errrrr, did I say they were?  How about someone recreates your house and makes a game about abusing little kids inside it?

It has nothing to do with a copyright and everything to do with respecting private property.  Obviously Sony asked them if they could use the church and based on this lawsuit the church obviously said no.  So why didn't Sony just use a pretend church?

 Okay, let me present another example.  What if I am writing a book and I have a few chapters to take place in the Empire State Building.  In establishing the setting, I describe the lobby in exact detail.  Can I be sued?

Read ANY of my messages in this thread. NONE have been negative to Sony. All I have done is point out that there could possibly be legal merit for the case. Go ahead and show me something that I have said that deserves banning. 

Taking photos of the exterior of a building is legal, because you are doing so from public domain, the street. Doing so from the interior of a building is different, because it is private property. Many paparazzi have been sued because they have taken photographs on private property without permission.

If you made detailed plans of the layout, I think it might be possible.

For example, say I'm a home builder. I just made this house where people just love the layout. A  writer comes by and draws plans of the layout and publishes it and makes a lot of money. Do you think I should be able to sue the writer?

Good point, Ssj, but this isn't what I understand the developers did. My understanding -- correct me if I'm wrong -- is that they went inside the Church, took pictures of it, then recreated it in the game. Again, If I'm wrong, please correct me.

And  Gballzack: no, the church is not public domain. It can't be. It's owned by the Church of England. Separation of Church and State is applicable there too :p 

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If the plans are detailed enough, you absolutely can. 

I don't think they have a case. Even if they took pictures to recreate the graphics later. Even if it looks 99.9% perfect, it is still just a likeness. Just like how South Park can use Paris Hilton or Tom Cruise. Now they wouldn't be allowed to recreate any logos belonging to the church, but they can replace them with something pretty easily.
I don't believe that there is any precedent for a lawsuit. Perhaps in movies? We are talking about a recreation not based around a corporate brand.

Well, I know for sure Hannibal Lecter has killed a lot of people in his books in a lot of very real places. For example, in the novel "Hannibal", he gutted and hung a crooked cop off the Palazzo della Signoria.  Nothing anyone could do about that.

I've been doing a bit of digging on this issue, and I've discovered that cartoons that depict real places are basically never prosecuted, while most movies (with real footage) can be and have been prosecuted.

What this suggests -- from a laymen's perspective -- is that level of detail is important. If you just make some vague depiction of the interior that really looks very little like the actual, then you're in the clear. If it's a literal moving film of the inside, then you can get in trouble. What about something in between, like Resistance? It's not literally a real depiction, but it's precise, accurate, and deliberately as close to the real as possible. I'm not sure if that's legal or not, but it doesn't sound like the church is making an absurd claim here. They may lose, but it doesn't look like they should get laughed out of court or anything. This is right on the cusp of legality. 

Again, disclaimer: this is just 30 minutes of research and logic. I'm not an expert.