UFO:Alien Invasion
Technical support => Feature Requests => Topic started by: Richard Drysdall on February 05, 2008, 01:51:31 pm
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Hi all.
I noticed that UFO:AI uses the "Red Cross" symbol on some of it's textures (e.g. interior of the drop-ship). This is discouraged by the Red Cross, as it is technically a trademark and has statutory protection. If you Google ""Red Cross" video games" you'll find plenty of articles.
(note - I'm not connected with the Red Cross, nor am I advocating or disagreeing with the Red Cross position on this - I'm just reporting it as something that may require changing).
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Noted, but is there any other symbol that spells out "medical"? Maybe a stylized syringe?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_cross#Red_Crystal
I've seen Red Crystal being used in some game instead of Red Cross.
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Noted, but is there any other symbol that spells out "medical"? Maybe a stylized syringe?
I've seen a green-cross used in several games. The proportions, circular white backdrop etc is the same.
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I've seen a green-cross used in several games. The proportions, circular white backdrop etc is the same.
Any cross as long as it's not red on white background it's allowed. Most companies use the green on white (or the reverse) for first-aid kits.
The Canadian and American Red Cross societies have been educating various gaming companies on the legality of the symbol usage, in order to prevent legal battles later on. They've recognized that educating is better than threatening. Games that use it in a historical sense (like WWII games) can use it, as long as it's in context (like on evac transports or something). But stuff like on medkits in other games is generally not allowed.
From the Cdn Red Cross Society:No organization -- except the Canadian Red Cross and the medical corps of the armed forces during times of armed conflict -- may use the Red Cross emblem in Canada. This use is legislated by the Geneva Conventions Act, the Trade Marks Act and the Canadian Red Cross Society Act.
http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=016717&tid=001 (Emblem use FAQ)
Best to nip this in the bud, since it's still in development.
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Hmm... legalese...
In former Soviet Union the emblem of "Red Cross on white background" was (and still is) widely used. 150+ millions of people easily recognize "RC on WB" as "something healthcare/medical related", but these people may have difficulties in recognizing the "red diamond" or "green cross".
I don't know if onboard medikits in European or American cars are marked with something other than "RC on WB", but here, in Russia and most of ex-SU these medikits are clearly marked with "RC on WB" - even illiterate person could understand.
BTW, how about "snake and shaft" or "snake and cup" emblems? The first, as I heard, is the sign of US "medicina militaris", and the latter is the emblem of Soviet/Russian military medics.
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BTW, how about "snake and shaft" or "snake and cup" emblems? The first, as I heard, is the sign of US "medicina militaris", and the latter is the emblem of Soviet/Russian military medics.
You mean the caduceus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus)?
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You mean the caduceus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus)?
Nope, it's something more like this:
http://www.intellectspb.ru/kniga4/i/i17.gif
And here's a military medic badge:
http://www.victory.mil.ru/form/insignia/01/54.html
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You mean the caduceus?
Exactly! Also: Bowl of Hygieia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowl_of_Hygieia) (snake and cup).
Soviet medical corpse emblem is #6 on the picture:
(http://army.armor.kiev.ua/forma/embl55-3.gif)
(#7 is a military veterinary emblem)
(modern emblems are similar to Soviet ones, but I dislike them)
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Nope, it's something more like this:
Agree, you could just surround the links with the "img" tags to display these small pictures right inside a message
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Your little snake-n-cup looks like it was carefully arraigned to have a silhouette very like the hammer&sickle.
Purposeful or not it would be very confusing for a Westerner to see what seems to be Communist insignia on medical stuff.
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Your little snake-n-cup looks like it was carefully arraigned to have a silhouette very like the hammer&sickle.
;D Never thought about such similarity. But how about lesser politicized Bowl of Hygieia?
Or we should give up and still use "RC on WB", or, may be "Red Cross and Red Crescent" combined emblem to mark medicine related spots and equipment.
I see no reason for RC&RC organization to object such usage.
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;D Never thought about such similarity. But how about lesser politicized Bowl of Hygieia?
I doubt that any version of the bowl will communicate "first aid" or "medicine" to much of the audience.
Or we should give up and still use "RC on WB", or, may be "Red Cross and Red Crescent" combined emblem to mark medicine related spots and equipment.
I see no reason for RC&RC organization to object such usage.
Since this is about 80 years into the future, i think it would work best to make up something, which however is understandable to most players. I really don't think any of the other symbols have nearly the international recognition that some sort of red on white cross does.
Thus i'd propose something reminiscent of the familiar red cross without infringing, like perhaps on the these examples.
