Illegal DLC?

[Bananarama]

What risk do we run here at RWA and other US centered boards that distribute complete models of current US prototype engines and repaints that use certain RSC shape files?

Likely none at all, and certainly none for a shape file. The only time I've ever seen a corporation go after the freeware market was over 10-years ago with the flight sim "airline logo" fiasco (and didn't amount to anything afterward). The railroads have their license in place, and they might ask that "please don't do this without authorization", but probably wouldn't spend the $$ of pursuing it further on a freebie. After all, what do they hope to get? They know this, and while they have deep pockets, their not known for throwing good money at a lost cause. Courts tend to favor the little guy. Payware folk on the other hand, are seen as equals in law to the bigger companies. Most licenses won't cost you a dime for freeware anyway, so go ahead and comply if it will let you sleep at night.

It's the payware and donationware developer that needs to be concerned. Apply for the license, pay your dues and stay out of trouble.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Oh, I am not afraid some US RR lawyer or hitman will come after me, it is more RSC I am worried about. Can them RR lawyers order a "cease and desist" and hence make RSC tighten its policy? Or force RSC out of business in case of a copyright breach? RSC is only a small fish with hardly any fat pockets, but still, there is also a principle when it comes to intellectual property rights.

Not that it will really help, the scene will just go underground, but things might get nasty and turn into a fight. A fight nobody will win and a fight that will certainly spoil our fun with this sim. Imagine DRM on a virtual train and phoning home to Uncle Pete every milepost? Or DHCP to prevent you from running this certain repaint in that other part of the country where the RR has no trackage rights, ridiculous!

[MontanaRails]

Hi Tom and Group,
The way I understand this, if I post a photo of A Great Northern boxcar, there is no harm no foul. I did nothing more than take a picture of something GN painted and now BNSF owns. If I make a model of a boxcar in either "V" scale or some other model railroad scale and paint it into Great Northern colors and use their logos, then BNSF can raise a fuss, because I used their logo without permission. It's all about quality control. This whole debate started a number of years ago between the Union Pacific and model railroad manufactures, which lead to the various licensing programs. Another example of railroads protecting their logo was the Chessie System requiring model manufactures to display the registered logo beside the Chessie broken dish logo (Cat in the circle logo). When you purchased a Athearn locomotive painted in the Chessie Paint scheme, you'd notice a little "R" near the Chessie logo. The circled "R" indicated the Chessie logo was a registered trade mark of the Chessie System railroad. After reading through the above information, my take is Face Book does not want to become involved in any copyright infringement lawsuits, so RSC is asking that you only post screen shots of what comes with the Simulator, because they already have the rights to use those logos. Just my and I'm not a lawyer so your mileage my vary

Regards,
Rich S.

This is how I take it as well - it seems obvious to me that RSC doesnt want logos they dont have a license to showing up on the header of their corporate facebook page. On top of facebook having a rule about this, I wonder if its possible RSC has had issues with user posted content on their facebook page causing confusion in the part of companies that currently dont have a relationship with RSC. To a rail company, it might not be readily apparent who is responsible for a repaint that they may see somewhere, but is tracked back to their facebook page. Something like this is probably is easily cleared up, but its unnecessary frustration. I know at least one small flightsim developer whos dealt with this issue due to the muddled world of facebook.

[Hawk]

I could be wrong but I think this topic is getting a little off-track. Might I suggest going back to the first post in this thread and clicking on the link for the topic at the UKTS forums? That might help to explain what this is all about, maybe.

[OldProf]

I haven't dealt with copyright issues since I retired from teaching and searching student's papers for plagiarism, but if memory serves a major litmus test in the process of evaluating possible copyright violation involves the issue of profit. If someone includes a copyrighted logo in a repaint of a railroad car or engine and then provides that repaint for download without expectation of profit, there is no violation of copyright. However, if that same re-painter offers the product as payware at a price that will result in profit, copyright infringement might be charged.

As it has always done, as any profit-seeking company or individual does, RSC (or, as I suggested in an earlier post, FaceBook) is simply engaging in a legally necessary CYA maneuver.

These are legal issues and thus require discussion in something approaching legal language -- a level that has not yet been reached in this discussion, by the way.

At the risk of unnecessarily complicating this business, there is another issue to consider. Posters to this and other forums sometimes complain about the fact that crashes are practically invisible in the simulator. Why? Because if a realistic train (i.e., one bearing authentic reproductions of logos and symbols) is shown crashing, the railroad whose equipment has thus been depicted could sue RSC for defamation of character, loss of reputation and revenue, and other matters. Believe me, none of us wants this to happen -- ever!

[Rich_S]

I could be wrong but I think this topic is getting a little off-track. Might I suggest going back to the first post in this thread and clicking on the link for the topic at the UKTS forums? That might help to explain what this is all about, maybe.

Hi Hawk,
Yes it does appear this thread has gotten side tracked a little from the question you linked to on the UKTS board. If you read a down a few threads the answer from the RailSimulator.Com Support Team worries me

Code: Select all


From: "RailWorks Support" <support@railsimulator.com>Add sender to ContactsTo: "brian yeomans" <0000000000000>Dear Brian.

Thank you for contacting the Railsimulator.com customer support.

