Question Regarding Grumman Lawsuit

[secretone]

Can anyone please provide some historical background or a link to an article with information about the Grumman lawsuit against IL-2? I am very interested in learning more about how these proceedings have affected our beloved game, particularly regarding prospects of seeing more American aircraft.

[ElAurens]

I don't think that anyone who has real knowledge is able to discuss this, for legal reasons.

[nearmiss]

If you did know would it make a difference?

I careless about stuff like that. There are thousands of Grumman virtual aircraft all over the web. Methinks that was all just a smoke and mirrors thing to mess with the troops.

[SlipBall]

This information if true, can be searched in a local law library

[Les]

I too don't have any real knowledge, and so, funnily enough, am free to discuss it.

There's next to no chance of seeing any more Grumman planes in the official Il-2 series, as Grumman won't let representations of their aircraft be used for free. You'd have to be making a paid add-on for it to be worthwhile and I don't think even Team Daidalos will be doing that.

I'd like to think that by the time the new Storm Of War series gets back to the Pacific, if it ever does, that Oleg will be prepared to pay the Grumman fees and we'll see those planes looking better than ever. But who knows?

As for my interpretation of events, which should not be taken as fact, I thought the whole affair was a petty cash-grab from Grumman. At the time, they were targetting plastic-model-kit makers as well, and at least gave the impression that any hobbyist using images of their planes was also fair game for litigation. I also read or got the impression that Oleg himself thought of Grumman's demands as a form of extortion from the greedy capitalists in the U.S. He was annoyed too because it had been someone elses responsibility to make sure the legal bases were covered, but they stuffed up and left Oleg to pay the bill, which he might have just palmed off to Ubisoft anyway. (Pacific Fighters, the add-on in which the Grumman planes appeared, was done mostly by and at the instigation of, Ilya and his crew, unlike the rest of the Il-2 series.) A similar thing happened with the cover-art on the Pacific Fighters retail boxes, which had stuff in it that Oleg himself wouldn't have included. In fact it might have been the use of the Grumman name on that which alerted the legal eagles at Grumman that someone might have done something they could make money off. Along those lines, it was also pointed out that, just by coincidence, some head honcho at Grumman had recently moved over to work for Microsoft just before all this shit went down, and back then Microsoft's CFS3 was still competing with Il-2... but that's getting into conspiracy-theory territory, and this is about rumours and hearsay, not conspiracies, so, yeah...I can't remember if there were any more Grumman Planes in development that never saw the light of day after all this happened, but I think there were.

All in all it was a shame more wasn't made of the whole Pacific theatre side of the sim, but really, to do it justice would have required a whole other team of developers. There was just too much to do. Hopefully any add-ons for SOW won't be so half-arsed. But again, who knows. In cases like this I find it better not to expect anything, or to think of what could have been.

[proton45]

I think the problem was with the packaging of the game...Grumman wasn't upset with the content of the game, but they where upset that the Grumman name and the likeness of the famous aeroplanes where used in advertising and packaging without permission...

This is the information I remember from the "Blue Ubi" around the time of the problem...

[fuzzychickens]

By the same logic, anyone writing a history book, novel, or producing a movie based around a historical time period should have to pay Grumman to be historically accurate?

Some serious time limits need to be placed IP rights. Seriously, should Ford demand a fee for the Model-T being on the ground in a WWI flight game?

Should gun manufactures sue the pants of makers of WWII fps games for including accurate weapons of the time period they happened to make?

Maybe everybody should jump on the Grumman bandwagon and demand money for whatever reason.......

"You owe us big time money for using our grandpappy associated with a plane paint scheme he used in WWII!"

"You owe us money for showing company "X"'s type of bomb as a loadout option on the P-38, also we made the tires on the P-51, replace them with doughnuts or give us money!"

"You owe us money for putting a half naked lady on that famous B-17 bomber, my grandma was the lady who actually posed for that picture and if we can't get paid for her being half naked - we have to stop calling her an old whore!"

I think I'll go figure out if I can trace my ancestors back to the cave-dweller who invented the wheel - I see a huge money maker.

[flyingbullseye]

This can stir up a lot quick as it has in the past. To the OP when/if you do any search you'll come up with a lot of threads discussing the issue. Most of them are over at the ubizoo. Everyone has their take about who said what, when and how and some know more than others but more than likely the unknown truth lies somewhere in the middle. FS 9 and FSX have had grumman a/c modeled since for free and I believe paid addon but don't know if the modders had to do anything. At this point its all water under the bridge and mods it might be best to end this thread before it gets heated again.

Flyingbullseye

[proton45]

I think the box said, "Fly the Grumman Wildcat"...Grumman didn't like the use of their name "Grumman". If I remember correctly the packaging was done by Ubi, but they still blamed Oleg and crew...

[flyingbullseye]

I kind of remember reading something like that as well. Nothing like passing the buck then leaving the guy high and dry. Talk about a royal screw job. If actually true can't blame Oleg for parting ways with UBI.

Flyingbullseye