Hi Bob,not really, most criminal offences relating to copyright violations are strict liability offences, which means that the prosecutor will only have to show that the defendant committed the offence. He does not need to establish mens rea (i.e. that the defendant knew what he was doing was wrong, or at least had the capability of distinguishing between right and wrong).However, in practice it would seem unlikely that this would ever go to court. Prosecutors don't have unlimited funds, and they may decide that it's not in the public interest to pursue the matter further than just removing the offending material from distribution. In all likelihood, a complainant would be advised to pursue the matter in a civil court. And there, it would be a lot easier for the plaintiff, if he can show some actual damage he suffered as a result of the defendant's actions.Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

Greetings Bob!"(...) is there not a burden for a prosecutor to demonstrate harm was done to the copyright owner (...)"Nope. If the copyright owner is harmed financially, as far as I know that might be reason for an additional civil case (compensation), next to and separate from the criminal one. But Gosta really is the TRUE expert when it comes to these things, so let's wait for his verdict!Be well!Jaap Verduijn.Edited in order to add: Whaddayasay, Gosta beat me by several minutes! Posting takes me too long, with my unwilling and arthritic fingers (grin)!

There is a defense against a claim of infringement, and it is called "fair use". Fair use is a judicial doctrine, derived from the general principles set forth in statute 17USC107. But I do not believe selling compilations is a fair use.Some, probably most, of the freeware I have seen explicitly permit distributing (without modification) but not including in compilations for sale.Here are the remedies available to a copyright owner:1. Any court having jurisdiction of a civil action arising under this title may, subject to the provisions of section 1498 of title 28, grant temporary and final injunctions on such terms as it may deem reasonable to prevent or restrain infringement of a copyright.2. At any time while an action under this title is pending, the court may order the impounding, on such terms as it may deem reasonable, of all copies or phonorecords claimed to have been made or used in violation of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, and of all plates, molds, matrices, masters, tapes, film negatives, or other articles by means of which such copies or phonorecords may be reproduced.3. Except as otherwise provided by this title, an infringer of copyright is liable for either - (1) the copyright owner's actual damages and any additional profits of the infringer, as provided by subsection (:(; or(2) statutory damages, as provided by subsection ©.Statutory damages: Except as provided by clause (2) of this subsection, the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work.4. In any civil action under this title, the court in its discretion may allow the recovery of full costs by or against any party other than the United States or an officer thereof. Except as otherwise provided by this title, the court may also award a reasonable attorney's fee to the prevailing party as part of the costs.5. (a) Criminal Infringement. -Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.(:( Forfeiture and Destruction. -When any person is convicted of any violation of subsection (a), the court in its judgment of conviction shall, in addition to the penalty therein prescribed, order the forfeiture and destruction or other disposition of all infringing copies or phonorecords and all implements, devices, or equipment used in the manufacture of such infringing copies or phonorecords.Not a lawyer, but recommend consulting one prior to engaging in possibly infringing activities.scott s..

Sad people....simply a shame to sell freeware! like those in FSPlanet :(btw, how do I see the livery list ?

Hi Scott,in most parts, US copyright law differs considerably from the rest of the world. However, the fair use doctrine applies nearly anywhere. But it does generally not pertain to mere redistribution, it would apply to quotations, for example (e.g. 'in his book, Scott wrote: 'blah blah blah''). As to criminal infringement, the required elements (under US law) appear to be present in this case.Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

Hi Jaap,Your description above is incorrect. There's nothing inherent in copyright law that dissuades all copying of works... Its the license a copyright holder chooses to distribute those works under that grants or forbids copying (the exception is: if the work was released with NO license - then the work is automatically and FULLY copyrighted with All Rights Reserved).As an example, if one releases their copyrighted work under a GNU type of license (http://www.gnu.org), the copyright remains absolutely intact with the author. He just grants the right to copy that work under the terms of that license (which is, in a nutshell: any way you desire, fee or no, commercially or no, as long as source is provided upon request).There are thousands of licenses out there that allow free reign to copy except in limited circumstances, without giving up the copyright privileges of the original creator. Beyond the GNU, another great example is the Creative Commons license for written and other types of creative works (http://creativecommons.org). Copyright law is the foundations these licenses stand upon, as they absolutely depend upon it for the license to function.In short: Copyright does not equal No Copying. It depends upon the license terms a work is released under.Most freeware licenses explicitly allow distribution fees, or omit any restrictions completely. If a license for any of these works explicitly *disallows* distribution fees, then indeed this gentleman is committing a crime.Take care,Elrond

I use Project Opensky as an example, as they have been mentioned as one of probably many who were(allegedly) violated...Taken straight from a Project Opensky readme file:"-For painters please see our webpage we are open for paintings. -However our official reapaints are not copyright free you need to ask permission of the repainter if any of our repaint work is used.-For any other changes you must ask permission to the Author. -No charge may be made for this package -This Aircraft may not be bundled with any other package ( freeware or payware ) -The use of this aircraft is at your own risk, the author cannot be held responsable."Pretty much all "freeware" that I have downloaded has this little statement, might not be word for word the same but pretty much the author is saying the same thing.I wonder what is so hard to understand.....

