Track this topic | Email this topic | Print this topic

The article.

I read about it and thought that it might be a very interesting topic to discuss. Do you think that Sony did wrong by using that kind of scenery? Or is the Church overreacting?

This post has been edited by Silver_Zombie on 9th June 2007 16:45

--------------------

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one...

the church is overreacting.

if sony or any other game company asked permission from everyone who owned anything that appears in their games, it would be impossible.

--------------------

Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen!

Why is this utterly ludicrious? Because apparently Sony didn't seek permission to use the likness of the cathedral, and Church men in frocks fear for fact fictional firearm fun in front of facility might lead to fecking morons firing feckloads of full metal jackets at friends.

You need to seek permission to set something at a landmark these days then.

But I think their main focus is on the fact the dreaded G-U-N isthere. Apparently anything with a gun in it is automatically the most evil thing ever. They appear completely unconcerned at the fact you're fighting against a bunch of monsterous, almost demonic creatures in a church, or that it's a science fiction alternate reality that is even more detached from reality than a game set in the modern world is.

And never mind the fact more kids are stabbed or run over than are shot in the UK. The "gun culture" exists only in a few inner city areas like Manchester and London. It's not exactly washing the streets in a river of blood either.

As an airsofter and a videogame player, it always concerns me when people either in power or in a position of influence either get the facts completely wrong when talking firearms, or when a foolish moral panic is stirred up just to hit headlines. It's even worse when it's an unelected body because they can then completely ignore anyone telling them the true facts and their government allies promptly do the same thing because they want cheap votes rather than effective action.



--------------------

"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

The Church is definitely over-reacting. Just seeing something is not enough to cause the average individual to shoot up a church.

Quote

"There's a war going on - not just in Iraq, but right here on our doorstep."

Damn yo, someone needs to make this into a game!

--------------------

"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

The Church is well within its rights to tell the game makers that they can't use their landmark in their game. The fact that it's violent and related to guns is a giant red-herring. Their decision to take action against Sony is based on the fact that their landmark is being used without permission.

Anything else is just media spin.

This post has been edited by Elessar on 9th June 2007 20:58

--------------------

Visions of Peace - Four Generals, One Empire, and the Returners caught in the middle.

What you're saying is basically, that they have to ask for, say, permission to use every building if they're making a game placed in London, Warsaw or wherever?

--------------------

"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

Quote (Elessar @ 9th June 2007 16:52)

The Church is well within its rights to tell the game makers that they can't use their landmark in their game.

I agree, they're well within their rights to tell them that they can't. However, I don't think that they'd be within their rights to actually stop them. I don't personally see what the legal basis would be other than poor taste, for what that's worth.

--------------------

"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 9th June 2007 16:25)

Quote (Elessar @ 9th June 2007 16:52)

The Church is well within its rights to tell the game makers that they can't use their landmark in their game.

I agree, they're well within their rights to tell them that they can't. However, I don't think that they'd be within their rights to actually stop them. I don't personally see what the legal basis would be other than poor taste, for what that's worth.

Seconded. It's a public landmark, not a private residence or office.

While it may be in bad taste, the only thing that'll fly here is the legal grounds it may or may not have. Though, if anyone can roam freely to the point of taking enough pictures and sketches to, paraphrasing the article, make a near-photorealistic recreation of the interior of the cathedral, I don't see what the problem is.

--------------------

"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote (SilverMaduin @ 9th June 2007 17:22)

What you're saying is basically, that they have to ask for, say, permission to use every building if they're making a game placed in London, Warsaw or wherever?

Nope. You missed the fact that it is an interior recreation that they are objecting to.

Quote (Rangers51 @ 9th June 2007 17:25)

I agree, they're well within their rights to tell them that they can't. However, I don't think that they'd be within their rights to actually stop them. I don't personally see what the legal basis would be other than poor taste, for what that's worth.

I'm under the impression that for all intents and purposes, the interiors of buildings are not public domain. Monuments are a special case, as their architecture has less copyright protection. However, it is arguable that there is plenty of art (if not the entire interior, which is sculpted gorgeously), which enjoys considerable rights against unauthorized re-creation.

