In the current GamePolitics poll, readers have overwhelmingly sided with Sony in its dispute with the Church of England over the appearance of Manchester Cathedral in PS3 shooter Resistance: Fall of Man.
But what are the legal issues?
The Wardman Wire offers an excellent summary. As English blogger Matt Wardman sees it:
In my opinion, it is clear that morally Sony should have asked first. They may not have asked permission because the inevitable answer would be SOS (sod off Sony), or for a risk of establishing a precedent.
Beyond Wardman's opinion on the ethics, he raises issues of copyright, concluding that Manchester Cathedral itself is too old to retain copyright. However, Sony cold face other legal pitfalls:
Most UK Cathedrals and some sort of “no commercial photography without permission” statement in place... If Sony have taken photographs or videos for their game, then they are in violation of this statement, and may have a legal risk.
Items inside the Cathedral that appear in Resistance could pose copyright problems for Sony, Wardman concludes:
In UK Law a work of art... on permanent public display does not have protection against photographs being taken of it for commercial us... However, if it is on temporary display - even in a public place - copyright law does apply.
So, is the interior of Manchester Cathedral a public place?
This is a hugely complicated question - to do with the legal status of the Church of England... if Manchester Carthedral *is* a public place then all the attempts by all the cathedrals to control commercial photography in opening hours are on the skids. Except that some cathedrals go so far back that there may be specialist laws from centuries ago that have an impact.
Wardman's conclusion? Much remains to be worked out. The lawyers will surely be kept busy:
Sony may have a risk, but they may not. However, they have an exposure of 10s of millions in revenue from this game - so they face a large downside...
It may be an attempt [by the CoE] to establish legally that video games are in the same category as films, and avoid losing the income that comes from rental of cathedrals by film crews...
It may in fact turn out that Sony obtained freelance footage, and are only potentially liable for “reproduction” and “publication” (which would be violations of copyright if copyright exists) rather than filming without permission.
Stay tuned...
Comments
Re: Church of England vs. Sony: What are the Legal Issues?
According to Christian tradition, the "authority" of Jesus Christ to preach, to teach, and to do all the things that He had done while on Earth came from the Father God above.
Re: Church of England vs. Sony: What are the Legal Issues?
Ed.S. programs lead to professional degrees in the application of advanced educational theory but do not typically place an emphasis on conducting original research such as in Ed.D, or Ph.D. programs.
I've not seen any side-by-side comparisons of the real and virtual buildings, I'm not familiar with the real church and I haven't played Resistance.
I thought the same thing, but apperently the publish is wholly responsible for the product, even though they did not make it.
@aniki21
True, I wish someone could show some comparison shots. If the ingame church looks alot different, then the "real life" church is only used as reference. Meaning, it was not copied, only used as reference. So copyright does not apply (If it can be applied at all).
I'm confused at the concept, as publishers don't have a right to change the property, the only thing they get is the rights to the IP after publishing. How can they be responsible for asking permission for content that is developed by a company they are publishing for?
You'd be singing a different tune if they paid you
I would depend how they did the research, and what material they used.
See my article:
http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2007/06/12/manchester-cathedral-vs-sony-...
Matt
Sony could not afford to remove a game from the UK. It is the 3rd biggest buyer of games in the world after Japan and the US. Not to mention that this is a key game in trying to sway people to fork over £425 on the PS3.
I don't believe that international laws would negate any laws broken in the UK. However, I don't believe that any laws HAVE been broken in the UK and this threat of a lawsuit is nothing more than hot air, and the Church trying to sound relevent. I also would say I do understand that having a place of worship in a shoot 'em up might cause some genuine outrage, even if with no LEGAL basis.
There's the legal side (which relates to specifically what Sony (or their agent) did or did not do, and the "outrage" side (if I can call it that). The legal stuff is an argument with the Cathedral.
The offence within a community with a gun crime problem may have an outcome more like that which hit the Sun in Liverpool after Hillsborough.
Such a campaign however, would not be run by Manchester Cathedral - it would come from a community group.
Matt
Tomoko
Tomoko
Granted this deals with an interior space, but does a design student building a virtual recreation of a cathedral have to seek permission?
Hopefully this is quickly thrown out.
If the church of England thinks that their buildings are immune to the destructive power of war, they forget their own history and maintain a negative air of naivete.
After all, suppose someone was inspired to re-enact the encounter for real but did so without having ever played the original game. Who is responsible for putting the idea in his head now?
A. the game was made in the U.S.A, so when they were making the game U.S. copyright laws applied (I think).
B. the church will have to prove that they took photos or video tapes of the church. Methinks they don't have security cameras installed in the church, to preserve autheticity (I don't know this, I'm just guessing) making proof difficult to obtain.
C. Temporary items in the church huh? Well my guess is that doesn't count if they were in a supposed permanent state while insomniac was outlining the cathedral.
Like I said it comes down to motive, what has Sony got to lose? A LOT. What has the church got to lose? Legal fees.
This is a great little guide for photographers on what they can and cannot photograph safely:
http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm
Unfortunately that pamphlet means nothing for this case, they alledgedly (remember the church hasn't proven this yet) took photos while in the manchester cathedral which is in England, which means they had to abide by U.K. photography laws, not U.S. ones (although what they do with the photographs applies to U.S. laws).
The fact is that manchester has a serious gun problem and the church are part of a campaign to address it. That campaign includes combatting -wherever possible- the depiction of guns as being 'cool' or 'fun' in popular media. In particular, any game which trivialises gun use -especially in manchester itself- is, as far as they are concerned, fair game.
Now the fact that the cathedral appears in resistance without permission completely undermines the church's anti-gun stance. If they think that they have the slightest chance of getting more money for their campaign, then they will go for it. In fact, it would be a pretty easy PR move for sony to just pay out and be seen as helping to combat gun use (though some might call it hypocritical).
As for the notion of precedent and law and so on... I won't pretend to be an expert there. I wasn't even aware of the license fees film crews had to pay to use certain locations, I thought they just paid when they needed an area exclusively (ie if a street or tourist attraction needed to be emptied etc.) My gut instinct says that the church doesn't really have much of a case, though.
But doesn't "for commercial use," only mean if a photograph is sold. I thought the industry practice was sending artist to locations to draw concept art for a frame of reference. Any photos taken would be only as a frame of reference, therefore not for commercial use. If they are declared commercial use, then what would that mean?
Say I draw the Manchester Cathedral's interior on a sketchpad, use that sketch to make a painting of MC's interior, and sell it the painting for a million bucks(man can dream), should I expect the Church of England(CoE) trying to get a piece of my take? Is that legal for CoE? Is that moral of the Church?
http://cad-comic.com/comics/20070613.jpg
June 13th, 2007 at 2:09 am
A webcomic for every occasion!
http://cad-comic.com/comics/20070613.jpg
Thats how I found this article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1842649.ece
Uh, no. Using the cathedral WITH permission would undermine the church's anti-gun stance. Especially if it is only a matter of buying that permission.
'But doesn’t “for commercial use,” only mean if a photograph is sold.'
That would be a no. You can't sidestep commerical usage just because the photo isn't the end product. The end product is part of a commerical product. What the church is trying to do is nitpick that some portion of the cathedral which the game reproduced was only on temporary display, and thus not protected. Something which sems highly unlikely, as the only items in the game cathedral are items which weren't on display at all.