Paper pictures failed hostage rescue with Call of Duty shot

I think Activision might be interested

Can you just splurge Soap McTavish in your paper without asking them as it's not an article about the game, they're using it as clipart?

It's also kind of tasteless, too, something trivialising about connecting it with a game.

Could be an excellent way for TV companies to get round not owning the rights to show F1 races, football matches etc. Simply replicate the event using state-of-the-art computer graphics and who'll know the difference?

Mixed feelings

It's an illustration, like the other graphics -- so big deal. But why black out his eyes? This is definitely misleading and probably the only thing they actually did wrong, to my mind. Assuming they licensed use of the image.

And (slightly off point) why waste so much precious column-inch space with a full height picture of a fictional character? At least the mock-up of the scene adds (some) value to the story, he's just a big fat waste of space.

Seems OK

It is clearly meant to be an illustration. Whether it came from a game or from an artist's own mind isn't really a problem to me. As long as the game association is unstated then the seriousness of the article isn't diminished.

Interesting to note, looking at the referenced blog which said it "seems a little frivolous for a story of this gravity", that the blogger (Will Sturgeon) was happy further down to find amusement in the juxtaposition of a photograph of three Royals and a headline about a really nasty case of child murder.

Possibly outsourcing gone wrong - someone asked for a "graphic" to represent a UK SAS soldier and didn't check what they got handed back. Then again they could have shoehorned Soap in in the hopes that their story would become a story itself and lead to the paper being discussed.

Like what is happening now. I agree that mixing a fictional character in trivialises a real human tragedy, but I don't think we'll ever know if it was an Editorial whoopsie (understandable) or a cynical marketing trick (pretty low.)

Pshh

That's nothing. There's a certain well-known tech publication that regularly mocks-up real-life events using Playmobil, of all things.

Nit Picking

I think people need to get a grip on critcism on what people use for artistic illustration, be more focused upon the details of the event as any graphic images from the incident could well be 'suppressed' by a court order prohibiting their release, who knows?

Trying to poke a hole in the 'copyright' laws over the use of the character, you'd find because El Reg posted it, they should honour trademark names too (if you wish to get picky), let activision deal with it, if they wish... do you work for them? no, well let them handle it, it's what they're paid to do!

I despise anyone that nitpicks anyone elses work if its not for a worthy cause.

Deceiving

If the original clip art was used as is to illustrate a video game then no problem.

If the original clip art was used in an article about violence and video games then no problem.

If the original clip art was used to provide a picture to a story about war then no problem.

If the original clip art was used in a story about some situation using commandos then no problem.

The problem comes from blacking out the eyes. This makes it look like the clip art is a real figure otherwise there would be no point anonymising a virtual character. Also they are making it look like British soldiers look like American commandos.

To be a valid use of the clip art the newspaper must be clear about its use. As it is they are deceiving the readers and newspapers must not do that ever. But then The Times is pretty much like the Guardian these days so on that basis the newspaper is perfectly entitled to do whatever it wants with the clip art to sex up a story which their journalists can't write properly.

"sour point"?

I do believe Mr Cox means "sore point".

A "sour point" would be putting lemon juice on your cox - although this might equally qualify as a "sore point" too...