Defending Sony Against the Church Of England

Ian Bogost writes at Gamasutra about the (now quiet) controversy between Sony and the Church of England. You may recall the religious organization's objection to the use of the Manchester cathedral in Insomniac's alternate history WWII shooter Resistance. The result of this objection was a weak-kneed apology from Sony, and an attempt to push the whole thing under a rug. Bogost notes that never once did the company try to defend itself on artistic merit, simply capitulating to the objections of the church. That, he has decided, leaves the job up to him: "For my part, I think the cathedral creates one of the only significant experiences in the whole game, one steeped in reverence for the cathedral and the church, rather than desecration. Resistance is not a game richly imbued with wisdom. It's a first-person shooter, and it is a pretty good one. It's beautifully rendered, taking apparent advantage of the advanced graphical capabilities of the PlayStation 3. The game is very linear, both in its plot and the paths through each level, but that linearity allows it to focus the player on a smaller, more tightly crafted environment. Resistance takes up a common theme in science fiction: an ultimate test of humankind against the Other."

Comments

Uh, right.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

From TFA:

Absent the creators' own ability, interest, or resolve to defend the artistic merits of their creation, that task is now left to the critic. Sony did something stupid - include a landmark owned by a church in a videogame of theirs without getting prior permission. If this church was to be included in a movie, you know that the studio would have to get permission, etc. So, Sony apologized for their stupidity, and moved on. This blogger has the "Al Sharpton" syndrome - take up a cause that very few people care about and act like it's the most important thing in the world. Good job.

Re:Uh, right.

[sqlrob]

Why do they have to get permission? For a movie where it's done on location, that's understandable. But if it's done completely through CGI?

Re:Uh, right.

[Jarjarthejedi]

I love how the argument is always made that 'If I can photograph it, they should be able to create a three dimensional replica for use in a for-profit video game that the church may or may not like'. The two aren't the same at all*. Now then, the law may or may not have supported Sony, that depends on a huge number of factors and, in the end, a single judge's decision. Either way the nice thing to do is ask for permission, Sony didn't do that.

Here's my POV. It is entirely possible to trademark a building's appearance, at least in the US, I don't know where the argument that that's not possible came from. Now then, in this case, the Church was probably not trademarked (unless the view is taken that any distinctive looking building is trademarked, which is a possible view). The inside of the Church, however, is private property. Unless I'm mistaken (having never played the game, I'm not a big horror person) Sony did model the inside of the Church. That is questionably legal without permission. In the US you're allowed to model (photograph, actually, but I'm extending it to modeling for this example) any non-trademarked buildings that can be seen from public property. Since the inside of the church can't be seen from public property...*cue drum roll*...that means that Sony was using private property in their for-profit game without permission. Whether or not that is legal, since the Church probably lets anyone in, is unknown but it's wrong to just say 'Yeah, that's legal' when it may or may not be.

If I'm wrong on anything please point it out to me. Personally I think Sony should be able to do what they did, they should have asked for permission but it should be legal. Whether or not it is legal is something I believe to be unknown.

Re:Uh, right.

[theRiallatar]

Idiocy.

Re:Uh, right.

[0xdeadbeef]

The building is over 700 years old, and its interior is well documented. What law, exactly, requires them to get permission before they model it in a videogame?

Kids these days... sheesh. They have no disrespect for whiny, illegitimate authority.

Re:Uh, right.

[Derekloffin]

Trademarks have to be registered, are very limited in what you can register, and beyond that they don't protect you from having it used, only from having it misrepresented to a different competing product. Also, trademarks have to be very simple, you can't trademark a book for example, nor a painting, only a symbol or other simple graphical premise or set of words. Trademarking the whole church, no.

As for modeling, you have no IP right over a look other than copyright, or patent. Any copyright or patent on the design or structure of the church has LOOOOONG past. It is now a landmark, and has lost all IP protections. In fact it is so old it didn't even have them to begin with. You could be an identical church right now and use it for porn movies and there is 0 they could legally do about it.

