First off this is a legal-related question and I understand that in advance absolutely no response in this thread is legal advice unless stated otherwise. Somehow I'm sure that a question like this has already been asked on gdnet, but my searches haven't yielded anything relevant. Basically I am curious on what it takes to create a 3d model of an existing product and use it in a commercial game/simulation. For instance if modeling a car that looks almost exactly like some car model but without any model and manufacturer identifying marks, I'm sure that some kind of licensing might be necessary but I'm curious if the only option is consulting a lawyer to get advice on this or perhaps whether the alternative of using some other 3d model made available for sale with commercial use is the path of least trouble. I'm assuming that companies that do sell 3d models have already gone through the time, effort, and expense of handling all the legal details of getting licensing agreements in order to produce and sell their models. But yet at the same time there are websites that allow artists to add models they've created and put for sale for perhaps commercial use. I doubt these individual artists have gone through any effort to get any legal stuff done in connection with their model. So anyhow, to summarize my question with a hypothetical example, say I wanted to model a ford mustang without any logos/decals (but sure as heck looks like a mustang!) I would likely have to go through an expensive legal process to license use of the 3d model commercially? That is of course, assuming that the manufacturer would even want to grant such a thing which I assume they would always do on a case by case basis as they'd only want their image to be used in a manner they'd deem consistent with their corporate image.

In japan you can copyright the name of something, but not how it looks. That's how one of my favorite games manages to populate itself with 324 of the top roster guys around the world, while only slightly changing their names. It's also the reason why they have so many knock-off products. Tekken makes good use of this too. Including Tiger Mask, Jacky Chan, Bruce Lee, Blade, and many others in their games.

Look to Grand Theft Auto for inspiration. Make a car that has the same feel, but not the exact same design, and then give it a similar name. You may find this helpful, as you can mouse over the car names, and see the picture pop up, and you can see what they did. http://www.gta4.net/vehicles/ Check out the "Infernus" and "Saber GT".

The simple answer is "yes - you need to go through an expensive licensing process or risk the owners taking legal action".
How big that risk is is impossible to say. It depends on how successful your game is, how much effort the owner puts into protecting their IP and other factors. You also have to be aware that there are different laws in different parts of the world so while you might be OK leaving off the logo/decals in one place you won't in another country (some countries have design protection as well as patents, trademarks and copyright, which protects the look of something).

Next up is the cost. Most big companies won't license their IP simply because it isn't economically viable. It costs thousands of dollars in legal fees just to do the license agreement. Unless you are going to be paying them hundreds of thousands in royalties what would be the point?

Thank you both for your insightful responses. I'd like to address you Obscure with what you said about the legal fees involved through the process of licensing. This seems perfectly valid but also when I look at companies that sell 3d models of commercial entities (say things like weapons, vehicles or aircraft) with licensing agreements that allow for commercial use of these models at prices that are merely a few hundred dollars per model or model pack I can't imagine they ever went through any major legal process. This is due to what I perceive as the price per unit combined with the potential sales of these models doesn't seem profitable to undertake any big legal licensing process (they are essentially targeting a relatively small market). Perhaps I can go out on a limb and contact them asking what licensing they've gone through (if any) to produce their models for sale.

The idea of modeling entities which are sufficiently visually dissimilar (quantifying and qualifying that seems quite subjective anyhow) to any copyrighted product on the market isn't really an option for what I have in mind considering I'm creating a simulation where realism factors in.

Quote: Original post by Imtiaz
Thank you both for your insightful responses. I'd like to address you Obscure with what you said about the legal fees involved through the process of licensing. This seems perfectly valid but also when I look at companies that sell 3d models of commercial entities (say things like weapons, vehicles or aircraft) with licensing agreements that allow for commercial use of these models at prices that are merely a few hundred dollars per model or model pack I can't imagine they ever went through any major legal process. This is due to what I perceive as the price per unit combined with the potential sales of these models doesn't seem profitable to undertake any big legal licensing process (they are essentially targeting a relatively small market). Perhaps I can go out on a limb and contact them asking what licensing they've gone through (if any) to produce their models for sale.

You shouldn't look around the internet and see what other people are doing as an example. The internet is FULL of dodgy assets, full of illegal game remakes, full of copyright violations. There is just so much of it, that it is hard to police. That guy selling models of the car that he made that is an exact clone is either doing it in spite of the law, or in complete ignorance and just hasn't been caught yet.

This seems like the usual case where someone who wants to abuse copyright will just keep asking the same question until he finds someone ignorant enough to say it's alright, or they keep changing minor details to see if they somehow now qualify for an exception.

Your allowed to make 3D models of any car you want. But when you make one that looks close enough to an existing copyrighted model, and start distributing it, you are violating their intellectual property. Licensing the likeness of their product is their business. There is no way around this. If you want to distribute a product that features their designs, you have to be licensed. Whether you profit from it or not.

So if some random guy on the internet models a replica of a copyrighted car and then sells it to you with a commercial use clause, he sold you a bridge.

What does copying the exact look and branding of a car have to do with realism?

Most licensed vehicles aren't even allowed to be showed in anything but a perfect, shiny, undamaged way. You ever notice how games with fake cars allow you to damage them to the point of exploding, but the games with licensed cars allow you to drive them into a wall 60 times and they still look perfect?

> when I look at companies that sell 3d models of commercial entities
> {...}
> I can't imagine they ever went through any major legal process.

I'm not a lawyer but this what I've been told by one:

That's because they don't sell to end consumers, but to game developers. You see, IP owners can't just pluck royalties from _everyone_ in a product's value chain. Doing so is called "double dipping" and is not allowed in most jurisdictions. Royalties are usually exacted where there is no more copyritable content being added to the final end-consumer product, usually before the distribution chain begins. In our case here, it's somewhere between the game developer and the publisher. Patents have a different approach; royalties are exacted where the invention is fully embodied. As an example in the computer industry, an ALU design invention can generate royalties at the chip level, but not at every consumer device sold.


-cb