I think you get what I'm saying then. > If you want to respond, please keep in mind that we are talking about current copyright and trademark law, not some ut

I think you get what I'm saying then. > If you want to respond, please keep in mind that we are talking about current copyright and trademark law, not some utopia in which new laws can be enacted willy-nilly. This is the problem though. I don't disagree with anything you said as far as what the state of current copyright/trademark law is, I just disagree with the laws and think they're immoral. I consider the mailbox issue especially egregious. Lets say you want to make some content like the infamous American suburb map in Hitman 2. You want to create an environment that's relatable to your audience so you model a typical American subdivision with houses and roads and all the detail you could dream of. Then you get hit with C&D letters from USPS because you put down a letterbox that you'd see on any street corner, Ford for a Mustang you put in a driveway, another because an NPC was wearing a Polo shirt and so on until you have to totally neuter your concept. Meanwhile if hollywood wants to do the same thing for a movie, nobody bats an eye. Nobody designed any of this stuff sitting in the conference room saying "...and here's how much video game licencing revenue we can expect for this letterbox..." > companies want the intellectual property and have "priced it in" into the dollar value of the contracts Trust me... they do no such thing. I've been involved with this several times. At the end of the day, it's just leveraging a broken legal system for rent seeking because...they can!