Church of England demands Sony donation for shoot-out game

[TheNoNamedOne]

LONDON (AFP) - The Church of England has asked Sony to apologise and contribute a large donation for featuring a Manchester Cathedral in a violent video game.

Church officials had earlier accused Sony of using the historic interior of Manchester Cathedral, where memorials for gun crime victims have been held, as the backdrop for parts of the new Playstation 3 game, "Resistance: Fall of Man" without permission. ...

...a demand for an apology and a substantial donation from the game's profits as Sony did not pay a commercial fee to use the cathedral as a backdrop, and because of the game's inappropriate nature. ...

"For a global manufacturer to re-create one of our great cathedrals with photo-realistic quality and then encourage people to have gun battles in the building is beyond belief and highly irresponsible. ...

The company also said the game amounts to science fiction where the targets are aliens rather than humans. ...

Its website says "Resistance: Fall of Man" takes place in an alternative 20th century in which it is 1951 and World War II never happened. However, humanity is threatened by brutal invaders, the Chimera. (Full story at Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070611/wl_uk_afp/britainanglican_070611075740))

Don't private copyright and trademark laws apply for only 50~75 years?

Wouldn't the money the church is demanding be considered virtual blood money? Blood money is often looked upon as not ethical. It leaves me to ponder if all the gold pillaged by the church through its past sponsoring of Spanish Conquistadors and the forced submission to Christianity qualifies as blood money? Surely it does.

I am not a gamer, but this story has piqued my interest and they hype about it wants to make me buy it. Has anyone played it before? What do you think about the church's view and complaint here? Justified?

[dk]

I doubt this could be classified as blood money, but the church demanding a donation is pretty rediculous. Well, their use of the term "donation" at least. I do think that if the game decided to use the place in their game they should have gotton permission or made a contract beforehand though. But then again, this is a public place. So I don't really have a solid stance one way or the other in this issue.

I'm not even going to pretend to know what the laws are like in this kind of case.

[Tempestuous]

So would the "donation" be tax deductible? As you may no, churches are non-profit groups and any and all donations to them are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.

Also- just cause a church in a game looks similar doesn't mean it is the same.Perhaps it is very traditional and that was what Sony put in the game? The thoughts one comes up with when you conjure up a traditional church in your thoughts.
Would have to look more into it to know for sure, I suppose.