After being rammed by the Nishin Maru... I'm surprised one/both of the Captains involved didn't face some sort of legal repercussions over that incident. However, I suspect that too much talk about specific incidents will get the thread locked...
there will no sea sheperd ships in sse if v-step does not make a deal with sea shepherd because of the copyrights. you can't use a ship that is not yours.
Sea Shepherd does not own the copyright on a fifty year old ship they bought second hand. The issue would be with trademark infringement not copyright, and the "fair use" of trademarks is much broader than the fair use of copyrights. As long as VSTEP accurately portrays the trademark owners and does not attempt to confuse the consumer regarding who owns the trademark, they are (should be) covererd by fair use. For example, I can't market a cell phone and call it an iPhone because Apple owns the iPhone trademark, and that would be an obvious attempt to confuse consumers. But if I wanted to write a novel or game where the main character uses an Apple iPhone there is not a thing Apple could do to stop me... as long as I correctly portrayed it as an Apple iPhone. Any lawsuit Apple wanted to file would be for libel or slander, not trademark infringement.
Consider FSX; there are multiple aircraft models for sale from third parties and it seems unlikely that all those companies obtained licenses from every aircraft manufacturer. But, the aircraft are modelled as accurately as possible and no attempt is made to confuse the consumer over who owns the trademark. It is also possible to download "skins" for various aircraft, so if I want to fly an Air Canada Airbus 320 or a Luthansa Boeing 747 I can likely do so. If the aim of FSX was to fly Air Canada Airbus 320s into skyscrapers I'm sure the lawyers at Air Canada and Airbus would take exception; because that does not accurately portray the use of their products.
Having said all that, the easiest thing for VSTEP to do is avoid all the lawyer nonsense and not even go there.
SS's tactics were considered far too unseamanlike to be suitable for Ship Simulator.
SS's tactics aside, what is
"too unseamanlike to be suitable"? Is manuevering that close suitable in rescue missions? Or supply-transfer missions? Can I make a "Police raid on Drug Smuggler" mission?
VSTEP's stance should be "we model what ships do". Nothing more, nothing less.