The early footage from Modern Warfare 2 showing the city of Amsterdam was incredible, as the level of realism was great. But one of the hotels, called Conservatorium (in-game name is Breenbergh), seem to be literally the same building and is home to many gunfights. According to the Dutch media, the hotel is considering legal action against Activision Blizzard.
The reason is that “the hotel does not support any sort of violence, and they do not want to appear in such a scene”. They are currently considering their options, including legal action. As much as this sounds crazy, architecture is known to be copyrightable under European and American laws.
In the past, American law did not see any issues with previous similar lawsuits for depictions of real world, most notably they allowed the use of HMMV military vehicle, but European law is not that clear for now. And it is not a military vehicle this time, to be precise.
This lawsuit, if it happens, will not be the first, and probably not the last either.
