Legality of using real life military vehicles in your game.

BloodBath

Hi, I'm currently working on a project that will use many real world military vehicles.

I was going to use the exact likeness and names of these vehicles but I seen EA was recently sued by Bell for the depiction of 3 of their helicopters in Battlefield 4.

Well to be precise Bell sent a cease and desist letter to which EA counter sued.

EA countered and fought the case for a year but recently settled out of court for an undisclosed fee. However this case was based entirely on laws within the US.

What would the stance be under Irish or EU law?

Is it something I even need to worry about as a small indie developer with a game that might completely fly under the radar?

DesperateDan

Well the names and designs would be copyrighted, so just as you couldn't put an exact replica of a Ford Modeo in your game without paying Ford large amounts of money, you would not be licensed to display licensed military vehicles in your game.

You could do close likenesses and remove all of the names - think about how Rockstar handle vehicles in their games. There's no shame in doing it that way, also if you are an indie dev you more than likely won't have photo-realistic vehicles anyway, so calling it something it's meant to be may in-fact detract from the immersion of the final game.

BloodBath

It's a bit of a grey area though in fairness and there are ways to circumvent the law afaik.

For example Arma uses the military designated names for weapons rather than the private company names and it works for them afaik.

While my game won't be photo realistic it will use models that closely resemble their real life counterparts. I know I could modify the models and names a bit to get around it but I'd prefer not to if possible.

Kilgore__Trout

If speaking to IP solicitor isn't an option, I'd strongly consider erring heavily on the side of caution in a situation like this. You would, after all, be using someone else's work to add value to your game.

If a company like Bell decided to pursue you, at best (something like a C&D), you'd have to spend a lot of time reworking models. At worst, you would have semi-knowingly walked into the biggest headache of your life.

It's not really going to matter to most players what the names of the vehicles are, or if they look substantially different from their real world counterparts.

You could try talking to companies that have done something similar, but they may feel they are putting themselves at risk if they were to reveal how they work around the situation.

BloodBath

These copyright laws are ridiculous.

If your product does not directly interfere, compete or reduce the profits of the copyright holder then it should be covered under fair use.

Where does it stop as well? You will have big corps buying the image rights to everything so you won't be able to use anything that resembles a copyrighted design.

Seems I'm safe using the military designations anyway but it's about time people started standing up to these bull**** copyright claims.

It will take a bit more research to find out how other companies are side tracking the couple of greedy companies who might sue but the safest optin obviously would be to just change the names which I'd be fine with.

The likeness can't be so easily changed though.

Torakx

Cover yourself as best you can. For the most part it's not worth the cost or time to go after you. When it becomes worth their time and money, you will have made enough money to be more comfortable than you are now anyway