Furthermore, this is not fair use. This is for commercial gain, and publicity rights come to mind. Not being familiar with UK law (nor do I pretend to be lawyer at all), I don't know how much is covered. If this was an individual, Sony is dead wrong. But unique and recognizable building? Hmm...

Unfortunately, after re-reading the article, it could be that the Church is aiming towards defamation through civil court, in which case guns and violence is not a red herring. I find it hard to sympathize with Sony though. It's not as if they have a history of being a well-meaning corporation.

WIPO Reference

--------------------

Visions of Peace - Four Generals, One Empire, and the Returners caught in the middle.

What if Paris City Council sued Square-Enix for basing Deling City off their metropolis? What if a small midwestern town in America called Racoon sued Capcom for the Resident Evil games? What if Germany and Japan sued every maker of WW2 games for having their games kill Germans? What if the Department of Defense sued EA for clealry basing C&C Generals on their copyrighted War on Terror?

I can see the value in complaining if someone didn't ask permission for film a movie, but when you can simply take a few snaps or publically available reference photos then build up the rest as a basic representation, what's the problem? How close a representation is it? Does the Church care? They can't be too concerned about violence being asspociated wth churches, or they'd stop reading pretty big chunks of the bible there.

It's just a cheap money and publicity grab by a church with ever-fading influence. Every funeral they hold is one less god botherer putting cash in the donation tin and every nine out of ten baptisms either won't take their faith seriously, will convert to Islam, or will become Atheists and Agnostics. The moral panic associated is simply reinforcement to a pointless claim to get the ignorant masses on side and force Sony to do as the church says through modern mob justice. You know we're wrong, but there's more of us here right now, so there.

This post has been edited by Del S on 10th June 2007 13:20

--------------------

"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

Quote (Del S @ 10th June 2007 09:19)

What if Paris City Council sued Square-Enix for basing Deling City off their metropolis? What if a small midwestern town in America called Racoon sued Capcom for the Resident Evil games? What if Germany and Japan sued every maker of WW2 games for having their games kill Germans? What if the Department of Defense sued EA for clealry basing C&C Generals on their copyrighted War on Terror?

Uh, did you miss the whole spiel about interiors and private property? Also, the War on Terror is trademarked.

Quote (Del S @ 10th June 2007 09:19)

I can see the value in complaining if someone didn't ask permission for film a movie, but when you can simply take a few snaps or publically available reference photos then build up the rest as a basic representation, what's the problem? How close a representation is it?

Quote (TFA)

For a global manufacturer to re-create one of our great cathedrals with photo-realistic quality

You'll also notice that I've been referring to the building as unique and recognizable, instantly associated with said private property. This isn't a mere influence, as you allude with your usage of the word 'based'. Re-creation is strictly protected, which is why I've been referencing publicity rights. If you find a photo of a celebrity's face and model that in a 3-d game for commercial gain, you're still in the wrong.

Law isn't a set of ethics, but I'd argue that private property -- if unique and recognizable -- should enjoy the same privacy laws that protect people from unauthorized commercial usage. As it stands, I'm not sure how the law can be interpreted.

This post has been edited by Elessar on 10th June 2007 14:08

--------------------

Visions of Peace - Four Generals, One Empire, and the Returners caught in the middle.

But how much does the in-game content look like the cathedral? The CoE can't be trusted to tell us, neither can Sony, because both would make it in their intrests to slant it in their favour. I personally think they merely look a little similar. Beyond having a somewhat similar layout (but a lot of churches have a similar layout to Manchester Cathedral. IIRC, Yorkminster's a little similar) because it's set in Manchester Cathedral, it just looks like a generic large church after that. Apart from the hordes of braindead.... hang about, it's in Manchester.

If there is a genuine problem with no permission being used where needed, fair enough, but it's the church's general attitude here that's the problem for me. They threaten to sue if it's not removed from the shelves. The damn thing has been out for THREE MONTHS. Everyone who wants it probably has it and the money's been made, and if they learned anything from Manhunt, it's going to fly off the shelves in the coming days.

And it's in the only place on earth PS3's been doing okay as well. Sony can pay the legal fees off the sales tomorrow morning. And the best part is, they didn't even make the game as such, they're merely the publishers.