Really, the only legal recourse had to be taken at the time any sampling was done and since this is a landmark, it is very likely no person from the developer even set foot in the church, they very well may have just used publicly available photos of the interior. Even assuming they did actually set foot on the premises, if the church officials did not object at that moment and charge the people with trespassing they are now without legal recourse.

Re:Uh, right.

[sesshomaru]

Ok, a lot of what I'm reading here is in terms of this being a legal defense. Well, it's not supposed to be a legal defense because Sony doesn't need a legal defense. They don't have to recall their game or give a percentage of the profits to the Church of England, and they won't have to. They "won" basically (Church of England didn't have a leg to stand on, so their was never any chance of them losing), but said they won't do it again for public releations reasons.

The article is an artistic defense of the game. How to explain. Okay, years ago, some German Expressionists decided to make a film version of Dracula called Nosferatu . This film is considered to be one of the high points of Expressionist film making, a work of art.

However, the film makers made it without permission or compensation to Bram Stoker's widow, and she was within her legal rights to have every copy of the film destroyed. Which she tried to do. It is only because she was unsuccessful that copies survive to this day.

A defense of the film as a work of art might have been made not to the courts, but to Mrs. Stoker. An uninterested party could have made a critical judgement of the work and said, "I understand you were ripped off, but don't destroy the film. It is a powerful work of art. It would be a shame to rob the world of this."

Sony didn't make an artist defence of Resistance because they don't care about it as a work of art, only as a product in their catalog.

May I be the first...

[Anonymous Coward]

to set fire to a pile of PS3s!

SOE vs COE, next on WWE Smackdown!

[nobuddy]

two heavyweights of their genre (fantasy, magic, talking animals vs video games) stand toe to toe, and Sony pussies out instead of bringing the fight.

Don't you mean?

[MikeRT]

20Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within[b] you."

That's from the Gospel of Luke, one of the canonical Gospels. What you cite is from the Gospel of Thomas, which is considered to be a gnostic gospel. Seeing as how the CoE uses the canonical gospels only, Luke is more appropriate than Thomas here.

Manchester

[Kohath]

That was a good scene in Resistance. The cathedral and the hospital beds were a good counterpoint to the alien attackers. And the layout really worked to focus the action.

I'm not sure why anyone needs permission to copy something like that in a game or a movie. It's been there for a while now, so the design can't be copyrighted any more. The Church of England seemed to just want money.

Some people might have been "offended" by a shooting game in the church, but people who are "offended" need to be told their choice to take offense is theirs alone. If you start empowering people based on their choices to take offense or not, then they'll eventually have 100% total power over you.

Fantasy or Reality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Church fails to spot the difference between fact and fiction.

So what's new?

Re:Fantasy or Reality?

[TheMadcapZ]

Your right, maybe they just wanted Sony to model the church more accurately, you know, have a priest fingering a boy in the corner or something.

Funny

[svendsen]

The church asking sony to apologize for doing something bad

I'm still waiting for the church's apology for everything bad thing it has done ;-)

How hard is to make an alternate cathedral?

[Spy der Mann]

Konami did it right with the House of Sacred Remains in "Castlevania: Lament of Innocence". And with gregorian-styled chants in the background.

One of my favorite areas of the game.

Re:How hard is to make an alternate cathedral?

[PJ1216]

It's supposed to be alternate history, therefore it's supposed to take place in places that people will recognize. If you start making up things, it no longer is alternate history fiction, it's just plain fiction.

Imagine the Spider-man game based off the movie. If the Empire State building was something else, it wouldn't be New York. If Ellis Island was re-named and remodeled, it wouldn't be the same. It'd basically be Grand Theft Auto: Spider-man.

The reason the author is making a big deal about this is that Sony didn't set a great precedent. They didn't back down, but they didn't really stand up and fight and say, "Hey, we're right," when they were actually right. I think it's fine that the church was included and I think they had every right to include it.

Re:Unless the level was called "Mass Murder"

[nobuddy]

This gives a whole new meaning to a save point.