legality of real weapons/cars ??

News & General Discussion
1

okay, so, Tons of games have real guns and cars in their games like
“colt1911” or “SPAS-12” or “Remington 870 MCS” … etc …

is it legal and okay to add any gun I want to my game? , make it look like the real gun, and use the real name of it??

i cant remember what game… but some game, people wanted certain guns in the game and the devs responded “sorry Smith and Wesson wont allow us to use their guns” … and so NO S&W guns were in their game… (i think it was S&W … couldve been a different company… been a longtime, im not sure)

or like … Grand Theft Auto… have they ever used an actual Real car in their games?? they make the cars look like real cars, but they arent actually, and they dont use real car names…
is that for legal reasons or just because they dont want to have to copy All the stats of real cars/ they want “gamey” car mechanics ??

im guessing its because on the 3d models of the guns, on the textures they copied every little marking and stuff and so they wanted to add the S&W logo?? and doing That is illegal ??

or maybe it was they were selling the guns as microtransactions?? and thats why its unallowed? (i cant remember what game it was)

2

hmm after some searching… i find out that it IS copyright infringement to use real guns / names …
thats REALLY LAME!!

i was planning on adding TONS of real guns to my game… like ANY gun I can think of…

i guess its okay to use the “look” of the gun (especially since my guns are low poly and not all that detailed at all), as long as i dont use its actual name?

i guess ill have to make it like goldeneye on N64 … where they call AK47 “soviet” and skorpion they call “Klob” and etc …
man that sucks… adds more work having to think up names lol

youd think disinformation about proper guns names would be more important? or something?
like when i was a kid, i thought goldeneyes gun names were the actual guns names in real life LOL, for like a good 4 years at least

3

How is that lame? It is normal, some one took time in designing those weapons and naming… It seems you lack allot of respect towards other peoples work.

And using the look of the gun only goes so far, only the average shape can be used, you can not add key features that are only present on that sertain model.

Think about it this way, if you made a game, spent 3 years designing and developing it. Would you like it if some one just used your complete game, modded this and that to make it their ‘own’ game, only working about 3 weeks on it and then release it under another name?

This above principle apply’s to anything that is copyright protected and thus is the reason you cannot use designs and names of guns in your game, why do you think call of duty is so expensive? Licensing all those weapons is not cheap. :slight_smile:

4

In GTA they probably made their own car names just to be funny, as that’s what fits best with the spirit of the game.

Saw this:

EA basically says screw you, we aren’t paying because we have the right to free speech. But then again, EA has a ton of lawyer power.

Anyway, I’d ask yourself if you actually need all these realistic guns. If your game is going for realism, it would make sense. But usually realistic games have high production values, which doesn’t really make sense for an indie.

5

i thought it was lame, just because, its actual objects that exist in real life, and i want to use them in artwork… i think that should be allowed. but whatever, i understand how it is.

also, to spread disinformation is just terrible…

yeah im not really going for total realism, its just that,

i think its ridiculous … how am i supposed to know what can and cant be used? … like, can i use a scissors that look like fiskar scissors? can i use water jugs that look like “dahl- tech inc” water jugs??

can i use pop/ soda cans? obviously i cant use company logos like pepsi … but what about This pop can design vs That pop can design vs That beer can design

am i supposed to design a new type of pop can just for my artwork???

if you say i cant use actual gun designs… certainly i cant use actual pop can designs right? or water jugs… or sandbags… or concrete blocks,

hmm as long as i dont copy EVERY little detail of the gun it should be okay right? …
i mean my stuff is really low poly (made for like RTS view distance & inventory icon)
heres 2 guns i made yesterday, micro uzi , and kar98k
Imgur
Imgur
as much as i know micro uzi doesnt have that green grip, i added that because it looked better than making it black… so… thats good enough of an alteration to be “artistic” right??

