Car real names :)

[antoniovazquez]

It would be nice to be able to see full car names as in the circuits

[Timo 6]

I think we use short names in case of legal issues in using trademarks. We would need to licence the names from the manufactures, and we don’t have the money.

[zimluura]

i'm really wondering how much difficulty we'd run into. i think racer.nl uses real car names. we could always have a splash screen that says "this is a game and is in no way indicative of any real car's performance or safety" i heard that was an issue with car damage in racing games.

but i also wonder if the look is something that can actually be copyrighted as such. reminds me of a C&D sent by the ford company to a small club making and selling mustang calenders. and, at least in that sense you have all sorts of legal precedent that things in public places are free to be photographed (replicated in 2d) so why not modeled (replicated in 3d). and i think that precedent goes back to the days when people thought cameras could steal your soul. but i'm not a lawyer and understand that once lawyers get involved we could be dealing with extortionists. then again i seem to recall seeing 3d models of production vehicles for sale on some websites.

ugh, the way intellectual property laws work here really bugs me sometimes...

[portets]

another thing is that VDrift is free. nobody here is making money off of it, that'll give car manufacturers way less incentive to go after us. as long as we say we are in no way affiliated with any companies.

but still.. legal action is a scary thing.

[NaN]

Look here:

http://jalopnik.com/5106183/bold-moves-f...fringement

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/478763-car-...msearch__1

[zimluura]

from this site (link from one of nan's)
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/faq61.htm

Remember-- Just because you might have a DEFENSE doesn't mean you can't get SUED.


that's the real essence of it. you can get sued for literally anything, it just might be more easily defensible. when you're not making money for your hard work then getting sued means you've already lost.

i mean, sony or ms could sue us just for competing with them. but it would maybe be an easier (but still probably like 10,000usd for each stage of appeal) thing to defend against.

[antoniovazquez]

Wow! I thought that copyrights could limit us and all of that but I think that it sometimes is very exaggerated. It would be nice to be able to use real names but if there's any risk it should not be taken. Thanks for all of your replies.

[joevenzon]

If you're curious, here's what all of the cars are modeled on:
http://wiki.vdrift.net/List_of_cars