Yeah im still pissed about that

See, I don't get the legality of Boing's (or NTGs) argument. These things (i.e. the AH-1) have get to be, at least in part, public domain. Their is nothing about the general shape or appearance of the aircraft (or the name) that has any affect on the company's ability to make a profit from the aircraft, and these things have been in movies, airshows, static displays, museums, etc. for years or decades.

I am all for a company getting the most buck for its product, but this push by aircraft manufacturers to try and charge for every game or model depecting something they built is ridiculous. If EA was building unlicensed real AH-1s, that would be one thing, but trying to say EA doesn't have the right to use the name AH-1 (which was assigned by the DOD) or the image of the AH-1 (which is purely a product of the weapon system's functionality) is like Louisville Slugger saying you have to pay them royalties every time you use a picture of a wooden baseball bat.

At least Dice/EA, unlike Maddox/Ubisoft, is big enough and has covered their backsides well enough to have a decent chance of ending this shenanigans.

Remember Strikefighters and Lockheed (removal of the F-104 and C-130)

The courts should ask them who paid for the development of those aircrafts, and then tell them to go #%&*$# themselves.

the situation that prevented games from using their planes has since been resolved.

What? Care to share more info on this?

For a couple of years I worked on a project that's been affected by this kind of bs (and other kinds, of course) so I'd like to know if there's a clear legal standing one way or the other.

the simplest way of saying it is..


i dont remember details, but i know When Strike Fighters Project 1 came out, it had the Lockheed F-104, When hey released subsequent versions/Gold Versions later on, it was removed as there was a licensing dispute with Lockheed, however licensing requirements for military planes have changed since then and the F-104 was added later as Free DLC for Strike Fighters Gold.

Curious, how are military aircraft different from the auto industry? There are plenty of well known occurrences where car company X decided not to licence their cars for use in specific video games.

Because cars in general didn't have their design and development paid for by taxpayer money. Military equipment mostly does, which means the Government is the owner of the IP.