COD MW:II lambasted for depiction of real-life Amsterdam hotel

[HomebrewingNeko]

People are having a great time with the photorealism of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II levels, but some are not enjoying it as much as others. The Conservatorium Hotel, a luxury 5-star hotel located in Amsterdam, is unhappy with being used in CoD: MW2 as the Breenbergh Hotel, located in the Amsterdam level of the game. In the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, the hotel said they were unhappy with the usage, and were seeing about legal action.

Translated quote via DeepL: 'We have taken note of the fact that the Conservatorium Hotel is undesirably the scene of the new Call of Duty,' hotel manager Roy Tomassen [said]. 'More generally, we are not [ok with] games that seem to encourage the use of violence. The game in no way reflects our core values [at the hotel] and we therefore regret our apparent and unwanted involvement.' The hotel is still considering possible [legal] action.

Original Dutch quote: ‘Wij hebben kennisgenomen van het feit dat het Conservatorium Hotel ongewenst het toneel is van de nieuwe Call of Duty’, laat hotelmanager Roy Tomassen weten. ‘Meer in het algemeen zijn wij geen voorstander van games die het gebruik van geweld lijken aan te moedigen. De game reflecteert op geen enkele manier onze kernwaarden en wij betreuren dan ook onze kennelijke en ongewenste betrokkenheid.’ Het hotel beraadt zich nog op mogelijke stappen.

Source (in Dutch)

 

[FAST6191]

Heh. Have not seen such things in and while and it is usually religious buildings that cause trouble (either that church with the PS3 FPS game or the Sikh temple was it in one of the earlier Hitman titles).

I do also have to wonder if there are copyright implications (European copyright law on buildings is an odd one and might vary a bit, certainly don't know the Dutch flavour) but I imagine they would have led with that one.

 

[subcon959]

Is there any legal precedent here? It seems to me there isn't a whole lot the hotel can do about it if the game isn't using the name?

 

[Kioku]

The epitome of personal problem.

 

[FAST6191]

Is there any legal precedent here? It seems to me there isn't a whole lot the hotel can do about it if the game isn't using the name?

I don't know Dutch law for this sort of thing (Dutch copyright law can also be a bit odd, and it is one of the places you will tend to get issues from, or if you prefer there is a reason I know the name Brein, their MPAA/RIAA equivalent of sorts, and not anything else other than the US and UK versions off the top of my head) and it is not something that is likely to be international or EU level gone wide (the EU being surprisingly hands off/leave it to members when it comes to copyright) but can start at least on the general overview.

In France it is often noted that the Eiffel tower is not copyrighted (way too old for one) but at night the light show on it is. Indeed this is probably the main trivia people know if they know anything about copyright here.
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/f...o-take-pictures-of-the-eiffel-tower-at-night/

Americans have a thing where buildings past a certain date (1990 or so) gain copyright protection for their exteriors. Can make certain things in New York a bit harder in various films
https://www.photosecrets.com/buildings-copyright-and-trademarks seems like a reasonable overview.

Other than that the only things I have really heard of here are the Resistance Fall of Man thing (Wikipedia I know but serves as an overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contr...nchester_Cathedral_in_Resistance:_Fall_of_Man ) and Hitman 2 http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/sci_tech/newsid_2440000/2440713.stm back in 2002.

There is the trademark thing but whether the interior rises to the level of it is a bit more tricky; a big chain with a consistent theme might get there. Equally interiors of things can also be subject to other things if works of art contained within are or rise to the level of, or maybe another protection (trade dress or something with one of the lesser known IP concerns for some fancy designer chair, though without checking if this is some gold accented or marble thing stuffed with furniture that is made to look like fancy 15th century or whatever royal court they care to ape then that would be a different matter). More generally though then https://www.history.com/news/why-the-inventor-of-the-cubicle-came-to-despise-his-own-creation starts on how the cubicle farm went widespread with many copying it, which would then speak to something about interiors.

For this I would likely just write it off as some hotel firm that caters probably primarily to the rich old people market just wanted a little virtue signal in case one of their rich old people clientele (or prospective) achieved neuron activation on this front by some means. Though I would be highly amused to see this in turn result in some doing a re-enactment* of their favourite scene.

*unrelated but I doubt anybody will complain

 

[Marc_LFD]

Oh, it's about MWII, not MW2? Oh, who cares.

The airport part of MW2 was awesome.