Using Renderings of Actual Military Aircraft in a Video Game

Hello,


I am, or shall I say I want to begin work on a World War II Air Combat Simulation. I understand that I cannot use company names, logo's or slogans. My project involves many aircraft that fought in the Pacific Theatre. I have contacted the US Copyright Office already. They have informed me that it is not against the law for me to use the Military designations for aircraft e.g. F4U-1d Corsair.

Now the real pincher is modeling the aircraft to appear as close as possible to their real life counterparts. None of these aircraft are currently in production and their original companies are now defunct or have been sold to other companies, sometimes twice over. I have see numerous cases of take down notices bullying in 3D model commerce sites like Turbosquid. The manufacturer claims infringement in all cases bullying the website to take down the offending material. I read somewhere it is infringement if the consumer is confused about what they are buying.

To me this is a very far stretch of the law we have in place. I do not see how a video game can be confused with purchasing a real life aircraft. To me this falls under 'Fair Use'. I am not re-manufacturing a real plane nor am I selling one claiming to be affiliated with the manufacturer. I am only making digital representations as best I can to tell an interactive historical story.

My question is, If this all taboo then how to games like 'War Thunder' get made? Or 'IL-2: 1946' or 'Call of Duty 1943'. I visited these sites and none of them have a 'Legal' notes section stating product likeness is used under license from 'insert company here'. Can I actually start work on this simulator as long as I do not mention the company or use it's logos or slogans.

As you may know, the question of what claim an aircraft manufacturer could make to a 3-D rendering that omitted trademarks was being litigated between Electronic Arts and Textron, but they settled their case last year such that there is no final verdict on the question of whether EA could be compelled to pay royalties to Textron. This preliminary ruling describes the key issues.

Yes I am familiar with the case. I could request information on it vie the FOIA couldn't I? I see a few WW2 sim games and none of them are being sued for some reason. I found a Copyright Lawyer online. LOL, there are only two counselors willing to donate spare time where I live at $66 per answered question. I'm probably looking at about $2,000. But I think that is far cheaper than millions. I just wish there was a straight answer. The sad thing is I have bought over $6,000 in software alone and I still don't have everything.


who I am thinking of using: http://www.justanswer.com/sip/Copyri...FQQwaQodbw4Arg


Is that okay or should I face-to-face?

Absent unusual circumstances, court records from civil litigation are public records -- all you have to do is pay the copying fees and the court will make you copies. You should anticipate, though, that all the court record is going to show is that the parties stipulated to dismiss, with their confidential settlement not being made part of the public record.

I don't want to dismiss JustAnswer as a source of legal information, but you're not going to get the type of analysis you want on that type of site. Moreover, if you check, you'll find that some of the answers there are little more than cut-and-paste jobs from other websites, including this one.