Legal issues over depicting World War Two equipment

[Rama]

Former_Older
You don't know more than anybody else here the details of the letter Ubisoft received from NGC lawyers, neither the content of the agreement between NGC, Ubisoft and Oleg.
Nobody except the 3 parties do know, and they wont tell anything since they agreed to keep it confidential.
So you can't say "it's Ubisoft fault", as nobody can say "it's NGC fault" or "it's Oleg's fault"...
Everything said on these forums is nothing but unfounded guess and as usefull as to talk about sex angels.
Wouldn't it be better not to talk about?

[GF_Mastiff]

it just that now I'm seeing more and more collectibles get the same treatment all of a sudden. I.E. 1/32 scale vehicles, trains, planes. Just the other day I bought a BF109 F-2/F-4 and it had the Boeing logo on it?! Boeing didnt make that plane! WTF now their making it more expensive to get these memorabilia. You don't see the train dealers doing it to there scale models.

[GF_Mastiff]

Originally Posted by Rama

Former_Older
You don't know more than anybody else here the details of the letter Ubisoft received from NGC lawyers, neither the content of the agreement between NGC, Ubisoft and Oleg.
Nobody except the 3 parties do know, and they wont tell anything since they agreed to keep it confidential.
So you can't say "it's Ubisoft fault", as nobody can say "it's NGC fault" or "it's Oleg's fault"...
Everything said on these forums is nothing but unfounded guess and as usefull as to talk about sex angels.
Wouldn't it be better not to talk about?

Yes lets pound our head in the sand and close our eyes to such things!

[Al Schlageter]

Actually, the railroad companies have been putting it to the model railroaders for some time now.

[tater]

Toocool, the trick is that you can be damn sure M$ vets package art pastthe Legal Dept. (which probably has the population of some small countries ).

The "door opening" factor was the failure to properly mark the Grumman name on the package art (I have it here in my lap). That's open and shut, and in fact, the companies in question are required to defend their marks for fear of precedent that it is open for use. Ubi was over a barrel at that point, and the negotiators decided to ask for fees as precedent. Now they can claim that companies have been forced to pay for images of their products that would otherwise be "fair use." That's my guess, anyway.

[Rama]

Originally Posted by GF_Mastiff

Yes lets pound our head in the sand and close our eyes to such things!

What things?
It won't help you to open your eyes and your ears when there's nothing to see or to hear.

Nobody knows what exactly happened, and everybody's speaking in the vacuum

[GF_Mastiff]

Originally Posted by Rama

What things?
It won't help you to open your eyes and your ears when there's nothing to see or to hear.

Nobody knows what exactly happened, and everybody's speaking in the vacuum

this is what happened.

The "door opening" factor was the failure to properly mark the Grumman name on the package art (I have it here in my lap). That's open and shut, and in fact, the companies in question are required to defend their marks for fear of precedent that it is open for use. Ubi was over a barrel at that point, and the negotiators decided to ask for fees as precedent. Now they can claim that companies have been forced to pay for images of their products that would otherwise be "fair use." That's my guess, anyway.

the fair use is now gone, since they paid out and made it precedent.

[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...

[tater]

They could have done lots of things, but the guy at NG probably decided to make himself look good to his boss, and get something for nothing.

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.

Note that we do not know the settlement amount, and it was very likely a fee that NG would consider a nearly symbolic amount. 1C might not consider it symbolic, but 1C products go doe $50 a pop, and NG products go for 50 MILLION a pop. So even $500,000 would be 1% of a single sale to NG. It would be like ubi charging a symbolic fee of 50 cents.

[Former_Older]

Originally Posted by Rama

Former_Older
You don't know more than anybody else here the details of the letter Ubisoft received from NGC lawyers, neither the content of the agreement between NGC, Ubisoft and Oleg.
Nobody except the 3 parties do know, and they wont tell anything since they agreed to keep it confidential.
So you can't say "it's Ubisoft fault", as nobody can say "it's NGC fault" or "it's Oleg's fault"...
Everything said on these forums is nothing but unfounded guess and as usefull as to talk about sex angels.
Wouldn't it be better not to talk about?

Your first statement:

"You don't know more than anybody else here the details of the letter Ubisoft received from NGC lawyers, neither the content of the agreement between NGC, Ubisoft and Oleg."

does not support your second statement:

"So you can't say "it's Ubisoft fault", as nobody can say "it's NGC fault" or "it's Oleg's fault"...
Everything said on these forums is nothing but unfounded guess and as usefull as to talk about sex angels."

I'm sorry, but yes I can know whose fault it is. 1C:Maddox Games did not do the box art. UbiSoft did. They were the publisher. As tater points out, this "opened the door"

So while I know nothing about the finite and precise details of the legal case, I do know it was Ubi's fault.

But tell me more about these angels