Hello all, I’m looking at developing a game that would feature representations of historic ocean liners, from ships like the Normandie, Queen Mary and others from the 1920s/30s up to the QE2. Does anyone have any advice about how to approach the IP issues here?

I think copyright ends (depending on the country) 70 or 80 years after the death of the creator. But Tom gave a very good advice imho: You need probably a lawyer. Second-best would be a book about game development law. But I don't know about one.

There are far more IP rights than just copyright. Copyright would protect some elements, but trademarks, trade dress, design rights, architectural rights, distinctive silhouette trademarks, and many more all can apply.

It is always best to build your own designs. If you feel you cannot make a game without including real-world elements rather than being creative, you also need real-world lawyers to figure out legal rights.

Thanks for the clarification. I thought architecture rights are copyright. And yes, trademarks might be active still. Never heard of trade dress.

Actually this problem is quite common. A car racing game with real world cars, similar applies to a train sim, or other genres, that all has the problem like with the ships.

Cheap solution would be to write to the ships' owners asking about applying law and perhaps permittance for free (as a form of advertizing).

Many people's knowledge of IP law is limited to the big three, copyright, trademark, and patent. There are many, many more rights. Most of them are fairly uniform under WIPO and international treaties but every nation has subtle variations.

Even when nations don't directly call out the rights as a specific element, such as the US implementation of "moral rights" getting encoded as a subsection of copyright, those rights still exist in the laws through international treaty.

That's why over the decades we repeat the refrain on the site: It's a creative industry, create your own stuff. If you must use something you didn't create yourself, talk to a lawyer to understand your legal responsibilities, and get permission where needed.