Well, if you like to play games with your livelihood, that's your business.

But since you asked: my tolerance for what I perceive to be pointless risk is zero. I wouldn't use either without talking to lawyer.

You are overly cautious, besides im not from US but from europe, so im not sure how would some law apply for me, not to mention the fact that a lawyer in EU with knowledge of this for US market would be even more expensive.

BTW, i believe that FIO (Foreign Inteligence Organization?) would be more than sufficient.

Thanks.

On a little but different issue, i have read somewhere , that some church (or similiar physical building) have been included in some game, and they didnt have proper (or at all) the permission to do so, and the team that make this game faced some problem due to this. But i dont remember any name (the game, the company, the church), dont you know by accident what im talking about ? I would like to read more about it, but i do not know tha names, maybe someone here?

On a little but different issue, i have read somewhere , that some church (or similiar physical building) have been included in some game, and they didnt have proper (or at all) the permission to do so, and the team that make this game faced some problem due to this.

Works of art are copyrighted -> architecture is a form of art -> a building's architecture can be a work of art -> thus building architectures can be copyrighted.

If they weren't visibly interesting works of art, nobody would want to use them in a game.

If someone takes a picture of a building, the building architecture is copyrighted already, and the photograph is (automatically!) copyrighted by the photographer, so the photograph has two (or more) copyrights that need to be licensed before it can be used commercially (and yes, making a game public for free is still "commercial").

But i dont remember any name (the game, the company, the church), dont you know by accident what im talking about ? I would like to read more about it, but i do not know tha names, maybe someone here?

I don't know the names either, but it turns out that google does, and that "game developer sued by church" turns up what you are looking for as the very first hit.

The motive behind the (potential) lawsuit really wasn't about copyrights, but was about Sony (unintentionally) putting gunfights with assault weapons in a church that advocates against gun violence and holds yearly vigils against gun violence. The church tried to argue the building was copyrighted - and were even willing to allow Sony to display the exterior of the church, as long as they didn't have gunfights within the church. For a comparison, imagine your son was killed by gun violence, and now someone makes a movie mapping out your own house, and and has a gunfight take place in it. To some churchgoers, churches, which are private property, is almost like a second home in some ways. (If you go to that church multiple times every week, for years on end, to meet with people you have known for years, in a place where you feel safe and comfortable... potentially as a way to escape the terrors of losing a familiar member to gun violence in a city known for gun violence...)

Ultimately, it seems like no lawsuit was actually filed, and Sony apologized (they weren't putting gunfights in the church specifically because of it's gun stance, and likely were unaware of it's gun stance, but were most likely merely using it because it was a cool looking building). Whether or not the church would've actually won is unknown - the building was built hundreds of years ago, and thus is no longer in copyright (i.e. the exterior of the building would be in the "public domain"), but the church wasn't even concerned about the exterior, they were concerned with the interior, which has been updated numerous times over the years and may actually still be copyrighted.

besides im not from US but from europe, so im not sure how would some law apply for me,

Because the USA and Europe are both part of international copyright agreements.

not to mention the fact that a lawyer in EU with knowledge of this for US market would be even more expensive.

You can hire a USA lawyer living in the USA, and communicate via email...
Or you can hire a UK lawyer who specializes in copyright law in general.

You are overly cautious,

No, you're just not wanting to hear what you don't want to hear.

You might not get caught. But you are still doing something that, if you do get caught, can bite you.

It's like speeding on a highway - you might not get a speeding ticket, or you might get a speeding ticket. Whether you fined by the police or not, you still shouldn't have been speeding.

We're giving you the overly cautious response, because laws are overly complex. If you want to know in your very very specific case, whether a very very specific usage is acceptable, then you'd either need to do detailed research yourself (IGNORING what other drivers may have been speeding on the highway, and IGNORING what random people say on blogs. You have to do legal research by reading the actual laws), or else ask a lawyer who can do that research for you much faster and quicker and more thoroughly, by knowing where to look and what to look for and how to read the jargon.

Or you can design your own buildings, and design your own organizations. Your players' probably won't mind, and would probably applaud you for being creative, instead of using the same organizations that everyone else uses.

There are probably ways for you to use the buildings and logos and such that you want. You'll have to follow certain procedures. We don't know those procedures. A lawyer would know, or would know how to research them. Or you can research them.

If you want to use those buildings and logos and don't want to do real research, and don't want to hire a lawyer, then you are taking a risk. If you don't want to take a risk, and don't want to do real research, and don't want to pay for a lawyer, then you should to create your own stuff from scratch.

It's all about tradeoffs. The closer you want to make your work resemble someone else's, the more you are taking a risk. The closer you want to tiptoe up to legal technicalities, the more you need to pay a lawyer. The less research you want to do, the more you need to pay a lawyer.

You have to decide how much risk you are willing to take, how much lawyer-time you should pay for, how much research you need to do.

If we pretend the real world doesn't exist, and just do business mindlessly, it'd be like driving a sports car at 180 km/h down a highway with headphones in your ears blaring music, and not noticing the road police sitting by the side of the road watching.

You can't assume that just because [insert movie/game/TV show] used it, it's okay for you to use it. Maybe they just never were caught. Or maybe their lawyers walked them through a list of what they are and are not allowed to do. Or maybe they came to an agreement with [whoever owns whatever they used].

USA.gov/copyright
Usage of the FBI logo, the FBI name, and the FBI initials
(if you read these, be careful not to just accept the parts that agree with you, and ignore the parts you don't want to hear)

If copyright is too much a hassle or nuisance to bother with, just create your own ideas (federal agencies and building architectures) from scratch.

[I am not a lawyer. If you want better advice, you should to talk to one ]

ok guys thanks for replies, keep them comming, will read them tommorow :-).