Which is exactly why you shouldn’t be relying on your use of an existing design being deemed “good faith”: you’re not going to be the one who makes the call!
Looking at it from a business angle: why take the risk? If you make a great game, you can sell a bundle with or without the Viper in it! Why risk losing all your money over some stupid car obsession? Why deny yourself the satisfaction of knowing that it was your own designs that sold people on your game?
You could probably shoot off an email to said manufacturer and ask to use a car’s likeness in your game. Odds are they won’t care one way or another. Like this Ford Model T that I may use at some point in the future, took me forever to model.
I know you guys are talking about cars but I have a bunch of models I have created from blueprints and images pulled of the internet like benches, bins etc. Just ordinary mundane stuff but if someone wanted to sue would they be able too?
Not that they would recognise them anyway because by modeling ability is crap, but you never know? 
@highscores, it would have to be a defining design. So something like a toaster or a bench are common enough that people would not recognize them as a specific brand, hence no brand dilution.
The deal with the cars, like the Dodge Viper have a specific look and design. It cannot be confused with any other car, but if you take the design of a 1980’s K-car, there is really no issue with it being mistaken as a branded object. It all has to do with the rights of design and brand.
Some objects inherit certain traits that make them unique and identifiable as a specific brand. Those traits may not be registered trademark designs, but they would fall under what is called Trade Dress are automatically protected. If it is an everyday item and you cannot tell brand, then you are generally okay using it as an element.
I know this is an old thread, and i’ve done a search and come up with a lot of similar answers,
my question is, what if you’re not profiting from the game?
I know the best option would be to contact the manufacturers etc, but for a free web published game i’d imagine it would be hard for them to justify it?
If your not profiting from the game, they can’t really sue you for the profits you’ve made, I THINK the most they can do is ask/force you to remove it.
Normally the easiest solution is to mix 2 cars.
I think its okay to use real cars a portfolio pieces though, I dunno about the legality of that.
This is completely wrong. Profit (or lack of) have absolutely no bearing on IP law. Additionally, IP holders are not obliged to ask or force you to remove anything. If they choose, they can simply take you to court without warning.
One important difference to bear in mind between copyright and trademark law. (This subject is trademark law.) In copyright, the IP holder can choose whether to take action against you. In trademark law, the IP holder is obliged to take action against you or risks weakening/losing their trademark. That is simply how trademarks work. It’s literally, use it or lose it.
what about using real cars as portfolio pieces? I’ve seen this a lot (I know some people get a job where they have to model the car, but often times, I see people just model one for fun).
Having worked on racing games with licensed cars and without, I have first-hand experience of how protective manufacturers are of their intellectual property.
If you don’t have a licence to copy a car, and it is recognisable as a particular model or brand, the owner will come after you if they find out about it. The way to avoid being sued is to make something really rubbish so that nobody ever plays it. But who wants to do that?
And as someone has said, compensation will be based upon how much you are perceived to have damaged their brand, not how much you have earned.
The same also applies to famous buildings, although many are very relaxed about it. However some are most definitely not.
Weapons too. There is one arms manufacturer known for being extremely protective of their IP, but I won’t say who in case they take my statement as defamatory.
With the risk of sounding awkward.
Patents for real-world objects should pose no problem to 3d modeling unless they are decorative patents (started popping up in the 80’s). Some documentation is advised as manufacturers can potentially patent certain visual portions of their products under decorative patents.
If we’re talking about trademarks (there is a difference), just remove any distinctive signs from the model. These can range from the emblem, logo, make and name to a wide variety of things including certain curvatures or body angles. This information is required to be public. It takes a bit of documentation but there’s nothing they can do about it if done properly.
A Copyright is an entirely different thing though. The law is always arguable and “bendable” when it comes to extending to new (digital) fields. Thus, if really poised on suing, the larger company will usually win this argument.
As the poster above has said, HK is really crappy about their weapons. However, you must remember that functional elements of designs are not copyrightable and that copyright laws are ignored or completely different in some countries.
The company we’ve worked for had a very simple and definitive solution to HK’s whining. Instead of using the real HK firearms as models, we’ve ordered Chinese made, Airsoft replicas. These extremely realistic toys are legal in virtually every country.
Since they leave HongKong under a totally different copyright and a completely different designation (toys) HK has absolutely nothing to say about it. Thus whenever asked, our modeling department was modeling “external depictions of Airsoft toys”.
Another thing about HK (and most weapons manufacturers) is that they don’t employ decorative patents, so the only thing to look out for in our case were trademarks. Thus, an MP5k was a g55k, an mp7 was a g57, etc. Of course the markings were laid out differently and so on.
Cars are way trickier. You should however remember that there were no such decorative patents prior to the 1960s or so. Thus, you can model an exact (Exterior wise) replica of a 1955 car and just remove the trademarks to be in the clear.
P.S: you should also look up the “fair use” exception. With a good lawyer you could probably pass a non-profit game under the exception.
There is another kind of IP protection called Registered Design (that is the UK name at least). This is one you can easily fall foul of with 3D models as it deals with the appearance of an object.
These points were covered in this topic here: http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=54073