A quick google search:
Red Cross 9,380,000 hits
Red Crescent: 380,000 hits
Red Cross & Red Crescent: 171,000
[attachment deleted by admin]
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img
The trick is to find something that LOOKS like the RC symbol, so it's recognizable as a concept, but isn't, and yet can be scaled down to the tiny textures we have on medkits.
The red circle bkgd with white cross works, because it's clearly not the Swiss symbol if it's present on medkits, yet it's also not infringing on the RC either.
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The trick is to find something that LOOKS like the RC symbol, so it's recognizable as a concept, but isn't, and yet can be scaled down to the tiny textures we have on medkits.
The red circle bkgd with white cross works, because it's clearly not the Swiss symbol if it's present on medkits, yet it's also not infringing on the RC either.
Yeah.
Here's one a little less Swiss, a little more polished.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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eleazar's work inspirations
"medicina militaris" is in scalable wmf format
"cross1" in png with transparent corners
drawn in OpenOffice Draw, released as Public Domain, usage is unrestricted
[attachment deleted by admin]
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I like eleazar's version quite a lot.
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I think the diamond symbol is the best because it doesn't relate to any religious symbol, such as the cross, crescent, star of david, etc. It's very easy to distinguish and it's aproved by the Geneva convention. The diamond also unifies the red cross organizations regardless of faith.. so it's a good idea for an unified world.
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The diamond also unifies the red cross organizations regardless of faith.. so it's a good idea for an unified world.
OK, OK! But how many people knows about it?
This forum was the place where I got to know about the RD.
I think, the special note should be made in UFOpaedia under the picture of medikit, short explanation, why does it have RD symbol instead of red cross/crescent. That note should not tell about any legalese things, but exactly about the world united.
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No, I think it's best to use a symbol that needs no explanation. The Red Diamond does, so it's not a good symbol in my opinion.
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At the moment medics have a red diamond symbol in the hire screen... so it's quite obvious. For a muslim or jew, the red cross doesn't mean anything or implies something related to Christianity (even if it's a Swiss symbol), because they are used with crescent or star of david... so you can't please anyone, but with the red diamond you can.. and it's more likely that the red diamond will be adopted by all sanitary organizations because of the neutrality of the symbol.
Anyway tbh, this issue is of very little importance for a computer game. You aren't using Microsoft's logo, or something like that. :)
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At the moment medics have a red diamond symbol in the hire screen... so it's quite obvious.
Well, now the same "white cross" is used in all instances, so it's really obvious.
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At the moment medics have a red diamond symbol in the hire screen... so it's quite obvious.
Hmm... you're right. I recall that I was wondering "why the doctors hire screen marked with diamond, not with red cross". I thought that is a specific emblem for X-Com's medic corpse, not the official RC&RC org's logo.
But there we ran into dilemma: either take the RD without any explanations (and "recruit" more misunderstanders, who will think about RD as about "X-Com medicorpse emblem"), either make the corresponding note in UFOpaedia in the "Medikit" entry.
As all of participants could see, my English is imperfect, then I'll try, but results may be worster than I intended them to be.
The United World still had have religious differences between different cultures. And the Medic Corpses of international organizations' armed forces, like UN peacemakers or X-Com, adopted the very neutral symbol of Red Crystal as an emblem of theirs. That symbol was approved on Geneva conference at December 7, 2005. Details are available in United Earth's WIKIpaedia.
Because of international nature of X-Com, I'll suggest to adopt the second rule of Red Crystal usage:
For indicative use on foreign territory, a national society which does not use one of the recognized symbols as its emblem has to incorporate its unique symbol into the Red Crystal, based on the previously mentioned condition about communicating its unique symbol to the state parties of the Geneva Conventions.
So, the official X-Com MC's emblem MAY look like "Red Crystal with embedded X-Com logo".
The artwork based on pics/ranks/rank-1.jpg
[attachment deleted by admin]
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Red on green background looks awful, really.
And I don't see why the sign has to be obvious to a noninitiate player, because after a few minutes in the hire screen or ufopedia, the player will know what's that symbol about. The military rank symbols are much more cryptic than the red diamond, and I would like to address that too...
Ranks should be simple, using stars and stripes, or dots, and maybe silver/gold color to separate enlisted from the officers. Besides, something like NATO standards should be used in naming the ranks... rifleman sounds odd, not all are wearing a rifle. I think private or cadet would be much better.
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The military rank symbols are much more cryptic than the red diamond, and I would like to address that too...
Ranks should be simple, using stars and stripes, or dots, and maybe silver/gold color to separate enlisted from the officers.
