Batracer

Batracer is a free to play, or pay once for life to play, racing driver simulation.
The car graphics are merely for listing drivers and team standings
The car graphics are user created from archive photos and artwork and are generally in reverse of the true images they were derived from.

There are Formula 1 sets for 1986, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
all of which have Ferrari
There is LeMans which has many Ferraris
There is a Ferrari Challenge which strangely contains more Ferraris

Most other sets, and indeed there are many, do not contain any Ferrari.

As of yesterday, visiting www.batracer.com has displayed this message:



BATracer Unavailable Until Further Notice

BATracer is presently unavailable due to legal issues following receipt of a letter this morning (2nd November 2009) concerning user-submitted Ferrari content within BATracer. Efforts are being made to resolve this issue and to restore the site at the earliest opportunity following changes.

The ability to further upload user-submitted content for inclusion in the game has been disabled until further notice.

BATracer.com



Statement Concerning Infringement of Trademarks and Designs of
Ferrari S.p.A. "Ferrari" of Maranello

The inclusion of Ferrari material into BATracer was not authorised by Ferrari, and the activity of BATracer and user contributions was not in any way related to Ferrari.

All Ferrari content will be removed from the game, and all user-carset projects involving Ferrari content will also be removed.


Far be it for me to explain how free advertising of your product is an infingement of copyright, user images are not taken from Ferrari, they were created to resemble Ferrari.

You had several fans on this site willing to support the Ferrari duo of Massa and Alonso, now they won't.

Is bullying a minor gaming site like Batracer really what a multimillion dollar conglomerate like Ferrari needs to do?

I've been told they don't even own their image. Bernie Ecclestone does.
I don't see him suing Batracer for image copyright.

Why would Ferrari willingly attack its very own fanbase over a picture they see perhaps 10% of the time while playing?

I fail to see the logic of this rediculous attack by Ferrari, but I am a Bilingual Vulcan.

Batracer may run on say $2 million over 4 years, where as 10 cars sold at Ferrari probably equal that much, I'm sure it takes less than 4 years to sell them.

I doubt they even have that much, not all players have opted to pay for better control features, or sponsoring to get them. Most of the players actually pay nothing. So maybe $2 million is way beyond what they've actually taken in from paying players. That money pays for server rentals, maintenance, advertising, development and anything else a gaming site needs to spend money on. That amount of money is not a liquid pile of $ they put on display. It's spent most likely.

My $2 million figure is if 100,000 players bought the $20 one time only fee for better controls called Kool tools.

Do they have that many? I doubt it.

Can they possibly meet Ferrari's demands? I doubt it.

So why is Ferrari insistant on bullying the little guy?
Because that's all bullies do. They care nothing about anyone but themselves.

Many of their hard core fans have the same attitude.

I have not been a fan since Berger/Alesi years, I was planning to return next year with the Alonso/Massa lineup, now....probably not.

Support Batracer, and tell Ferrari to take a hike.