Well the rules are like this, you can create routes etc using the world editor and the content provided with the game but it is not permitted to edit or re-use any content provided as separate downloadable content DLC, or any part of it. This rule applies whether or not the intention is to provide it free of charge, it is not permitted in either case.

Hopefully this will clarify things for you. so in answer to your question no alterations are permitted, if you distribute your textures and people use them they will be behaving illegally and more to the point so would you.
Please keep an eye on the Railworks 3: Train Simulator 2012 website: http://www.railsimulator.com or Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/railsimulator for all the latest news and details about upcoming releases.

Regards
Rail Simulator Support

If I'm reading the above correctly, that means all repaints for DLC content from RSC are illegal. If that's the case I'm done with Rail Works as they are not able to provide the content I wish to use and I don't have the ability or time to create the content and / or locomotive repaints I'd like to use in the game. Ed, have you heard anything from Paul yet?

Regards,
Rich S.

[Hawk]

Ed, have you heard anything from Paul yet?

Regards,
Rich S.

As I said back on page 1, in this post, no I haven't.

[Sly]

Hi Guys

My take is that some parties have been pushing and asking questions that would have been better kept off the radar, needless to say its not the answer most were expecting.

Why would RSC restrict customisation and re-distribution of their custom assets (DLC)? ........ for exactly the same reason as I restrict it.

Take route assets...... certainly for the UK there is a very good selection now available,
A developer spends a great deal of time researching and creating them, once the route is released and someone from the community decides to use a whole load of assets to create "my free route".......If that route is of good enough standard it will be in direct competition with the developers next payware route. moreso when certain individuals have reskinned and included all but the geo file in their own package and an installer to copy the geo across.

In the case of loco's it can cause many problems for devs, what happens if a re-skinner uses a loco list name that the dev wanted to use at a later date ? (already happened to me )
Or produces an horrendous skin ?
Addon sound packs, reskins etc can cause a multitude of problems, and the dev is expected to sort it out...... If you want to do those things then don't do half a job .... do everything else and make your own as we have to.

Recent trend has been for some devs to include a reskin/ variant as a sweetner in route packs etc, this is good for the customer as they get prototypical stock included in the pack.
Not forgetting that the vast majority of users do not download stock from community sites.

Then there is the posibilty that someone could do a better job of a reskin than the Dev.... perfectly possible and I have seen some excellent work, but I'm afraid its not all your own work you will still use shadow / occlusion detail that is the work of the creator.

RSC have given users the sandbox that is RW, and generally you have a free hand with the default stuff....... now you have asked, it appears there is a reluctance to give you Cart Blanche with the DLC assets.
By and large the community has only tinkered under the hood which is essentially configuration not creation. I certainly would not want anyones tinkering to get in the way of my plans for my stock.

My bet is the future will be locked down Xbox style, a comprehensive asset set incuded as default and a limited sandbox for personal use only......... Yep that will affect 3rd party payware devs too .
But it will work first time everytime.

See what tomorrow brings

Sly

[krellnut]

So Sly, I like making sound packs, working on one right now for the SD70 and ES44. I'm I doing anything wrong, yes or no. Thanking you ahead for your response.

[Sly]

Hi
From my own personal point of view as a dev, and presuming that both items are DLC

If they are for your own use no problem, if you want to distribute them for free then I would not allow it without approval. (most unlikely). Payware a definate no no

Nothing but negatives for developers, I understand that you get enjoyment out of producing soundpacks, but if you enjoy it that much why not submit your work to devs ?
you may even get paid for commission work with full credit,

Wonder why it is that no one produces extra soundpacks for freeware loco's ?

Sly

[eyein12]

Hi
From my own personal point of view as a dev, and presuming that both items are DLC

If they are for your own use no problem, if you want to distribute them for free then I would not allow it without approval. (most unlikely). Payware a definate no no

Nothing but negatives for developers, I understand that you get enjoyment out of producing soundpacks, but if you enjoy it that much why not submit your work to devs ?
you may even get paid for commission work with full credit,

Wonder why it is that no one produces extra soundpacks for freeware loco's ?

Sly

well giving the sound packs to RSC devs seems to suck the fun right out of the concept of making them in the first place. not everyone on here is trying to earn money making content, nor intentions of making everyone else pay for what I'm sure was to be a freeware addon, It certainly seems thats where we're headed now that the freeware lifeline will get cut completely if this continues.


"Wonder why it is that no one produces extra soundpacks for freeware loco's ?"

there's an EMD 710G engine sound pack available, as well as GEVO sound upgrade pack here.

[jpetersjr]

I wonder if they could ever say it's illegal to make freeware assets, such as buildings if the assets come out to be better detailed then some of the payware items.

[buzz456]

Just more people that want to control things for no particular reason. There will always be a way.

They obviously don't understand that the more creative things there are out there the more people will be drawn to their product. Good marketing minds are hard to come by.

Buzz

[PapaXpress]

Lets remember that over at UKTS they are still waiting for an answer. Personally I want to hear it from the CEO, and I want it posted on the front page of their web site (not facebook).

[buzz456]

Lets remember that over at UKTS they are still waiting for an answer. Personally I want to hear it from the CEO, and I want it posted on the front page of their web site (not facebook).

Good thoughts.