Wilco/FT - Possible copyright issue?

[Guest Water Mango]

I second that Dillon. Can you imagine being FeelThere right now. You have an ex employee stabbing you in the back, you have a vender pulling the rug out from under your feet before the actual product is finished, and then you have one of your developers taking liberties with Airliners.net that they shouldn't to save time. I'd be pulling my hair out right about now...

[Mike T 208]

I've read this thread with interest. And there seems to be a justification for using things without permission. Just because it IS done (airline logos, aircraft, etc.) don't make it right.No one is saying Feelthere did or didn't do anything wrong, however, for all of you saying that its *okay* if they did because..., surely all of you who have crusified AdobeTrafficPack for using AIAardvark, EvolveAI and other AI aircraft in their freeware product without permission should recant their vocal opposition.Furthermore, the same folks should never utter a word that piracy of software is wrong, never again complain that some shmuck is selling freeware aircraft and scenery disks on Ebay, a product is using someone's bitmaps without permission, or someone is posting here looking to download FSX or FS9. Let's go ahead and take those silly disclaimers out of the freeware and payware products and let's upload all of our combined payware products and make it available for download or use in your own product at will. It's all good right? While I too am VERY intersted in finding out how out of ALL pictures on Airliners.net the OP was able to find this one shot and compare it to Wilco's A320 release. However, whether it is a sabotage attempt or not doesn't make it any less valid if it is true. Surely if you steal a car and the only person who knows about it is your worse enemy and he tells the police, the police will really not care that the person is turning you in because he hates you...you get arrested non-the-less if the accusation is true. For the record I posed over at Feelthere's forum so that they themselves can put this thread to rest. Even if the accusation is without merit and totally false, will it hurt for Feelthere to say, "hey idiots, those are our bitmaps so shut your stupid mouths"? Silence merely adds fuel to the fire and hence this thread has grown larger instead of being squelched.

[Guest gdafc1]

>Because people over there like here are starting crap. I'd>say the same thing at this point... :-boom >>Let FeelThere fight it out with Wilco and get things back on>track. As far as I can see, this is totally on track for Feelthere/Wilco.What is new?Garry

[Dillon 2,197]

"Saying you will ban paying customers for complaining about poor service is, shall we say, lacking in business tact at best."Poor service that they can do absolutely nothing about at this point. Wilco has been a huge embarrassment to Feelthere. If the product was being sold through FeelThere you have a point but that's not the case. Feelthere can do nothing about what Wilco does. Their only option now would be to sever ties and move on to Simmarket or Flight1.

[Guest jgreth123]

>While I too am VERY intersted in finding out how out of ALL>pictures on Airliners.net the OP was able to find this one>shot and compare it to Wilco's A320 release. However, whether>it is a sabotage attempt or not doesn't make it any less valid>if it is true. Surely if you steal a car and the only person>who knows about it is your worse enemy and he tells the>police, the police will really not care that the person is>turning you in because he hates you...you get arrested>non-the-less if the accusation is true. Mike, I saw that thread over there as well and noted their reaction. Interesting to say the least. Anyhow, as far as how someone 'stumbled onto the picture', their panel shots have been available for weeks on the Wilco site. Anyone that just wanted to take a peek at the real plane ( I mean hey, they left the registration in the panel for Christ's sake lol :) ) to see how it measured up would surely notice the simularities if they had any graphical experience. I, for one, don't really do much with graphics but it's pretty obvious to me that the picture was used. Like the OP said, day time or night time it matters not, the lights in that exact picture are shown. The same button looks tilted, etc. I'm not one to get into conspiracy theories but really it wouldn't take TOO much motivation to do a quick search. I did a search myself after seeing this thread and only saw a handful of pictures from this plane so noticing it wasn't too hard. Food for thought! :)

[psolk 3,040]

