Well.. my thinking is that basically all games you can mod, in fact people have hacked Grand Theft Auto and many other games in ways that are not intended but not protected against. However a game company like Rockstar probably does all their modeling in-house to avoid dealing with IP laws.
A lawsuit against Microsoft by an aircraft manufacturer in their commercial game is plausible, but non-commercially should be a different story you would think.
The import open 3d format terminology and the or operator are definitely the biggest concerns. But I'm extremely puzzled as to why so many games can and are using TurboSquid materials. I've asked for clearification, but I'm basically leaning against using any 3d content from TurboSquid and going directly to the artist.
Also there is no doubt the texture is protected under IP laws just as much as the model. Like a certain person who held the IP rights for an aircraft Levi wanted to use noted on a thread somewhere, every polygon and every pixel is their intellectual property. If you re-texture the model, it is still theirs, if you make a model and use the texture, it is still theirs, if you modify both the texture and the model and they discover it, it is still theirs. The laws are very unforgiving if you have money for them to file suit for they will, like in the case of Microsoft. Usually if someone is infringing on someone else's IP but not making money from it, they will get a cease and desist letter, but if they are making money and/or have disclosed IP in a manner that it puts their product at risk or discloses it, they will file a serious law suit.
Like I said, I'm about at the point where it isn't worth the risk even if TurboSquid says "Go ahead", that is why acquiring assets directly from artists is the way to go.
I do think it would be possible to crowd-source funds to purchase a model from an artist, but the artist and product would have to lined-up ahead of time, and there would need to be significant interest in the aircraft in question before hand. We could easily run the fund raising campaign on Kickstarter. However we would be talking in terms of thousands of dollars for high end products, even with a non-exclusive license agreement. I don't think thousands of dollars is out of the question, but that is why I say significant interest.
Just to be honest with you guys, I am far more interested in the JSBSim flight model and functionality behind VTOL/STOVL. That is why "I am here" after all, is to pioneer functionality "for those to come". I really do want to get a model for the F-35, specifically so I can release a VTOL/STOVL aircraft for OT, but I am not sure when/if/how that will happen.
Regards,
Uriah