To sue because it looks "a bit like" opens the floodgates to turning the UK even further into a land of no win no fee lawyers than it already is. Plus, bolting on the concern about "GUN BATTLES!!!" just looks to me like the CoE scrabbling for an actual basis to the claim and get a media frenzy onside. Manchester's gun crime problem is a result of poor government placebo policies and underfunded policing, and things like this distract us from the bitter reality that no one is really doing anything to combat the real problem.

It's also another case where they seem to think people can't tell the difference between the game and real life. I appreciate that yes, a lot of Mancunians DO look, sound, and sometimes smell like slavering alien beasts from another world, but none of them actually are.

This post has been edited by Del S on 10th June 2007 18:08

--------------------

"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

The Church is overreacting, and has no legal basis. The cathedral in question is a historic British landmark and using it in their post-apocalyptic game is no worse than a game using any other historic landmark, be it a bombed out Washington D.C. in Fallout or what have you.

I mean, V for Vengeance has an anarchist hero blowing up the British Parliament building, why not take that out of context and sue Alan Moore? (Note the current government in that story is Fascist, it's a post-apocalyptic type of thing as well).

Personally this just makes me want to look into Resistance more, as I find the fact that the game takes place in real world locations but in a post-apocalyptic future to be highly intriguing.

But anyway, as someone else said, if the game merely uses the Cathedral as a BASIS for a cathedral in their game, like, as in a parody or homage, they have even less than the non-existent legal basis they would have it the game actually saiditi was the Church of Manchester. But even so, I think it IS supposed to be the Church of Manchester, but that is not good enough reason to sue Sony. In fact, the only person I think who could is the original architect who designed it for stealing his layout, and uhh, I don't think that's going to happen...

These "bad influence" suits are all complete smoke, anyway. I'm not familiar with international laws but I believe that Free Speech was made an official human right by the U.N. at one time or another, so it's not just a U.S. Constitution thing.

There should be a stick-from-ass-removal clause somewhere in every major government's set of statutes and regulations.

Either that, or they should give them the right to sue everyone for looking at that church without permission whenever we pass by it.

--------------------

"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote (Baramos @ 10th June 2007 20:19)

I mean, V for Vengeance has an anarchist hero blowing up the British Parliament building, why not take that out of context and sue Alan Moore? (Note the current government in that story is Fascist, it's a post-apocalyptic type of thing as well).

I was just about to cite that movie. And it's Vendetta, not Vengeance, if I recall correctly. Maybe they got the permissions to do that. Maybe they didn't have to anyway because that's a government building (and hence "officially" "public") rather than a religious building (and didn't the Church of England come right out of the monarchy anyway...).

But I'm wondering what the legal basis of this is. I don't like either hyper-realistic gun battles or religious nutcases, but on the basis of decency I'm inclined to side with the Church. However, I also agree with people that this is a pretty public landmark that millions of tourists are allowed access to (if I read y'all correctly; I've never been their myself unfortunately), and unless they make non-disclosure or whatnot agreements with their visitors I don't see how they can prevent people from using their likeness.

If this can really count as defamation through civil court, I'd like to see how it plays out. Could end up being precedent-setting for copyright/property/IP/using-material/whatnot law in other countries, even for those of us who don't live in the UK. (Also note the irony that it's a big media company that's being sued for copyright infringement in this case...)

This also makes me wonder about what would happen if I used the layout and some physical features of MIT for a Castlevania game...

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

So much free advertising for Resistance. Sony must be loving this!

Although I can see where the Reverend is coming from. This could inspire people to take up arms against any possible aliens that attempt to invade... which is obviously very bad, especially if the aliens land their UFOs in the Manchester Cathedral.
You should be able to get insurance against that kind of thing really.

--------------------

'Let that be a lesson to all oppressive vegetable sellers.'

Is everyone missing the fact that a church is suing? What happened to forgiveness? Isn't that what they're supposed to be about? Sounds like they want money to me.

And no they shouldn't be able to sue - and I'm glad they won't succeed if they decide to. The fact is it's a video-game, it's not real life, they're being crybabies. My little sister wouldn't sue me if I drew a picture of someone dying in her room now would she? And she's 13. A 13 year old is more mature than the Church of Manchester. laughable.

This post has been edited by KingDelita on 17th June 2007 10:10

--------------------

[img]http://img83.exs.cx:81/img83/2/ramzaanddelita2rayni7wx.jpg[/img]