Church blasts Sony game

# 1 10-06-2007 , 01:38 PM

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As the title suggests,

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co....sony_game.html

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# 2 10-06-2007 , 01:55 PM

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wow, churches are dumb. lol
it always seems that churches sue anything that they dont agree with, but they forget that they dont have to play it.:headbang:

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# 3 10-06-2007 , 02:02 PM

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I think from whats been on the news here (as its my city) is that the game developers didnt ask permission to use the model of the church.

Thy just said that its a Cathedral in Manchster (of which theres only one) that bares a total resemberlance to the real one.

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# 4 10-06-2007 , 02:04 PM

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well the church didnt model it, the design isnt copyrighted. so, i dont see the problem

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# 5 10-06-2007 , 02:11 PM

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True, but I think the problem is that they just modeled it and didnt ask permission, as the church is owned by the church so they have the say on who could model it, if they wanted it to be modeled of course.

Whats being suggested is that sony would have come in took pictures and then gone and modeled it which is a bit naughty in my book, I wouldent think of going into someones house taking pics, modeling it then putting it into a game and then making profit from it without asking if it was ok to do so.

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# 6 10-06-2007 , 02:48 PM

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That's a bit mad,

I think the bishop guy is right though, a main stream game would never be made with a bloodbath in a mosque or a synagogue.

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# 7 10-06-2007 , 04:49 PM

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Originally posted by Joopson
wow, churches are dumb. lol
it always seems that churches sue anything that they dont agree with, but they forget that they dont have to play it.:headbang:

Originally Posted by

This is the first time i have ever heard of a church suing anything. I think something like this happened when people were filming the Davinci code. They needed a church but weren't allowed to film in it so they made it all in 3D.

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# 8 10-06-2007 , 10:29 PM

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Originally posted by Some Guy
This is the first time i have ever heard of a church suing anything. I think something like this happened when people were filming the Davinci code. They needed a church but weren't allowed to film in it so they made it all in 3D.

Originally Posted by

Really? That's cool! I still need to see that...

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# 9 10-06-2007 , 11:17 PM

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hehe nice article,
I kinda go on both sides on this one. yea I could see how having a shootout at a church might be unliked and I can see how sony is trying to make games that sell. I think however that people shouldn't sue and waste that much time on ridiculous lawsuits like that, society doesn't really gain anything I would say. like the case where SEGA sued ytmnd cause there was a little sonic on their site or when that lady sued mcdonalds become of that hot coffee. I think if we were more efficient and only dealt with useful things in life we would of been so much more advanced to this day. like maya 19.0 would of came out last month or somethn.

Last edited by danotronXX; 10-06-2007 at 11:19 PM.

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# 10 11-06-2007 , 03:11 AM

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I think you will find that the Cathedral is not classed as a public building, but is owned by the Church of England, and due to the content of the game and the similarities of the actual Cathedral and the one in the game, the C of E are upset that they were not asked permission for the building to appear in the game. If they were asked, I bet it would have been a resounding no. People fail to remember the power that the religious orders of the world have.

The legal battle now will be for the Games Company (Sony - or its 3rd Party Contractor), to prove that the Cathedral in the game has similarities but is not that actual building. So things like changes to the spire, or different stained glass to the original, should allow the company to leave the structure in the game.

C of E will be more upset about the games content being used in their Cathedral, rather than a building belonging to them appearing in some bit of entertainment, and that permission was never sought.

I wonder if the internals have been modelled and included and are exact. Maybe Sony should have been more careful?

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# 11 11-06-2007 , 03:29 AM

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Originally posted by R@nSiD

I wonder if the internals have been modelled and included and are exact. Maybe Sony should have been more careful?

Originally Posted by

Thats what I think, they definatly should have been more careful, on the local news they had some in game pictures and then had a similar shot from inside the Cathedral, to me it looked very similar, both in the positioning of the geo and the texturing.

It had some guy on from a visulisation company who modelded one of Liverpools Cathedral (the old one) and he was saying that the company must have used some hi res photos of the Manchester Catherdral for modeling and texure ref, which begs the question if they were using that why didnt they ask as they must have high paid law peeps that would have to ok such a thing???

I dont think that there would be the problem, well maybe a bit of a moan from the church, if Sony would have "made up" a building for the game, that didnt resemble the Cathedral in the slightest.

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# 12 14-06-2007 , 02:14 AM

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I think this is another example of how silly we are getting today.

A gun battle inside a church against evil invading aliens... Wow! That makes me sooo want to buy that game.

As for the Church sueing Sony becuase of 'similarities' I think thats kinda wrong too. While I haven't seen screenshots of the game compared to pictures of the church, what I can say after spending much time looking at Egyptian/Mesopotamian temples is that you can see lots of simularities between them. Just becuase these two examples have this bit is placed here doesn't mean that one example copied the other cause theres a lot of reasons why this bit is here and so forth.

Sony however could have put thier silly little gunfight elsewhere though, I don't really support their insensitivities that you sometimes get in their games and they could have actually just made up a church (it would be easier and cheaper then sending some guys over to Britaina and taking photos.

As for that spokesman dude from Sony and his comment, I don't recall any episode in Dr. Who where there is violence in a church except for one of the newer ones where Rose stuffs up the timeline or something.

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# 13 14-06-2007 , 06:32 AM

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Originally posted by The Architect
I don't recall any episode in Dr. Who where there is violence in a church except for one of the newer ones where Rose stuffs up the timeline or something.

Originally Posted by

It happened in Episode One with Chris Eccelston. The episode wher Rose's Dad Come back to life because of soe weird alien gargoyle time montser.

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# 14 14-06-2007 , 06:46 AM

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I am no legal expert but ,since the cathedral is most likely several hundred years old ,I don't see how the design can be under copywrite and the designer is most certainly dead and even if the church own the building I can't see they have a leg to stand on legally.They might not like it but I doubt a court of law could make Sony change the game .

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Church blasts Sony game

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