great time. I want to use it in a story, including details of the club.

Any concerns with using an actual location in a story?

 

[TxRad]

I've used actual places in stories but didn't give a name to the place and never somewhere as well known as this.

It is a public place but you might change the name slightly and have no problems. That is unless you are using the real people and action from there. Then that is a whole other can of worms.

 

[sr71plt]

Not in fiction. I do it. If you go too contrary to what they really do (e.g., running a pedophile ring from the back of a Chucky Cheese), you could get flak (if they could track you down), but it would have to be way out there in defamation to have any real impact.

(I've put a rather unique "get real acquainted" play area called "The Pile" in the basement of a real gay club in Key West in more than one story/book, and I've heard that the club has gotten requests on how to get to it. It doesn't really exist. The club owners just think it's funny, I've heard, although they say they're thinking of installing it.)

 

[bashfullyshameless]

Absolute worst-case scenario: the club owners find out about it, and actually care, and go to the trouble to contact you to ask you to take it down or change the name. That's several conditions that have to be met to make it an issue for you. It's not like you're going to make a lot of money on this story if you post it to Literotica.

 

[BONNIEBREA]

I went to Bondage-a-go-go while visiting San Fran. Great time. I want to use it in a story, including details of the club.

Any concerns with using an actual location in a story?

I tend to think of these issues as simply being matters of courtesy and originality. I have several stories set in Chicago, and three of them use a BDSM club as a setting to a significant degree. Another much-used setting in the stories is Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. Now, I don't think I've been within a thousand miles of Chicago any time in the last thirty years (I remember changing planes once at O'Hare many years ago). But enough information on Buckingham Fountain was easily available to allow very accurate descriptions of the fountain and its setting. I even used a stock image of the fountain for the cover of one of the books.

For the club, there is a real BDSM club in the Chicago area called The Leather Rose. Since I don't live in a place within a thousand miles of an actual BDSM club, I was able to use photographs from their website on which to loosely base interior setting descriptions . As for the name, I didn't want to use the real name. I thought about just changing the name of the blossom involved but nothing really worked. I mean, a BDSM club called The Leather Tulip? The Leather Columbine? The Leather Geranium? The Leather Periwinkle? So I ended up calling it Leather & Lace, which seemed to work well enough.

It's similar to the issue about using actual celebrities/actors in stories. It's one thing to write about how Captain Janeway likes to take it up the ass from Chakotay. It's another thing entirely to get Kate Mulgrew and Robert Beltran in that scene. Libel isn't an issue, since proving actual malice is almost impossible. Other legal issues might be involved. But to me it's simply a matter of courtesy to two human beings not to drag them into some sexual fantasy that's actually going to be placed before the public.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is a good thread to stumble on. Part of my novel is based here in RI and I use the name of a restaurant in Federal hill and the name of an old mill that was turned into condominium.

I'm not taking any liberties with them and seeing as how I have the character say the restaurant is the Best in the State and describe the condo and its view in glowing terms hopefully no one minds.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I have set stories in a well-known club in Miami, complete with details describing the interior of the club, the activities that go on there, and more. I did not use the name of the club in those stories, however.

I have also set stories in local hotels, and in those cases I did use the names of the actual businesses. I think I have also used actual restaurants, as well.

In the case of the club, the reason I did not use the club's name was primarily to avoid outing myself and any other persons who may have been the basis of character creation for that story.

 

[TamLin01]

Hmm, well, I have a ton of real San Francisco locations in stories, but I rarely if ever name them, mostly because the names would mean nothing to the majority of readers anyway. It's a common device to use a real location in fiction. If it's a public space then naturally you're okay. Private establishments are unlikely to complain because it is, in effect, free advertising. But there are two grounds on which you might run into problems:

1. Libel/defamation: If you depict the setting or the owners in what might be interpreted as a negative light, they may complain. The question is, what's negative? If you have bondage scenes at BaGG, they certainly can't complain about that, but what if you write a story where someone gets hurt in that setting? Is that defamatory? They could very well say so. What if you portray the clientele or staff as being callous or discompassionate after? That could then be more likely to be considered defamatory.

However, it being a work of fiction and you employing presumed creative license, it would be a hard case to make. They'd have to prove not only that you're going out of your way to portray their establishment in a needlessly and unreasonably bad light (which could take an awful lot), but also that you're doing so in a way that a reasonable person might believe is true. No one will sue me about my story about werewolves in the Gold Club even if I had used the club's real name because, well, come on. Even if they did complain, a lawsuit would probably be unlikely, as it's hardly worth anyone's time.

2. Trademark infringement: Sometimes the name of a place is considered the individual intellectual property of whoever owns it. In the case of BaGG, which is not a specific locale but an event, this is even more likely to be so. However, in these cases, as with all intellectual property laws, you can make an argument for Fair Use. Even if you don't, you can also make the argument that your use of the trademarked material does not harm its marketability or their access to their customer base, which might take us back into the libel territory. This is the kind of thing you would be more likely to fall victim to legal action over, although again, in this case I would guess it's not particularly likely, unless of course you suddenly come into some commercial success.

There are some small risks involved with almost any reference to a real person or place. In most cases, the danger is so slight as to be not worth observing, and is always founded on the likelihood of the relevant party wanting to take action, which in most cases is not worth their while. Every case being different, there are no cut and dried answers. However, being that it's a common practice, you can rest assured that most authors who do so run into no trouble over it and you're no more likely than any other writer to run afoul of legal difficulties yourself.

 

[sr71plt]

The practical bottom line to keep in mind is that, in fiction. 99.999999999% of the time an establishment that doesn't like how it's been treated (even by name) can just whistle "Dixie" for legal comfort.