B
BigTen
Guest
"...I agree it's stupid, but they do have to have consent in case a players naming rights in relation to their rugby career are held by their home nation's rugby union.
You can say it's crap, but it's true.
It's like saying that it's crap that you have to ask your local council for consent to put an extension onto a building on your own land, unfortunately you have to in most parts of the world. With naming rights you also need consent.
Do I think Serge Blanco or Grant Fox would sue EA? No, I don't. Do I think that companies like EA have to protect themselves from publishing intellectual property and names for which they don't have consent?
No. I know it as a fact.
Any Classic All-Blacks side would need NZRFU approval, EA's current rights don't extend to historical teams or players. They would not grant permission unless all the players whose names are used consented to it.
I'm banging my head against a brick wall here as I know no-one seems to understand legalities unless it relates to current players..." CA Iversen.
Okay I agree with some of your points and you should make absolutely no mistake I am well aware of the legislation that surrounds intellectual property and naming rights.
However you made a point about needing local council consent for building permits even when it is your own land. Now this is a common mistake made by many people. Technically speaking (in Commonwealth countries) you do not and never will "own" that land. It is not called real estate because the property (or property ***le) is real but rather it is royal. In other words it is "owned" by the Crown, or said representative of the crown. The word "real" actually stands for royal. Think of Real Madrid and know that they are called Real Madrid not because there is a "fake" Madrid somewhere else but rather because they are Royal Madrid. When you "buy" land all you are getting is control over that land for a 99 year lease. Obviously this is a very simplified version of property law but is just goes to show how easily people can get the wrong idea.
Now back to IP and naming-rights.
When rugby was an amateur game no-one really cared about protecting the "property" of the game but now that it is sold like a whore to whatever commercial interest pays the most everyone is extremely precious about their rights.
So essentially EA pays the IRB and other unions for exclusive computer game rights for the names of players, competitions, team names, blah, etc, etc. The money that the unions get may be used to pay players and the players have already agreed that their image rights (in this names, and likeness) may be used in a varied use of media when they signed their contracts.
Now the Unions state that they own all of the rights to all of their players going right back to the very first international player that took the field. However this has been untested and generally and from a legal standpoint it is a complete minefield. Because the international players were not paid the Unions could have a very hard case to prove that they had done enough to secure IP and image rights for these players.
Also it is important to note that every single player has to give their individual permission for all the "classic" rights to be used is a bit of a farce. What about dead players? Do you have to ask their family? In that case, to whom in their family has to be asked? Can it be anyone? Or does everyone in their family have to agree? A legal minefield.
This harks back to a Superbowl copyright issue. I cannot recall which Superbowl it was but essentially (and this is the very brief version) coverage of a certain game was never copyrighted and as such was in the public domain. This meant that anyone could broadcast this footage. The NFL tried to claim that it was the legal owner of the broadcast even though this was long after the fact that it had been broadcast by another company and a long time before they tried to "claim" it.
And on a side note - did you know that I am breaching leagislation by referring to is as the SuperBowl - I should instead be calling it "the game" or other generic description. I hope that I don't get sued.
Now all of this is probably besides the point and that is that simply EA does not want to do anything that is likely to draw legal action.
And they are especially careful about not putting players into the game that have similar sounding names like Lamo, Colon, etc.
To be honest though EA have (most of) the licences and they just need to negotiate harder to be able to use classic players. And if they lack this ability or the unions prove to be unwilling they should just drop the classic matches and have instead a scenario creator that allows us to do it for them.
You can say it's crap, but it's true.
It's like saying that it's crap that you have to ask your local council for consent to put an extension onto a building on your own land, unfortunately you have to in most parts of the world. With naming rights you also need consent.
Do I think Serge Blanco or Grant Fox would sue EA? No, I don't. Do I think that companies like EA have to protect themselves from publishing intellectual property and names for which they don't have consent?
No. I know it as a fact.
Any Classic All-Blacks side would need NZRFU approval, EA's current rights don't extend to historical teams or players. They would not grant permission unless all the players whose names are used consented to it.
I'm banging my head against a brick wall here as I know no-one seems to understand legalities unless it relates to current players..." CA Iversen.
Okay I agree with some of your points and you should make absolutely no mistake I am well aware of the legislation that surrounds intellectual property and naming rights.
However you made a point about needing local council consent for building permits even when it is your own land. Now this is a common mistake made by many people. Technically speaking (in Commonwealth countries) you do not and never will "own" that land. It is not called real estate because the property (or property ***le) is real but rather it is royal. In other words it is "owned" by the Crown, or said representative of the crown. The word "real" actually stands for royal. Think of Real Madrid and know that they are called Real Madrid not because there is a "fake" Madrid somewhere else but rather because they are Royal Madrid. When you "buy" land all you are getting is control over that land for a 99 year lease. Obviously this is a very simplified version of property law but is just goes to show how easily people can get the wrong idea.
Now back to IP and naming-rights.
When rugby was an amateur game no-one really cared about protecting the "property" of the game but now that it is sold like a whore to whatever commercial interest pays the most everyone is extremely precious about their rights.
So essentially EA pays the IRB and other unions for exclusive computer game rights for the names of players, competitions, team names, blah, etc, etc. The money that the unions get may be used to pay players and the players have already agreed that their image rights (in this names, and likeness) may be used in a varied use of media when they signed their contracts.
Now the Unions state that they own all of the rights to all of their players going right back to the very first international player that took the field. However this has been untested and generally and from a legal standpoint it is a complete minefield. Because the international players were not paid the Unions could have a very hard case to prove that they had done enough to secure IP and image rights for these players.
Also it is important to note that every single player has to give their individual permission for all the "classic" rights to be used is a bit of a farce. What about dead players? Do you have to ask their family? In that case, to whom in their family has to be asked? Can it be anyone? Or does everyone in their family have to agree? A legal minefield.
This harks back to a Superbowl copyright issue. I cannot recall which Superbowl it was but essentially (and this is the very brief version) coverage of a certain game was never copyrighted and as such was in the public domain. This meant that anyone could broadcast this footage. The NFL tried to claim that it was the legal owner of the broadcast even though this was long after the fact that it had been broadcast by another company and a long time before they tried to "claim" it.
And on a side note - did you know that I am breaching leagislation by referring to is as the SuperBowl - I should instead be calling it "the game" or other generic description. I hope that I don't get sued.
Now all of this is probably besides the point and that is that simply EA does not want to do anything that is likely to draw legal action.
And they are especially careful about not putting players into the game that have similar sounding names like Lamo, Colon, etc.
To be honest though EA have (most of) the licences and they just need to negotiate harder to be able to use classic players. And if they lack this ability or the unions prove to be unwilling they should just drop the classic matches and have instead a scenario creator that allows us to do it for them.
h34r:, should it satisfy I will give you all a brazillian virgins
