06-12-2007, 01:29 AM
senjuro Wrote:Churches seem to have a relatively poor track record of performing well in court, largely because of their penchant of bitching and moaning about every little thing that displeases them. The public is getting sick of hearing about it, the gaming industry is getting sick of having fingers pointed its way, and the courts are getting sick of video game related cases coming through their doors.
If there is a law somewhere written down that explicitly says that one cannot electronically reproduce another structure and use it in a video game as they see fit, then that should far supercede any lack of written consent that the church may or may not have given Sony to use the church's likeness.
Are you basing this on British cases? Neither Candadian or American cases will be citable in a British court of law. And copyright law is applicable in this situation: all the Church has to do is proove it has the original cathedral, and that isn't hard to do. If there is no proof of concent, which none of us are at present privvy to, then the case cannot be won by the computer game. Weather it's ever done any damage to a location is irrelivant: it is the cathedral's decision, and if they don't want their building used as a setting in a game such as that then that is their choice.