i generally disagree with intellectual copyrights… i understand the idea, but ultimately when all things are considered i believe its such a stupid idea, it ultimately hinders the advancement of the human species…
im generally open with my works, use it for whatever you want! … but yeah this is the first time im going to make something to sell… so iam unsure how to feel about it… i was even considering selling the source, or just letting the source be available (for the purposes of easy modding)

id never let the corruption of money hinder my desire to aid in the advancement of other’s works… for me to encrypt my work shows how much of a scumbag IAM, to arbitrarily hinder the advancement of Works…

if someone takes my work and improves upon it, it is a celebration of the value of the work that i have done…
… if they feel okay with ripping off my works, it is on them, not me.
, the foremost importance is that i stay true to my own morality…

i do not believe recreating the objects in artwork is “ripping off” , iam not actually creating the physical objects… if anything, id be giving the gun manufacturers free advertising!

hmm… actually, since guns usually cause much suffering, to adapt them to bring joy and fun is a miraculous work… (Id be using their works self-justifiably, as their works lead to just suffering, and i improve upon it to make it bring joy…) although i suppose to impress upon the people that guns are joy is an evil work…
… ultimately my current project is for practice purposes…

6

in that it says:
“Reuters was told by legal experts that there hasn’t been a single case where a gun company has sued a video game studio for using branded guns without a license.”

…whatever, im just going to do what i was going to do… and make up fake names i guess?

7

Most studios model a gun based off of real life weapons and just change there name slightly.

8

You can also change the model slightly, like flip a certain part from the left to the right side. Most people won’t know the difference.

9

lol thanks for the reassurance! :slight_smile:

its just… time to start modelling guns, and i dont wanna waste my time if i cant use em you know …

10

I agree with you.

What really confuses me is how different it seems in films. In a film, every car you see is an actual real car, and people go on about AK47s all the time. Not once have I seen people make up a name for a gun in a film.

Why should it be any different for games?

11

It’s not as simple as that think about it, if you film two real cars they perform as they would in real life, but you put the same cars in a game with those brands and the player thinks one drives better than the other it could affect there perception of the brand, at the end of the day are you going to drive the real cars to compare them to your representations? Same goes for guns and anything else.

12

Yeah, don’t overthink it. You know there are several companies who manufacture rifles like M4s. They all use a similar design for the mechanics, slight tweaks and of course unique branding and names. An M4 rifle is a generic weapon, so simply keep it generic.

13

The military M4 is based on the Armalite Model 15 rifle, or “AR-15”. “AR-15” (and “AR15”) are trademarks of Colt Industries so I would be careful using those exact terms. The terms “M4” or “M16” are government/military designations so it doesn’t have any type of protection. The rifle’s appearance is based on the AR-10 rifle which was originally designed in the 1950’s so all the design patterns have expired by now. It’s probably safe to use its general likeness as much as you want just be careful with exactly what you call it (tons of companies manufacture different versions of AR-15 clones nowadays).

Something like the Colt 1911 is old enough that it should be same to use. Just don’t use the word “Colt” (or “Remington” or “Smith & Wesson” or “GLOCK”) because those are trademarks of actual companies.

You’re probably safe if you make it similar-to but different-than any real gun and give it a clever or generic name (like “Deagle” or “9mm Model 17” ) that lets people guess what it is based on without violating any trademarks.

14

This. Copyright exists for a number of reasons, one of which is brand protection. In the indie market, this is what is actually important, as you have a bunch of amateurs potentially misrepresenting your brand. There’s a difference between greed and CYA.

I see no reason why you can’t come up with some different names, or use generic names with no copyright.

Also it should be mentioned that a lot of times, in film or tv, not only do they get permission from these companies, they get sponsorship. Maybe not as much with guns, but cars are a common example of this.

15

yeah i guess i never really thought of brand protection…

yeah… im going to make my gun models… quite similar, but not exact … and make up names for them

well the reason i want to use guns that exist is because, people/players have an affinity for certain guns… they think some particular gun is cool, and i want the “cool i love this gun its in this game too niice!!”

… like i like the StG44 (german ww2 assault rifle) … and AK47 is cool, PPSH is awesome, Galil looks cool to me, etc…

16

I don’t think they will make a problem of off it until you make serious money for them, also it in most cases if they can’t get money from it, it is free commercial.

My previous post was just to explain why they mostly do claim money.