There’s no shortage of legal issues in video games, but the recent court case AM General LLC v. Activision Blizzard, Inc. et al, No. 1:2017cv08644 – Document 218 (S.D.N.Y. 2020) was decided in a way that surprised me:
The judge ruled that Activision Blizzard can use Humvees in Call of Duty without any kind of license from the manufacturer, given that it ties in with an artistic goal and does not mislead about the source of the work: “if realism is an artistic goal, then the presence in Modern Warfare games of vehicles employed by actual militaries undoubtedly furthers that goal.”
Military vehicles would not be my choice of example, but it’s an interesting twist.
However, and as always, even with this ruling, this remains the kind of freedom of speech best exercised with a large legal team on your side.
I was always thinking of making a futuristic flying car racing game. I wanted to involved real brands instead of making my own ones, since a lot of car brands already have established identities. I wanted to extrapolate these identities into the far future. Creating new brands of my own probably wouldn’t strike the same chord as seeing a Ferrari or an Aston Martin, as these brands already have certain ideologies, aesthetics, and performances that people recognise and identify with. Would that be considered a valid artistic goal?
Also, South Park regularly represents brands like Apple and Amazon explicitly by name, although they do skew the logos and likeness of these brands. What protection does that come under?