labingi

Thanks for the links and redaction of the law. I agree with you that a case can be made that many of these usages are not copyright violation. (And a much stronger case can be made that they shouldn't be.)

But if you're trying to publish original fiction (or even self-publish for profit), the question is less what's legal than how much hassle is your publisher (or you) willing to put up with to fight the legal battles. To use an example I mentioned in another comment, a friend got told to cease and desist from self-publishing a book titled "Raggedy Chan" because it was allegedly a violation of the trademark for Raggedy Ann. My friend finally went to a lawyer and determined that the cease and desist order was not legal. She went ahead and successfully self-published. If she'd been shopping her book to professional publishers, they probably would have passed on it rather than consult lawyers on an unknown author's behalf.