"Oh, FYI, when I asked permission from the manu. to use commerically the answer was NO! This was w/out the logos...just a identical resemblence."

IMO It was your mistake in asking. Just cuz they say you can't doesn't really mean anything at all legally. Though the fact that you did ask and they said no would probably hurt you if they did decide to sue.

I'll use something that physically resembles something as long as it isn't an exact copy. and It'll be my godamn legal right to do so. Of course I am refering to real world objects and not purely made up objects such as say, an X-wing figher which IMO deserves greater protection than something one might see every day on the street.

As for logos, I spent the better part of a day removing the trademarks off the Daz Nova, which I will be using in a commercial project. :p

Corporate apoligists can kiss my ass BTW. Another good example of why it is dumb to ask, is the world of PC game mods. There are many many PC game mods based on copyrighted properties, they are generally left alone, but the makers of a quake 3 mod based on Dragonball Z made the rather retarded choice of asking the US Licensee Funimation productions (who was making their own DBZ games) for permission. The mod (which was highly anticipated) was utterly destroyed after many months of development. I think US companies should take a more relaxed view towards copyrighyt, In Japan, Parody comics (Doujinshi)which are often downright pornographic are allowed to be sold based on copyrighted properties provided that they have a limited press run. Lighten up already!

Message edited on: 08/02/2005 17:19