Unpleasant implications for the gaming industry

[Stag 0]

Check this out...

IGDA

[Supah 0]

This would apparently be about the makers of IL2FB and Northrop that bought up a lot of the companies that made aircraft used in that from ww2. There has been no official word however to clear all this up. This is a very complex matter with many sides to it. Wether there is a clear good and bad side in this I dont know. There however is a clear losing side in this, the gamers. If this becomes a big enough of a financial headache for designers then we won't be seeing many flightsimulations in the future.

[theavonlady 2]

Something's strange here.

Does this mean that all games containing replicas of guns, planes, cars, truck, helicopters, boats and what have you can be sued by the respective manufacturers?

Sounds a bit suspicious.

[mr burns 132]

haven´t read yet but your posts remind me of the upcoming patenting disaster in germany which was big in the media (or in the internet..i dunno) recently.

one part was really alarming .. it stated that a company already had a patent on 3d graphics !

they don´t use their patent yet and i cannot imagine what would go on if they did

[Supah 0]

Something's strange here.

Does this mean that all games containing replicas of guns, planes, cars, truck, helicopters, boats and what have you can be sued by the respective manufacturers?

Sounds a bit suspicious.

The facts are pretty sketchy right now but the idea would be that there was no credit given to the original manufactorers on the box while not just plane designations ala P-51D were used but also "Mustang", the latter being trademarked. Now wether this would have held water in court or not is unknown. Northrop demanded money and UBI gave it to them, then detracted it from Maddox's pay/fee.

There have been instances known of companies asking and getting money for their copyrights in case of model railroading, racing simulation, models of race cars with commercial sponsoring stencils on them etcetera. If this goes on I can see corporate greed, american over the top littigation practices and developer's fear of financial risk either destroying or changing forever the worlds gaming experience.

Edit: Note that none of this is from the horses mouth, all of this is from a day and a half reading forums pertinent to the IL2FB community (Netwings, SIMHQ, UBI forums). there have been few official statements and most of them were not very clear.

[theavonlady 2]

The idiot companies are being handed brand identity on a silver platter to the masses and they want money for it?

Idiots!

[Supah 0]

The idiot companies are being handed brand identity on a silver platter to the masses and they want money for it?

Idiots!

Well I am no lawyer (Wouldn't tell if I was either ) but companies are forced to act on these things because if they dont their copyrights are voided or something like that. Atleast thats what ive been lead to believe. Though they don't have to ask giant sums if that were true as northrop apparently did.

[hellfish6 7]

If this is indeed a trend of the future, the best case scenario may well be something like corporate-endorsed sims, where Northrup or Boeing or whomever license their name to the sim/game. I wonder if they'll have control over content then? Probably, I'm guessing. Nothing like a flight sim where all the billion-dollar toys really are indestructible.

[Longinius 1]

This is a problem all ready. There are issues with Colt, for example, and rights to use weapons in game. I also know there have been issues with other brands before.

In short, they want some of the dough.

To put it in MTV generation terms...

"SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!"

[EiZei 0]

This is a problem all ready. There are issues with Colt, for example, and rights to use weapons in game. I also know there have been issues with other brands before.

In short, they want some of the dough.

To put it in MTV generation terms...

"SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!"

Or they want to make sure their brands are not shown in unfavourable light. Ive seen too many cs kiddies saying "gun x sux0rzz in cs" when real firearms are mentioned.

Trademark and IPO violations - thoughtcrimes of the 21st century?

[JdB 151]

Or they want to make sure their brands are not shown in unfavourable light. Ive seen too many cs kiddies saying "gun x sux0rzz in cs" when real firearms are mentioned.

And someone seriously into guns would even for one second value such an opinion?

I think not

[Tamme 0]

This is just pathetic. Why don't they sue book publishers and writers? I'm sure firearms and ie. car models are mentioned in them also. Games have more money in them I guess.

Those who are seriously buying guns or airplanes base their decision on hard facts and real-life experiences, not on games. I can't think of any harm done for the companies if their products are displayed in video games.

[vektorboson 8]

Thank you America for exporting turbo capitalism all over the world.

It's bad enough that Europe is following US' example.

All this trademark, patent and copyright stuff is getting a pain in my ass. The European Union tries to introduce a new patent law regarding software patents, where it's possible to patent any trivial piece of software like progress bars. Then you hear about all these stupid trademark law suits, like NESTLE tries to take over ww.milka.fr from a woman whose name is Milka just because NESTLE owns the Milka chocolade brand.

