The new EULA and commercial add-ons

[alanch]

I asked the following on the RSC Facebook page, and would be interested in how else clause 9.2 (i) could be interpreted.

'Does the new EULA mean that from now on only RSC will be able to create and sell add-ons for TS2013 - paragraph 9.2 (i) appears to prohibit anyone else from 'commercial gain'.

9. USER-GENERATED CONTENT
Please read this section carefully before creating or making available any user generated content for the Software:

9.2 Any UGC which you create or make available to other users (even if the UGC you make available was not created by you) must agree to and comply with the following terms and conditions to the fullest extent you are legally able:

(i) The UGC must be designed and used for personal use and not for any business purpose or for any commercial gain;'

After not getting a reply on Facebook, I emailed the same question to RSC support. I then had a reply linking me to a May Facebook posting which referred to editing RSC content. I emailed again pointing out that I was asking about third party original content, and I immediately received this reply:

Alan,

I have spoken to one of our board members, who has come back with this:

Thanks for letting us know your concerns about the TS2013 EULA. We updated this in TS2013 in the hope of making it clearer than the old TS2012 version. The clause in question is trying to protect assets owned by RailSimulator.com from being repurposed and sold on without our consent. We will discuss this clause with our legal advisors and see if we can make this cause clearer in an updated version of the EULA.

I hope this answers your query.

Regards

RailSimulator.com Support

From this, it looks like they are not trying to shut down third party commercial operations - however, the damage has already been done in the US with SMMDigital withdrawing from producing add-ons for TS2013, and others talking about doing it.

[bpetit]

That's just dumb but I can see why 3rd party developers could get discouraged from that.

[PapaXpress]

To be clear it was more than just Section 9 that made SMM leave. Every time there was an update his route would break. This generated too many nasty emails directed at him. Then there is the matter that he intended the NSAND to be a free addon route for people that just owned the core assets (SanBar, Kuju US/UK). This has changed and now new users (not us old TS12ers) will need to pay for those assets in addition to the new core. And yes Section 9 was on his mind. Even in this morning correspondence he cautioned me about how RSC might take to me posting his tutorials because of Section 9.

Some people just want to have fun and share their hobby. SMM was one of those guys. RSC and the griefers took the fun away, so why share?

[bpetit]

Papa, maybe we should have a secret organization for modelers. I don't think RSC will see any harm in those tutorials if you post them. Papa, could you also tell Jerry something for me.

[jpetersjr]

I don't see where posting the tutorials will have anything to do with section 9, since it explains about protecting their assets from being used and sold as payware, that would be like taking someone's freeware engine and selling it as payware, deals with copyright.

Plainly I don't see where in section 9 where posting a user made tutorial would have anything to do with RSC assets or selling an item, so I think it should be safe enough to post it.

Unfortunately this also means that no one can make payware routes anymore and use any of RSC assets, such as what used to be default, and that also means one can't make a freeware route with the option to leave a donation and use anything in it such as default trees, default roads and even as far down as to the route textures, so that means I'll be scrapping my plans for the Red River 1936 route I had started on. It was to be freeware with the option to leave a donation.

[PapaXpress]

I don't see where posting the tutorials will have anything to do with section 9, since it explains about protecting their assets from being used and sold as payware, that would be like taking someone's freeware engine and selling it as payware, deals with copyright.

I think philmoberg said it best, and I will quote part of it:

For me, at least, the broader concern is the frequent changes in the EULA. There is nothing more effective at shutting down investment in any business than knowing that the rules of the game are not stable over the long term. I'm no lawyer, to be sure, but the trajectory of certain changes in the EULA, combined with some of the creative interpretation I've seen in in the courts, and particularly in administrative law (where the rules of the game are much different, at least in U.S. practice) leave me with some reluctance to dust off some of my old projects and complete them as RW4 models.

Its the creative interpretation that I am worried about. I see this happening a lot with the current patent trolls here in the US.

Plainly I don't see where in section 9 where posting a user made tutorial would have anything to do with RSC assets or selling an item, so I think it should be safe enough to post it.

