LES MISERABLES: THE GAME OF THE BOOK ... Frequently Asked Questions

Is the game connected to the famous musical?

No.

Les Miserables: the game of the book has no connection with Cameron Mackintosh's musical. The musical is about the powerful emotions and human relationships of Victor Hugo's book. Those things are important, and they feature in Les Miserables: the game of the book. But Hugo emphasized a different aspect, the story of society and justice. In his preface to the book, Hugo said

"So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth... So long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world; or in other words, So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use."

Les Miserables, the book, is about justice. So is the game. It's a question of emphasis. In order to be a successful musical, Cameron Mackintosh's Les Miserables must emphasize the emotions and human relationships, and spend less time discussing the great issues of economics, of poverty, or nationhood, of different viewpoints on the same events, and of building a better future. The game aspires to cover those more abstract big concepts.

If you want to explore these ideas in more detail, the game shows the same principles at work in other nations and other time periods. See why are there so many locations?

Isn't the name "Les Miserables" trademarked by Cameron Mackintosh?

Cameron Mackintosh has trademarked the name "Les Miserables"in the distinctive font (Caslon Antique.) Some say that is all he has trademarked, but others say it is the name itself when used for the musical or anything like it. But clearly the trademark does not cover the movies, cartoons, the other plays, or the original book.

More about the font

Sometimes this game uses Jeff Lee's JSL Ancient, my all-time favorite font. For me it has the perfect balance between authenticity and readability. JSL Ancient is based on old hand printed documents, so naturally it loks a little like other old style fonts, including the musical's font, Caslon Antique. So to avoid confusion I've created the main title is usually in a completely different font. (The angular serif font is based on MS Serif, and edited in Paint Sho Pro).

Choosing a font that doesn't look like the musical is much harder than it sounds. I tried half a dozen different titles, and tried each time to look different from the Caslon antique. But if you use any font that's from nineteenth century printing, and go for the grungy look that suggests poverty, or if you tint it with the colors of the revolution, it always ends up looking like it was copied from the musical, no matter what you do! So after many hours I finally went for something as different as I could, while still having an old fashioned feel. I hope it works.

The limited scope of trademarks

Trademarks only refer to specific classes of goods and services. That is why you can have "Smith's snack foods" and "Smith's stationary" and both use the same name, but nobody confuses the two because they cover different categories of goods. Cameron Mackintosh (the producer of the musical) has trademarked Les Miserables in the UK for the following classes of goods and services: Class 41: Theatrical and show business entertainment services. Class 09: Phonograph records, records, cassette tapes, compact discs, pre-recorded tapes. Class 16: Printed matter, books, posters, photographs, stationery; packaging materials, playing cards, coasters, sheet music and tissues. Class 25: Articles of outer clothing, sweatshirts and T-shirts. Similar classes are covered by trademarks in other countries. The distinctive Cosette image is also trademarked, even though it comes from an edition of the book that is long out of copyright. It is true that class 41 covers both theatrical productions and general entertainment, which (along with class 9) also covers video games. However, these classes also cover movies. Yet there have been several movie versions of Les Miserables released since 1985 when the musical began.

Derivative titles and special cases

Trademarks are very specific, hence Mackintosh has separately registered "Les Miserables School Edition" - so plainly the first trademark does not cover all derivatives of the name Les Miserables... such as "Les Miserables: the game of the book."Another legal defense is that a generic title (such as the out-of-copyright novel) can always be used in a generic way. So I can say "this is a game based on the book Les Miserables" but it would be more dangerous to just call the game "Les Miserables." And there is a third issue to consider. Where one company is very famous, an ordinary person might hear the trademarked name and assume it always comes from famous company, even if the product is different. So it very important to work to avoid that confusion. The key to such trademarks is "what do the public think when they hear the name?" That is why I have called the new game "Les Miserables: the game of the book" in case anyone thinks it's based on the musical. Though I've heard the music, and seen some of the tenth anniversary concert on TV, at the time of writing I've never actually seen the musical myself.

Long term, any trademark problem will naturally disappear. I don't expect the game to sell tens of thousands of copies in the first months (I wish!) and after a few months I will be adding the next game, probably Dante's Inferno, so the name "Les Miserables" will no longer dominate.

Other adaptations since 1985

Since 1985, the most famous use of the title "Les Miserables" has been Cameron Mackintosh's excellent musical. Mackintosh has trademarked the use of the name for certain specific uses, but this has not stopped others from making movies, etc. For example:

1987, Austria: Les Miserables movie directed by Mara Mattuschka

1988, USA: Les Miserables animation directed by Al Guest

1990, France: Les Miserables movie directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau

1995, France: Les Miserables movie directed by Claude Lelouch

1998, USA and worldwide: Les Miserables movie starring Liam Neeson

2000, France and worldwide: Les Miserables TV miniseries starring Gérard Depardieu

2007, Japan: Les Miserables animation directed by Shoujo Cossette

And all of this time there was already a play based on Les Miserables, adapted by Jonathan Holloway. Yes that's right, when Cameron Mackintosh created his famous musical there was already a play of Les Mis, and it is still being performed, mainly by schools.

Each of these productions has traded on the name "Les Miserables" at the same time as the famous musical. The key is that nobody should confuse the different forms of entertainment. So, for example, you can make a movie (or game) based on Les Mis, but don't dare to call it a musical!