Glancing through the ranks graphics, they didn't make much sense to me. But i'm not a hard-core military buff, and haven't thought of an alternative.
If you want to make a new thread, and come up with an agreeable concept, i can make it pretty.
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This is still PHALANX, though, not the army. It would be nice if the PHALANX logo were part of the rank graphics, in some way or other.
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An other thought regarding the red cross symbol - it has to be on white, to be distinct from the other colors worn by combat troops, like green/blue and so on.. so the green background isn't a good choice.
What is the PHALANX logo? (sorry if it's a silly question)
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See http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=2231.msg13340#msg13340
Eleazar hinted at a possible redesign of the logo, so let's see what happens to that.
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I can help with logos and flags
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..., to be distinct from the other colors worn by combat troops, like green/blue and so on...
The combat troops don't wear any insignia, and medical personal don't go on the battle field.
However if there were a practical way to put insignia on the troops (perhaps on the shoulders)
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The combat troops don't wear any insignia, and medical personal don't go on the battle field.
However if there were a practical way to put insignia on the troops (perhaps on the shoulders)
This argument isn't based on what happens in the game - I explained why the red cross has a white background. In real warfare, it's quite hard to tell which insignia is which from afar. That's why the red cross' tents are white, and that's why the field medics wear a white helmet and white markings on their military uniform (if any).
If you were a neutral medical organization, going in the battlefield, you wouldn't want that your flag and symbol to be confused with a combatant one.
I vote for the red diamond.
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I vote for the red diamond.
Unfortunately, I believe the Red Diamond (aka Crystal) is an equally protected symbol. It was adopted in 2005 so the Israelis would have a symbol they could use in Palestine (because the "Red Shield of David" was not an officially recognized symbol, and therefore didn't offer the protections of the Geneva Conventions...)
Perhaps I'll try getting in touch with the Canadian Red Cross, and see if they have any ideas. They must have gotten "well then what DO we use" questions about this...
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Perhaps I'll try getting in touch with the Canadian Red Cross, and see if they have any ideas. They must have gotten "well then what DO we use" questions about this...
You can if you wish, but in spite of the continuing discussion, it's not a problem.
i made something up that works (http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=2204.msg13206#msg13206) but doesn't infringe, and have already replaced the files in trunk. (unless i missed one.)
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A discussion like this was recently had at another SF art site. The eventual conclusion was: Most ambulances in North America and in many other countries use the "Star of Life" which is basically a star made out of three crossed bars with the "staff and snake" overlaid. Most commonly blue, it does appear in other colours as well (maroon was mentioned). You can just barely see it on the side of the ambulance in this picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ambulancebroomfieldhospital.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ambulancebroomfieldhospital.jpg)
Brett
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I'm pretty sure that the symbol of the red cross has transcended into more than just a corporate logo, and is recognized as a symbol for medic items. I don't think this is a bad thing, nor that they want or can do much about it.
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Aye, it's strange they're so concerned about the usage of their icon as one for life saving medical items, (It's not like it's some kind of bad PR having their symbol being associated with life saving medical supplies) one would think the Red Cross would have higher priorities on their agenda then this petty legal mumbo jumbo.
I do like the new symbol suggestion though with the red and white reversed, still conveys the same message as the original and looks just as good.
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I'm pretty sure that the symbol of the red cross has transcended into more than just a corporate logo, and is recognized as a symbol for medic items. I don't think this is a bad thing, nor that they want or can do much about it.
It's not a corporate logo though. It's legally equivalent to a country's flag, in international law anyway. There are individual not-for-profit "companies" allowed to be set up in each country, but they are heavily restricted in their charters.
Aye, it's strange they're so concerned about the usage of their icon as one for life saving medical items, (It's not like it's some kind of bad PR having their symbol being associated with life saving medical supplies) one would think the Red Cross would have higher priorities on their agenda then this petty legal mumbo jumbo.
I think part of the problem was that the symbol was being used by "for-profit" groups (like first-aid kit manufacturers). So they decided to politely remind people that the Geneva convention says that it can only be used either on military medical gear, or on free hospitals (so I imagine most US ones wouldn't qualify...).
As for why they bother... it's not like a patent. If you don't defend a trademark, you lose it. Granted this is kind of different in that the original trademark was set out by international law, not a trademark registry, but the principle is the same. If they don't go after people, it sets a legal precedent, so they'll have a harder time fighting someone who's abusing the symbol.
I don't believe they've sued anyone to date, because every company who's gotten a letter (that I know of) has adjusted their symbols to comply...
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This is the symbol he's talking about
(http://www.free-quilt-patterns.net/2007/star_of_life.gif)
and I think this would work well as well