:-outta

http://www.flightsimnetwork.com/dcforum/User_files/3e72a43942b48d2b.jpg

There is a fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness".- unknown

"My daddy gives me up, to fight for you"- a US Military Members Child

thanks Misha ;)! - i didn't know about this till Jon notified me here :( paints work pretty hard to make textures.... Ben, Jon and I as well as many others out there spend quite some time in painting... so it'd be nice to respect our wishes... i did think i included in the readme that i didn't want people to include them onto CD and sell it, if i didn't, anyway, it's posky's policy... yes i know this thing about putting files onto CDs is a sensitive issue, what i hope is that it doesn't cause flaming :) - putting them onto CD and distributing is fine by me, but how can one determine whether they are (not) making a profit out of selling all these? it's a very fine line.... but the most important thing of all, is that this person haven't even notified the respective painters and modellers of the group, so i think the case is dismissed .... and the file(s) should be removed..the basis of this whole thing is that the files are Freeware.. painters paint freeware aircrafts as freeware, on models released as freeware - so it's the interest of them to REMAIN freeware... the purchaser of the CD is not getting them for free... 1)we were not notified2)it's our wish to release these paint as freeware3)also our wish for others to access these files free of charge4)these files are freeware, paying for these files just ruins the whole point of it..5)authors want to release files where we know they will be secure, such as AVSIM6)this sort of activities is against Ebay's policy (as previously said)this might be an inconvience for some with slow internet access (including my 56k connection) but even then do i upload 10mb files each time... - it's unfortunate that it might be an inconvience for some, but when the frameworks are not set regarding rules of such distribution, please understand that it is very hard to determine whehter someone's intention is good or bad (such as this person's)...Thanks Misha for notifying us of this ;)Cheers,

The auction has been halted. :-jumpyMisha

I guess the big no-no on this is that he did not get the freeware authors "permission" to do so.Seems kind of hypocritical, that I can buy collections of freeware and shareware from Global Star on a $10.00 CD in a local software store, and theres no issue. But should I do it in the flight simulation community, it becomes world news.How many "distributers" are putting freeware and shareware out, and clearly state that the items on this disk is shareware and freeware, but the fact is, I'm not paying for the freeware, I'm paying for the medium and the time it took for the distributer to get the information.I guess it's ok for Flight One, to license hundreds of liveries, and use freeware modules such as fsuipc, and Lee Swordy's Traffic Tools and AFCADS, packages it and charges 30 bucks for Ultimate Traffic, but this guy is Satan for packaging up this stuff and selling it.I'm not totally justifying this guys actions, but I also feel that the freeware community has a serious burr up it's butt. I'm sure that I am going to get flamed as being "unappreciative" but let me make one thing clear to you. Why are Flight Sim authors the only ones who scream and moan and groan about this crap.What we are talking about here is medium.So what does it matter to the author if I get my freeware from a friend who has a cable modem, or a dude who sells it off of ebay?Again, we have a case about the freeware community making a mountain out of a molehill. If this guy claimed it was his work... That's one thing.But to the freeware author who's whinning. do your business or get off the pot. Either go commercial, or sue the crap out of this guy. (Of course you legal eagles, know that proving financial harm would be a big issue, and you know that although you have the "law" on your side, giving it some teeth is another matter)Personally I would love the FS community to come out with top 100 or must have CD's and charge a small fee for the cost of shipping and handling. Especially now that the newer packages are running 15mb or more. But since the freeware authors would never grant permission for THAT, then we're stuck with spending hours of downloading garbage to get to the jewels.The flight sim community could really benefit with compilation CD's by publishers such as Global Star Software putting together Flight Sim compilations, but of course the freeware authors are too interested in being part time lawyers and litigators to allow that to happen.

Greetings Will!Taking another persons property without his permission is stealing. The exclusive right to distribute (including the exclusive right to determine if, how, where, when, in what form and by whom to distribute) is the PROPERTY of the copyright holder. Taking this property without the copyright holders permission is stealing. You seem very surprised that some people object to have their property stolen from them, and you seem equally surprised that there are laws against that kind of thing. Jaap Verduijn.

