Hey there,
I found this Warface - Wikipedia about warface.
from wikipedia
EA won’t pay gun makers for rights in Battlefield 4: http://bf4central.com/2013/05/battlefield-4-gun-names/
So i have a question, do i need license from gun manufacturer in order to put it in my game?
Thank you.
If you are a big company, yes. If you have no money they won’t hunt you for using their gun designs.
Would be a waste of resources to sue an indie without anything in his pockets.
lol, you made me laugh;)
i better don’t put real gun names.(i don’t wanna stuck in a problem)
Thanks BrUnO XaVIeR,
A big issue indie developers face is copyright. The creator of Flappy Bird was supposedly sued because he was making 50,000 a day on ‘ripped textures’.
In all honesty - it only matters if you intend to go commercial with your work (physically selling it). If you DO - and the content you’ve used hasn’t explicitly been labelled as ‘Free to use’ - I’d stay away from the materials of others. But you can always contact people and ask! Sometimes they only want a mention in the credits.
Depends on several factors. Old weapons like the AK-47 can be used in commercial games because the patents for them have lapsed and they’re public domain. Newer weapons that are still protected would require licensing, but many studios get around this by creating something that looks similar and giving it a different name.
EA stopped paying gun makers for the use of weapon names. They are arguing that because this is fictional work, you don’t need to pay royalties. An example EA brought up was books and movies.
Trademarks are usually meant to protect against competitors using your brand to make actual products, but for video games you are telling fictional story.
This is a touchy area… What studios I have worked for in the past have done is to use the identifier of the gun. For example instead of using Colt M-16 you can just call it an M-16. Or if you have a Beretta 9MM you could just call it a 9MM. Its all about not using the name persay but using something that people will recognize and every knows what an M-16 is, or at least has an idea of what it is when that name is used.
*Not a Lawyer…
On the other hand, it costs them almost nothing to send a Cease and Desist letter and have it taken down from the App store. I’d be very careful about infringing on any IP.
What? I don’t remember this happening, and I thought I followed that pretty closely. Do you have a source of this claim?
I think it’s all been said, but if you are going to use the name or likeness of a product called M-16, then make your own art, it’s OK.
If you use Colt’s 3DS Max model in your game…not good. And try to avoid making statements in your descriptions about weapons.
Make all the comments you want about the ammo they use…(Wink, wink). Also avoid going online to get descriptions and fire rates
like EA does in Battlefield. Make your own. Use your head, talking about or showing your own art of a product does not infringe on
anything. And using the “M” in front of a weapon only indicates “military” and should be fine, calling it a “Colt this or that” could be
problematic. (Not a lawyer). Hold several US Patents.