For using his name from the game, cursing the brand by not accompanying him with the official shield.
Manchester United has decided to take legal action against Sports Interactive and SEGA, creators and publishers of Football Manager respectively, for using their name in-game extensively and without permission. The club argues that they have "infringed the use of our brand by not using our shield and simplifying it with a red and white logo." According to the club, what this does is deprive the owner of his rights to have the logo of the club licensed. "In response to the complaint, the developer company, which is preparing the arrival of the game at Game Pass, has already spoken about it.
"Using the club name is a legitimate reference for the Manchester United team in a soccer context," and they recall that it has been used since 1992 in Championship Manager "with no claims of any kind." The club believes the company is trying to "legitimize the competition" in the game with unlicensed participants, "and recall that Manchester United is one of the" most valuable and recognized brands in the world. "
They want to claim for user patches
From the club they consider that it is "disappointing" for users to find the name but not the official images, and although they understand that in the context of video games it is understood that the name refers to the club, they consider that it is a "quite debatable" argument. The club also wants to go against user mods, because it believes that companies "encourage them to do it in different ways, so they take advantage of it without having to pay any license and thereby increase sales of the game."
For their part, SEGA and SI have already said that "it is not reasonable to want to restrict the right to freedom of expression by preventing using words like Manchester United to refer to a team in a PC game." In addition, they emphasize that the game has been sent to many players of the club for years and there has been a positive response on social networks from them. "We will see how everything ends, but it can be an important sentence especially if it is pronounced on mods and patches, like those also used by PES 2020 for example.
Source | The Independent
