Unfortunately the fair use doctrine is too narrow to accept the broad use of copyrighted material that is in plain sight, every day, for all to see. My interest in rF2 and GTR3 is quickly waning. I am not interested in fiction nor am I interested in 2nd tier and I am certainly not interested in the garbage that EA and MS pump out.

Oh well.... /rant off

Well, don't drive those cars then. Just drive the ones that are real.

Or are you saying that unless they all have access to every real car you're not buying?



The Jedi Master

Fact is these greedy and expensive licencing and exclusive licencing rights are killing racing games... No more the simple pleasure to drive a Porsche against a Ferrari... sad and frustrating.

Yep. If the publishers are stuck paying for exclusivity they might as well keep it to themselves. We don't know what the agreement is like anyway, the may not even have the ability to share licensing for a fee.
I don't blame EA, and I don't blame MS. I blame Porsche and Ferrari.

The good news is that if the cars are in there, but de-badged, perhaps some kind soul out there will paint up a new skin for them. Or the cars themselves.

Actually, it's not really the companies' fault, it's the lawyers'. See, the way copyright law apparently works is you either defend it or you don't. If they decided, based on simple common sense, that they could let EA and MS do whatever they wanted because it wouldn't affect them at all, it would mean to other companies' lawyers that they don't defend their copyrights and their logos and stuff could be used by others without compensation for things like sunglasses, watches, etc.

Without any wiggle room in how you can choose to enforce them, they must demand licensing deals.

Now the exclusive thing is the real stinker, and my guess is that is EA's and MS' idea. EA pays more and takes the Porsche license, so MS takes the Ferrari license in retaliation so EA can't. Sure Porsche and Ferrari could decline an exclusive, but if these stupid game companies are willing to pay more, why not?



The Jedi Master

Agreed, exclusivity has it's drawbacks. It's the consumer in the end that pays... literally.

"Build by James Glickenhaus, the car is a one of its kind creation powered by a Ferrari V8". It's a 4 million dollar customized Enzo. Its a commissioned one-off car.This was most likely how SIMBIN acquired the license.

Dunno about this politics. This legal issue, it's only effects the manufacturer brands right? I mean, like: name (Ferrari, Porsche), car type (F430, 911), their logos, etc. If so, then why don't the sim/game dev just give us a car that looks and handles like F430, for instance, name it Horsie 221 and put a random logo on it? I know I won't mind. I can always run photoshop, edit the skin until it looks like the real F430, change the *.car file (using GTR2 as example) so the name will appear correctly.
Of course, if the car shape and handling characteristic are also "exclusive materials" then it won't work. But even if it is, how could they prove it, anyway?

So, yes. Just give me a Horsie 221 anytime.