I will determin that. SMM handed his rights of that work to me.

Unfortunately this also means that no one can make payware routes anymore and use any of RSC assets, such as what used to be default, and that also means one can't make a freeware route with the option to leave a donation and use anything in it such as default trees, default roads and even as far down as to the route textures, so that means I'll be scrapping my plans for the Red River 1936 route I had started on. It was to be freeware with the option to leave a donation.

YES! This is exactly it! This is why I end up not releasing NSAND. This was what SMM wanted, a freeware addon to the core.

[hermit9153]

I wouldn't worry too much about this EULA, it's not worth the virtual paper it is written on!
Here's why; I'll be the first to acknowledge that in many areas the European Union doesn't work as it should. If there is one area where it does work however, it's legislation. In recent years that legislation has been concentrating on individual rights/consumer/end-user protection. I know, since in one of my side-kicks I have to deal with those issues on a regular basis. We all remember how Microsoft got their butts reamed in Europe when they tried to monopolize IE. If RSC as much as would even try to lay their hands on third party intellectual property (as in freeware and payware for RW by others that we all know) they'll get clubbered like you wouldn't believe. As long as we do not actually tinker with their intellectual property; i.e. the core, models, etc. we can do as pleases us. They do not have exclusive rights to the software they use to produce the core code, the models, scripts and so on. Therefore they cannot block us out in that department. They can make it hard on us, but not impossible! In terms of repaints: TgPCDX is based on DXT compression and that is not their invention. Hence they cannot keep a third party from reskinning! Gmax, 3DSMax, Blender, Sketchup, none of those are their inventions either, so they cannot keep anybody from producing add-ons (I stress add-ons) for RW. And so on and so forth...
Mind you, there would be ways for RSC to block us out completely, but that would mean starting from scratch with just about everything. I have a hard time in assuming that they would be able to finance that!
Over on the UK Trainsim forums somebody suggested that this whole EULA thing has been copied/pasted together by one of the graphic artists in his spare time. Well I hope so for them because if they actually paid for legal advise to put this together, sheesh did they waste their money.
Again, don't worry! It's all a lot of apparently fully fledged legal mumbo-jumbo to scare the ignorant away. If they would enforce any of those disputed clauses the European Court in Strasburg will turn them into minced meat. However, again I need to emphasize that nobody should try to play around with RSC truly intellectual property: the core and the shape files of the stock models (locos, rail cars, trees and what have you). That would be piracy and the only valid reason for legal action and (maybe) blackmailing on Steam. If the latter action would be legal and I dare to doubt that.

If RSC would be stupid enough to try and block user contributions all together to get the full handle on the financial side, RW will end up like Microsoft Flight...., dead. The concept of having to buy every single, however tiny add-on for Flight exclusively from Microsoft slammed the door shut right in their faces. On the other hand, FSX although abandoned by MS is truly alive and kicking. Plenty of developers ride on the back of the Simconnect applet and FSUIPC to impose their will on FSX (those who have FSX will know about Ultimate Traffic 2 and PMDG add-ons). I think we should investigate the possibility of 'injecting' our designs (like better physics) into RW like is being done in FSX and override the defficiencies of RW.

Leaving the whoel EULA issue for wat it is, so far I like RW2013. Better graphics, better FPS, plenty of opportunities for add-on development with for the average simmer not too many limitations. My hat off to the guys at RSC that do all the actual hard work, Derek being the most visible of them!

[Hawk]

and (maybe) blackmailing on Steam.

I think you mean blackballing.

[hermit9153]

and (maybe) blackmailing on Steam.

I think you mean blackballing.

Blacklisting actually, I guess I'm not very good at writing an email to a ball breaking relative and a post on this excellent forum at the same time

[PapaXpress]

Now Eyen is continplating it...
http://eyein12.blogspot.com/2012/09/all ... ended.html

[Merlin75]

RSC need to clear things up and prehaps word this EULA abit better as it is scareing people off as it stands. If eyein go's then it'll be another big blow to the US side of railworks.