And all this under the general term "Intellectual Property". I hate you all Intellectual Property Nazis. This is what they are. I really hope that this form of capitalism will crash and die as soon as possible. Inclusive those lawyers who are profitting from this system.

I really love it how Intel sues everyone in Germany whose domain contains "-inside". Yeah, they trademarked Intel inside, but they get every domain that has "-inside" inside its name. F**k it.

Oh, btw, I really hate it to go out and all I see are advertisements.

You know what I've seen? I was walking around the local lake, enjoying nature. There is this place where people are grilling in the summer. Guess what? There was one over-dimensioned big advertisement. Directly at the grilling place, blocking sight to some trees and the river.

Please someone give me a Kalashnikov, so I can go postal.  

[shinRaiden 0]

Does anyone have any substantive links to more information on the Colt M16-M4 licensing debacle? I presume that the stipulations that prevent competitive manufacturing and deriviatives also are applicable to other commercial works such as games.

Unfortunately, it would see that the attorneys are ignorant of the economics of game development. Publishers already advance hideous sums of money to the development studios, and to add substantial licensing fees in anticipation of projected revenues - realisticly unreliable in the fragile entertainment sector - is not pleasent news.

Too bad that the manufacturers don't turn it around and seek to get product placement.

How about it... "Colt M-16/M-4 series with accessories, exclusively designed for OFP, brought to you by Colt Armaments"?

The problem is that this is 'backwards' logic. Too many companies today think that you make money by restricting products, than by actually creating products.

[Major Fubar 0]

Does this apply to movies and TV shows as well?

Do the maker's of Stargate SG1 have to pay royalties to FN every time Jack O'Neill fires his P90?

[Mr_Tea 0]

This sucks. How will this end? How stupid is this?

I hope that there will never come a day, that I have to pay for things that i see in my dreams.

[drewb99 0]

If a company tries to sue someone for using something that looks, sounds, and acts like their product -BUT- lacks their trademarked name then they've got no case. Nothing to fret about, P51D Mustang just becomes P51D and Heckler & Koch MP5A3 becomes MP5A3.

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

Please someone give me a Kalashnikov™, so I can go postal.  

You forgot that Postal is already a game

[cozza 24]

this is stubid. the world is getting sued to death. one day people are gonna sue each other for having the same birth name

[Tamme 0]

This lawsuit frenzy can't last forever. It's simply insane. It has to come crashing down one day or another. Of course things will be messed up pretty bad before that if it is allowed to continue like this.

[der bastler 0]

<span style='font-size:13pt;line-height:100%'>muahahahahahahahahahahaha</span>

I guess I have to get some popcorn and a good armchair to watch all the companies mob each other and to watch them go down.

Italian Company sues out embargo of MP3 players (German text by heise.de)

(the company says they own the patent on everything concerning mp3 decoding and therefore you must pay them licence fee if you want to sell your own mp3 players)

amazon to face new patent law lawsuit (German text by heise.de)

(concerning US-Patent 6,782,370: System and method for providing recommendation of goods or services based on recorded purchasing history)

A couple of years, and they all will have themselves sued to hell. And then you can start to build your own company...

Btw E.A. nearly absorbed UBI Soft. Another one down the drain...

[Grizzlie 0]

I'm wandering when someone will patent human genome and will be getting fees from newborns...

Sometimes i really think that AK is boy's best friend

[theavonlady 2]

I'm wandering when someone will patent human genome and will be getting fees from newborns...

Google.

[Tovarish 0]

If this is how things will be in the future, then all flight sims will become Crimson Skies.

[Madus_Maximus 0]

Some company was going to patent the human genome when it was completed, but a rival decided "ah, let's make it freely available" and they used the internet to publish updates every week. You can now download the genetic code for humans freely from the net. It also took much less time than originally thought because other labs around the world worked together on seperate parts and submitted their findings too, then they collated it all and bob's your uncle! That's one way to get around it, but then again you need to beat them to it too I suppose.

Oh, and isn't it federal law that you have to defend your companies patent's/copyrights in the states? Even if you don't want to and they're not actually making any profit or financial gain from using it.

Valve have also copywritten the name "Half-Life", and the "Lamda logo"... great huh? How the hell are physists going to explain atom decomposition and do equasions without writing a long winded explnination down? (lamda is an an ancient Greek letter and is now used as "wavelength" in physics)... honestly it's like copywriting the letter "b". It's fecked up.