I have to be honest with you here, I do not care! What if the photo came from Aviation.net instead of airliners.net? The fact that Airliners.net Copyrights other's photos so they can not be distributed or shared is a bit bogus IMHO. It is a picture we are talking about, someone pointed a camera and snapped a shot sent it into a website and the website gets the copyright... Take this up with Airliners.net instead of Vic at F/T. How do you know he didn't get cockpit time in the exact same A/C to take the picture and more importantly why do you care? How do you know it wasn't an aviation.net photo? How do you know that exact same photo is not SOMEPLACE else on the web?Do we want to go back to the days of A/A and FS? Like others have pointed out, why an issue with this but no issue with the developers who design Airport scenery and do not contact every single product that is used in their scenery? Every single tug manufacturer, baggage loader, soda machine etc... What about PMDG having the cockpit layout of all the different airlines in the PMDG 737 series? If I choose my CO cockpit setup and the gauge layout changes in my cockpit to match a photo well then jeez I better just wipe that plane off my system right now...So the question becomes and lets please stop contradicting ourselves here... Do you want to go through every single FS product and validate that no copyright laws have been broken because someone used a photo to design the photo-real add-ons everyone wants? Do you want to go back to vanilla FS with no logos, names etc? Do you want to keep things as they are and not create trouble for troubles sake?Wow, the pettiness of some people will drive EVERY add-on developer away from this hobby, how sad!As for the actual release, quality of the product and quality of support, that is not what this thread is about.-PaulPrimary RigLiquid CooledAMD FX-57 @ 3 gigsAsus A8NSLI-Premium2 gigs Corsair XMS PC3500LL 2 3 2 6 1TDual 8800 GTX at 2 gigs!24 inch Widescreen LCDDual 19 inch LCD'sRaid-0+1PCPower and Cooling 1khttp://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.htmlBackup RigAMD 4000 San Diego @ 2.72 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2XFX 7800 GTX 515/1350 Raid-0

[Dillon 2,197]

"Furthermore, the same folks should never utter a word that piracy of software is wrong"Mike I'm not justifying any of this but the fact is this community has been built around this. Boeing is not getting a dime for the LDS767 nor is Perfect Flight paying AirTran for using their logo. It's all wrong but we all enjoy it anyway. It's not on the same level as someone stealing a car. None of this causes personal harm to anyone. It's not right but instead of maliciousness and ill will the outcome here is enjoyment for many. This is not the same issue as people trying to get over and make a quick buck at a companies expense.

[Dillon 2,197]

"As for the actual release, quality of the product and quality of support, that is not what this thread is about."How true... :-beerchug The original poster took advantage of the anger generated by Wilco's arrogance in releasing this product before it was ready. Trolls come in all shapes and sizes and some can fool you at times.

[windycloud 30]

>I don't know about any inside job, but the actual screenshots>of the panel have been up on the Wilco site for weeks now.>>Anyone could have been curious and do a search for OO-TCK (>the registration shown right on the panel shots ) to see how>good of a job they did at recreating it. It's really not>rocket science.You got a good point. :) It really is no racket science but obviously it's still beyond comprehension for some people, OR maybe not really...... Jason

[psolk 3,040]

Agreed Dillon. Who would have thought we would see the day where we confronted developers for making products TOO close to photo realistic ;) Wow, sounds sort of pathetic when you put it like that. An add-on developer made a product that is so close to a photo some call it copyright infringement and we are complaining about this WHY??? THIS is what we have wanted for years!!!Vic should go and change the letters on the .bmp to O-CYA and shut everyone the heck up and let them worry about the real issue which is the quality of the release and the support surrounding it!-PaulA troll is a troll is a troll is a troll no matter how you say it or shape it...

[RFields5421 1]

And I hate big iron that is not 40 years old, and I hate the fascination with "real world FMS procedures" by people who cannot hand fly an approach with a chart, or land without auto land.(1) No one yet has provide anything close to proof that the photo was used. You cannot do that without the original texture file from the aircraft.(2) The photo itself is highly suspicious and looks like a texture file and not a real photo, or at least highly photoshopped.(3) No one supports "borrowing" or stealing other people's work. If you read that in this thread - you are simply wrong.(4) Copyright does not give the copyright holder exclusive rights to an image such as this. Specifically it does not prevent anyone from taking an identical photo. And identical photos are a lot more common than most of you realize.(5) Copyright law, usage and protections vary greatly by the laws of different nations.(6) In many nations, only a Registered copyright is illegal to copy and use, either in a free or pay purposes. The original copyright holder only needs to be credited somewhere in the mass of documentation.(7) For this to be a copyright violation, in most countries, the numbers in the multifunction gauges would be a part of the texture used for the model.This entire thread is simply and purely a "negative" advertising campaign.