>I guess it's ok for Flight One, to license hundreds of>liveries, and use freeware modules such as fsuipc, and Lee>Swordy's Traffic Tools and AFCADS, packages it and charges 30>bucks for Ultimate Traffic, but this guy is Satan for>packaging up this stuff and selling it.Hmm, actually a good point! UT came also into my mind, when thinking about this matter. Flight One was quite clever in just stuffing other people's work into a programm and then selling it for good money. Don't get me wrong, UT is a good programm IMO, and Flight One had some work in assembling the different modules to a programm and in merketing the programm, but the major work IMHO was done by the many freeware developers, who do not get one cent out of the revenue, which Flight One makes with UT.Wolfgang

You miss the point.The freeware is already readily available on the web at numerous sites. In fact Flightsim.com and Avsim are two of the largest librarys of freeware available.Is the guy wrong? Yes absolutely.But I also call out the freeware authors for being such petty little children.Imagine granting AVSIM the permission to allow "BEAR" Cartright to gather up his year end, or 6 month "picks" into a CD and allow us to purchase the CD. Call it a "donation". Freeware authors sure don't mind using up Tom's website and bandwidth to promote their latest concoction. Tom could use the proceeds to help keep AVSIM running, and who wouldn't want to buy a CD with all of BEAR's picks on them?Other authors have seen the benefits of allowing distributors to distribute freeware and shareware CD's to allow for greater exposure. But somehow, Flight Sim freeware developers don't get it. Thus the only way to get their stuff is through massive downloads. Instead, Flight Sim software developers spend obscene amounts of money generating complex software registration and installation keys that place more barriers between their product and their consumers.It sure would be nice to walk into my computer store and see not only Flight Simulator 2004, but also a dearth of low cost ADDON cd's filled with quality shareware and freeware. What a great way to distribute some good shareware "demos" as well. I may like to buy a piece of software, but before I blow 60 megs or more on downloads, I want to see if it works. Other software authors see the benefits of "demo" disks, "shareware" disks and "compilation" disks. Why don't Flight Sim software developers?Why??? Because as a group, they are more concerned with participating character assasination against some German teenager on ebay, or developing a ironclad, three step, installation/verification, dna-checking, anti-piracy installer shell, then they are interested in providing good quality freeware/shareware/payware, that can be purchased at a fair price, and enjoyed by all.

Hi Will,"I guess the big no-no on this is that he did not get the freeware authors "permission" to do so."Yes, that's precisely correct.The problem with selling these compilation CD's over the Internet is that the authors have expressly forbidden making any kind of profit off the sale of their creations. Your points are good about making it easier for some folks to get the freeware by putting it all on one CD. But the problem is that the "grey" area of what is "cost to compile" and "profit" makes the act illegal and immoral. Today some compilier may charge $1.00 for a compilation, but six months from now someone else may be selling the same compiled freeware CD for $10.00. At what point in time is it a compilation or a profit generation scheme capitalizing off the work that the original creators intended to be free? There will be folks who try to take advantage! And so, complied CD's must be stopped before the whole practice gets out of hand.It's all about seeking and gaining the permission of the creators. Case in point... FlightSim .com and FSPlanet. Both charge "Premium Membership" fees. The difference is the authors... some authors submit their creations to FlightSim.com knowing that the site charges a premium membership fee. The authors, for whatever reason (and those reasons are not for you and I to question... they are simply the reasons of the authors) choose to make the contribution to FlightSim.com. FSPlanet on the other hand couldn't care less about the author's wishes... he simply pilfers whatever files he wants (often from FlightSim.com) and puts those freeware creations on his site... with the sole purpose of generating revenue for himself. And he does so without the permission of the authors.It's not about the perception of little or no difference between compiling a CD or buying one at the local EB compiled by Global Star (which offers it's products under license... as in "having seeked and gained the permission of the creators"). It's about respecting peoples wishes. Simple as that. You and I don't have the right to question their wishes... they are entitled to them whatever they may be. Our responsibilty is to respect their wishes... even if we don't understand them.You want this issue to be black and white. It never will be because everybody is different. Some authors could care less if their freeware shows up on a compliation CD, while others will be deeply hurt and offended. You and I will never get these authors to think alike... nor should we try. Rather, you and I have the moral obligation to respect their wishes regarding their creations... no matter whether we agree with their perceptions or not. All we can really do is respect their perspectives.Regards,

Hi Wolfgang,"Hmm, actually a good point! UT came also into my mind, when thinking about this matter. Flight One was quite clever in just stuffing other people's work into a programm and then selling it for good money. Don't get me wrong, UT is a good programm IMO, and Flight One had some work in assembling the different modules to a programm and in merketing the programm, but the major work IMHO was done by the many freeware developers, who do not get one cent out of the revenue, which Flight One makes with UT."The difference being that's those freeware authors whose creations are a part of UT are participants in UT by choice. Flight1 didn't pirate their creations... rather Flight1 sought and received (and possibly paid for... that is none of our business) the permission of the author to include their creation in the package.Cheers,