[Hawk]

I think everyone just needs to take a week off x.x

You just don't get it, do you? The new EULA is really complicating things for developers, but you don't seem to care about that.
Maybe you should take a week off.

[hermit9153]

Further to my earlier post on the issue I need to reiterate that the relevant clauses are not legal!
I will search the official EU documents online and list them here in the next few days.
If RSC does not modify the UELA as it now stands, they actually openly state a) that they are premetidating theft of intellectual property, b) that they intend to go against EU Directive 2001/84/EC that the person holding title to the intellectual property SHALL be paid for the use and/or sale of his 'brain child'. The intellectual property INCLUDES artwork, sculptures and so on, ALSO in electronic form. In our specific case that clearly includes UGC be they reskins, content like locos, railcars, etc. Even if the creator intended the UGC to be freeware, the moment RSC uses it it any way for ANY commercial scope (that would include reverse engineer it to improve their own product, marlketing and publicity) the creator is entitled to a payment and can pretend royalties. Should the UK legislator not honor these laws, the UK can be brought before the EU court of law even by private citizens residing in the EU (they do not necessarily have to hold an EU member country citizenship).
The fact that RSC makes tools available within their 'software' that enable the creation of UGC legally means that the end-user is entitled to use them. If therefore I, as a user, employ these tools to 'import' a UGC into the 'software', whether freeware or payware, I am not breaching the EULA in terms of own personal use.
We all know that the software to create content for RW is available on the market, either as open source freeware or as payware. Blender, Gmax, GIMP, piant.net are examples of freeware, 3DSMax, Photoshop or PSP are payware. Anybody is free to create .bin files, everybody has free access to LUA for scripting and so on,. There is absolutely nothing within the RSC 'software' needed for the creation of UGC that is exclusive to RSC.
As to using RSC content to make UGC, who actually does? When one creates UGC that needs RSC stock content to be meaningful, one references to it in the scripting. The RSC content as such is therefore in legal terms not 'incorporated' in the UGC, it is referenced to and the end-user has paid for the right by buying the license from RSC to use this referenced content for his own personal use. OK, they took some of the stock content available in 2012 out off 2013 and now offer it for sale. Smart financial gain move that doesn't go down well with many and lucky are the ones that still have that stuff on their HD. But let's be honest amongst ourselves, how often do we see freeware that references content that is payware. I often found myself having to buy some payware content to make a freeware route work and in every single case that was not on offer from RSC. So is strikes me as being very unrealistic to kick RSC's shins in that department now that we're all pi...d off because of other goofs they pulled off.
Again, as long as the UGC is not being distributed in a package together with RSC propriety content nobody is infringing anything.

To all intent and purposes, RSC put their hands in a huge legal hornets' nest and that's for the management to digest.
The bigger damage however they have inflicted upon themselves is the almost complete destruction of goodwill and image amongst the ones that linger on the sites dedicated to Railworks. They'll really have to dig deep in their bag of tricks to remedy that.
Who ever they listened to (be it an internal bright guy or an external adviser) gave them some real bad piece of advise and they'll know that when they do the numbers at the end of their financial year. Once the initial hype around the availability of the new RW 2013 is over and the message will start to seep through (and it will in this day and age of the Internet) sales will begin to bleed off and that's when they'll realise that: 'He who burns his lower back will have to sit on the blisters!'

[hminky]

The use of the asset or blueprint editor to create content is an agreement that the EULA is in effect.

The user is creating using RSC's intellectual property.

Harold

[ArcticCatZRT]

You just don't get it, do you? The new EULA is really complicating things for developers, but you don't seem to care about that.
Maybe you should take a week off.

Just think this EULA agreement was updated to try to make it clearer. Quite frankly it made thing worse! Bravo RSC

Well at this point I am going to go get backups of UGC payware I got and get ready to battendown the hatches. This, plainly, will stink if we start losing our generous big private developers. I really hope RSC gets this whole EULA straightened out quickly.