To be fair, at what point does the royalty/copyright end? For games like hurt locker, AVM, stargate, SAO, sands of time, etc do these also require royalties for links to films, series etc, implied or actual?
To keep perspective, Urban Paintball are advertising 2016 games called Tropic Thunder, Hurt Locker, Full Metal Jacket etc.......
It will depend on the ip holder and how much they care or if they know about the games or not
Copyright automatically exists
Royalties apply if the copyright holder wants the royalties, a copyright holder may have no interest in the royalties
Eg if you buy a t-shirt with branding there will probably be royalties involved - the seller is making the sale on the branding rather than just that it is a t-shirt
A dodgy market trader may not be paying the royalty
However a royalty may have been paid along the way
I know someone who sells custom cushions (they actually annoy her as her core business is jewelry, and steam punk - the cushions are a spin off, but are good sellers!). She can't go to every brand, film studio etc and will make them from any legitimate material she can source (where the rights are dealt with) there are materials she could get and sell but are not legitimate. She doesn't fancy being busted for copyright
Using the name of a film might not be locked to copyright, there's a grey area between the words of the name and theme as to how much of that is legally enforceable
There may be an element of 'homage', and as long as there isn't a fraudulent attempt to show legitimacy with a connection then there wouldn't be an enforceable legal issue
Some will heavily guard their branding (eg Disney) and you can do nothing with any of their brands. However I have played Disney vs looney tunes, that just had the theme of what types of character were on each side
By definition, in scenario a film name would imply the game theme is also in line so you are heading closer to the potential of copyright, however games often head off in tangents
In tfd as event organisers we are known for our takur ghar series (not realy a copyright breach as it relates to a real life event, and in the origins of one of our founders there is a reason for the team name and then being our original event) over time the relation to the tg real life story and the scenario deviated heavily - I'm not aware of many real life Colombian gangsters running the drugs trade in Afghanistan
with stargate at least, I believe that all games have adjusted the name to staargate
So there is a tenuous adjustment
War fighters have a rainbow 6 theme - but i believe that is fully approved and they are associated with the game in promotions etc
In many cases a copyright holder has no interest in pursuing their fans, they may have an issue with someone profiting from a name & the fans.
In tfd as well as the tg theme we have run games with film and book themes, but avoid overdoing the copyright issue
All our storylines and games are written by us - they are be inspired and themed around something of interest
(We have also never profited from an event! We always work with a site, for many of our games we saw no money at all, for others we have walked away with money, however have spent much more on gadgets and gizmos to ensure the props we provide actually do something)
With uwl shoreline have at least up to 2015 had the rights to use the uwl name & logo
To date it's arguable as to how legitimate uwl 2016 publicity is - it's not formally announced as not being with shoreline
There is nothing to stop anyone from running a woodland tournament league, it's up to the owner of uwl as to the implication of the use of that name