Legal issues over depicting World War Two equipment

[Former_Older]

Originally Posted by tater

Bottom line is that had someone with 1/2 of a clue looked at the box art before it went on press, we would not be having this conversation. It's that simple. Even a decent copy editor familiair with product packaging would have corrected this, doesn't need to be a lawyer.

It was not ABOUT the package, but the package opened the door because the package failure was open and shut, Ubi would certainly have lost in court there, no question. At that point it was cut their losses time, and negotiate as NG wished so they didn't have to reprint/recall X thousands of boxes, plus probably pay some damages.

On the nose and the crux of the matter in my opinion. Well put

[Former_Older]

Originally Posted by Zoom2136

All of this is C.R.A.P.....

If a company is so afraid of setting a precedent... they just have to GRANT 1C (or any other company) limited right to use image and depiction of their product.... This is called licencing... it can be made for a symbolic amont....

What would prevent such a thing is trying to squeeze all the $$$ they can from a product. So a company will want in exemple $$$/copy sold (ship, produced, etc). Don't forget these planes still bring in money from licencing (miniatures scale models, collectors items (books, posters, calenders), etc.). And you would be suprise how much $$$ they still generate.

So... precendence setting... please...

Look up US Constitutional Law sometime and get an eye opener about Precedence in US Law. Obviously this is not a Constitutional case but the fact of the matter is yes, US law does look to precedent

You want to believe it was greed? OK

Let me ask you just one question:

what made NGC follow this course of action? Put another way: Why did NGC start to care about all this?

Think about the answer a minute...what event was it that made NGC take notice...

[Former_Older]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

Hello,

Having started this topic, I thought I would weigh in. In particular, Former_Older I thought you would find this interesting as it is inspired by what you have written:
http://web.ncf.ca/ee555/il2unwritten.pdf

I look forward to hearing your response, S!

Very interesting. I'm not sure I fully understand the unwritten constitution implication yet. I'll have to think on that

But does this mean that somehow, our heritage trumps ownership of design by corporations and even private ownership? In my opinion, no. For example:

Ford Motor Cars owns the Model T rights. It's a very historic thing in it's own right, the Model T

I still need to take certain steps in order to legally use it's design for a commercial application, correct?

But Ford will lose no history, no heritage, and no direct money if I do this without their permission. Yet I still can't just do anything I want with anything concerning the Model T, commercially. How can Ford lose money? What, am I selling the design to Audi?

[Rama]

Originally Posted by Former_Older

I'm sorry, but yes I can know whose fault it is. 1C:Maddox Games did not do the box art. UbiSoft did.

But you don't know if the box art was or wasn't the reason for NGC to sue Ubisoft and M:1C
... this is just a guess... so you KNOW nothing (same for everybody there)

[tater]

Even if 1C made the box art, as the distributor, Ubi should have run it past a lawyer. Period. THEIR name is on it, and you can be damn sure they would have had a problem without the proper protections on THEIR name.

The buck stops with Ubi, IMO. They are the ones doing the marketing (LOL, that's another issue altogether) and the selling. It's pitched as an Ubisoft product.

tater

[Theshark888]

I highly doubt anyone at Ubisoft knows what an Aichi, Grumman or Vought is. They had to get that info from 1C. Look at the trademarks etc. listed at the back of PF and nobody thought of the right of these companies?

I work with product packaging all the time and it goes through many eyes and departments-it's not as if one guy didn't know the law and screwed up.

Include a commercial intro from the companies in question in the DVD or small pamphlet and set a positive precedent from this situation. These are "game" designers after all and I would like to see some thought out of the box.

[GF_Mastiff]

I'm starting to wounder if Micro$oft had anything to do with this because of their slump in sales with CFS series?

[X32Wright]

I think cultural differences should be in taken into account as well. Oleg and 1C maddox had enormous open arms help and assistance from russian aircraft/defense industries. This is partly why the russian planes have very good modeling (FM and DM and 3d modeling) in this game.


This is very different when dealing with american aircraft/defense companies. Instead of giving blueprints and other data, american companies wanted money.

I don't think 1C and UBI fully udnerstood the american nature specially when it comes to proprietary trademark and copyright issues specially not knowing that Fairchild Republic,Vought and other old Long Island-based aircraft manufacturers were merged or absorbed by Grumman Corporation which merged with Northrop years ago.

And yes Ubi paid NGC more than the development costs for Il-2 which 1C was the one to suffer hence minimal incentive for delevoping the Il-2 series further.

[Zoom2136]

Originally Posted by Former_Older

Look up US Constitutional Law sometime and get an eye opener about Precedence in US Law. Obviously this is not a Constitutional case but the fact of the matter is yes, US law does look to precedent

You want to believe it was greed? OK

Let me ask you just one question:

what made NGC follow this course of action? Put another way: Why did NGC start to care about all this?

Think about the answer a minute...what event was it that made NGC take notice...

To make precedent a case has to be argued before the Court and a jugement must be rendered. It is not enough to just state.... hey they let it appened in the past... So if you don't bring a matter before the Court it CANNOT make legal precedent...

[mmitch10]

Originally Posted by Zoom2136

To make precedent a case has to be argued before the Court and a jugement must be rendered. It is not enough to just state.... hey they let it appened in the past... So if you don't bring a matter before the Court it CANNOT make legal precedent...

You're right about legal precedence, but if trade marks were the issue here then allowing someone to use their trade marks without a licence would lead to so-called "dilution" of their trade mark rights, making them less strong. Another party in the future could then argue that NG had aquiesced to Ubi's unlicensed use of the TMs, so everyone should also be allowed to use them without licence. So you wouldn't make legal precedence, but you would weaken your trade marks.