[psolk 3,040]

Agreed whole-heartedly Reggie.Not to throw another wrench into the mix but if this was one of AVSIM's large advertisers in here getting bashed I bet this thread would have been gone days ago. Would love to see a thread like this against PMDG or PSS and see how long it lasts in here... All part of what makes these forums such a colorful place ;)Just calling it like I see it... (on the bright side now everyone can flame me and let this topic die :) )-PaulPrimary RigLiquid CooledAMD FX-57 @ 3 gigsAsus A8NSLI-Premium2 gigs Corsair XMS PC3500LL 2 3 2 6 1TXFX 7900 GTX 690/1750XFX 7800 GTX 515/135024 inch Widescreen LCDDual 19 inch LCD'sRaid-0+1PCPower and Cooling 1khttp://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.htmlBackup RigAMD 4000 San Diego @ 2.72 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2XFX 7800 GTX 515/1350 Raid-0

[Mike T 208]

Ah ha...now Adobe made asolutely no money with their "Trafficpack" however, AIaardvark, EVAI, CDAI and others forced them to remove the traffic pack because of copyright infringement and using and compiling it all without permission. No one was hurt since it was all freeware and no one made a quick buck at anyone elses expense. STILL, Adobe was litterally hung in effegy here on the forums (do a search and see for yourself). We can't have it both ways. Either we respect other's intellectual property or we don't. Either we support piracy or we don't. Using Boeing, Airbus and airline logos are a *wink-wink, nod-nod* affair and since they haven't complained and we KNOW FOR A FACT who the copyright's belong to there is no issue. We are not fooled into thinking tha the B737 was invented by PMDG or the A320 is a great invention of AirlinersXP. However, to use someone else's work and pass it off as your own is plagerism because it is INDEED passed off as someone else's work. If we weren't made aware that Feelthere's bitmap *appears* to be ripped off, we would all go on thinking that it was Feelthere's great work (again, if this is all true, and I am not saying that it is.) There is a huge differenc and it quite simply can't be justified. If you see a logo for Coca-cola, Continental, American you know where that comes from. If you see a photorealistic panel you assume that the author has done his homework and if no credit is given from the real source, it is inexcusable and illegal. You should know that if you write a paper on a subject and even mention the work of another you'd BETTER give credit even if the whole premise for your work is your own with just references to another. I don't know how to make it more clear, that if you excuse this type of behavior (from anyone: not pointing any fingers) then you condone piracy, plagerism and the total disregard of intellectual property. There is no two ways about it. Just because you didn't *hurt* anyone or their profits doesn't make it legal. Just ask the freeware authors who have a EULA included in their freeware that rival that which comes with Microsoft Vista!

[Mike T 208]

And I hate big iron that is not 40 years old, and I hate the fascination with "real world FMS procedures" by people who cannot hand fly an approach with a chart, or land without auto land.(1) No one yet has provide anything close to proof that the photo was used. You cannot do that without the original texture file from the aircraft.(2) The photo itself is highly suspicious and looks like a texture file and not a real photo, or at least highly photoshopped.(3) No one supports "borrowing" or stealing other people's work. If you read that in this thread - you are simply wrong.(4) Copyright does not give the copyright holder exclusive rights to an image such as this. Specifically it does not prevent anyone from taking an identical photo. And identical photos are a lot more common than most of you realize.(5) Copyright law, usage and protections vary greatly by the laws of different nations.(6) In many nations, only a Registered copyright is illegal to copy and use, either in a free or pay purposes. The original copyright holder only needs to be credited somewhere in the mass of documentation.(7) For this to be a copyright violation, in most countries, the numbers in the multifunction gauges would be a part of the texture used for the model.This entire thread is simply and purely a "negative" advertising campaign.Regards,Mike T.--------------------------------------------------------------------If your logic holds true then I've signed my name to your post therefore I am free to use your thoughts as I wish, surely you cannot prove that I was not thinking the EXACT same thing and since you have to *registered* copyright, I am free to use your...excuse me....MY post as I wish. Obviously, similar thoughts translate into similar work. Just like Russia's Space Shuttle, TU-144 and Blackjack. Exact versions of the originial American prototypes but stolen by Russian spies during the cold war. Russia denied it, of course, but they look almost exactly the same so it doesn't take a rocket science to 2+2 together.Not trying to be flippant, and not saying that Feelthere did or didn't do anything. However, can you really justify it IF they did? Would you really be okay with it?

[Dillon 2,197]

Mike it's all wrong, there is no *wink-wink, nod-nod* that's why Papa Tango was able to corner a relationship with American Airlines. Our hobby is built around this. Some companies are more anal (Gulfstream) than others but everyone is legally supposed to get credit for every likeness and such another creator depicts.