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[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by csThor

But, unfortunately and obviously, no common sense.

And, it's maddening, because I don't think that NG has that great a legal case, either. Unless they've bribed the U.S. Congress into giving them some special legal rights, I think that they're just "copyright trolling."

I wish that some advocacy organization like the Electronic Frontier Foundation would go after them, but I don't think it's going to happen. I don't blame Ubi for backing off, and I don't blame 1C for being very cautious about risking liability issues, though.

It's just nuts that NG can claim IP rights over ships and aircraft designed during the 1940s or before. At the time, copyright law was different (only something like 20 years, renewable for another 20) and I don't think that many design firms actually copyrighted their designs. After all, they were designed and built, fully or partially in cooperation with the U.S. government, to government specifications.

For example, the USS Arizona was laid down in 1916 at the Brooklyn Navy Shipyard (a U.S. government institution). Even if she wasn't built by the government (thus, copyright free), according to copyright law at the time, her original design would have been out of copyright for good by 1956. Even with refits, her Pearl Harbor design would have been out of copyright by 1981, well before the latest extended copyright law came into effect.