MSFS portover piracy

[kaosfere 3,115]

On the other hand I would also say that, while IANAL and IA definitely NA copyrght L, my favor falls very strongly on the side of the folks adapting Google Maps/Earth imagery for photogrammetry, especially if it's given freely.

1. To the purpose and character:  On the one hand you have a commercial product that is meant to provide an aerial overview of the entire world for navigation and other purposes, on the other free scenery intended specifically to create 3D representations of the real world in a particular piece of software.

2. To the nature of the copyrighted work: The original product is aerial scenery of the surface of the earth.  This is hardly an original, unique, or scarce product.  There are plenty of places it can be obtained, and one can even produce one's own by hiring a plane.

3. To the amount and substantially used portion:  This one isn't remotely a contest.  The land area of earth is about 58 million square miles.  Google Maps doesn't cover all of that, but it covers a large chunk.  Compare that to the average photogrammetry project which currently is covering a couple square miles at best.

4. The effect of use on the potential market:  The amount of business that Google will lose because people have used a sub-sub-sub-percent of their 2D imagery to product a 3D model in a flight simulator is pretty darn close to 0.

Putting aside that Google themselves have a provision for free re-use in their T&S, if this were to go to court... well, Google would probably still win because they have billions of dollars they can spend on lawyers if they want to.  But I feel any reasonable person would say both the letter and the spirit of the law is on the content creators' side.

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

26 minutes ago, kaosfere said:

With respect, this is potentially rather misleading.   At least in the US, commercial status of the derivative product is very explicitly one of the deciding factors

But isn't that about potential damages and a trial before a civil court? IPR violations are a criminal offense in most countries - and that IMHO is a different process. If you steal a car you go to jail, even if the owner of the car doesn't even care about the thing. We (=Germany) just had a decision made by the supreme court that stealing garbage is (still) a criminal offense... Two students took food out of the waste bins of a supermarket - and got arrested and fined for that...

Anyway. My point was a different one, probably worded incorrectly. Many people think that when something is freeware (or public domain for that matter) they can do with it whatever they want. They even think that to be the case when they purchase a license for a piece of software,  disregarding the fact that they don't actually own it.

Best regards

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by Lorby_SI

[kaosfere 3,115]

26 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

But isn't that about potential damages and a trial before a civil court? IPR violations are a criminal offense in most countries - and that IMHO is a different process.

I'm sure this varies from country to country, but in the US there are both civil and criminal penalties for copyright violation.  Criminal prosecution tends to be reserved for fraudulent abuse (removal/misapplication of required copyright notices, false attribution, etc) and gross willful infringement. But I'm not an expert on where the civil/criminal line lies so I can't speak to that with any degree of reliability.   As for the applicability of that section of US code, my understanding is that it sets out a doctrine to be used by all courts in deciding the question of fair use, but if I say any more than that I'll be moving from "informed discussion" to "irresponsible speculation", so I'll stop there. 🙂

My main point was to clarify that yes, at least in the US, the title that defines copyright law cuts out a giant "get out of jail free card" for a lot of uses and makes commercial status one of the big differentiators.

But yes, you are totally correct that even freeware has the same protections on it, and a lot of people do not understand that.   There's a lot of ugliness in IP law that I do not like, but I think that a doodle I sketch on a napkin having the same protections as a huge Hollywood blockbuster is pretty dang cool.

Edited September 6, 2020 by kaosfere

[styckx 1,870]

Any time I'm on a site that redirects the download to some 5th party file hosting site I'm immediately suspicious and "NOPE" my way out of it.. 

[n4gix 4,947]

3 hours ago, styckx said:

Any time I'm on a site that redirects the download to some 5th party file hosting site I'm immediately suspicious and "NOPE" my way out of it.. 

Oh yes, most especially those websites that have multiple [DOWNLOAD] buttons all over the page masking the one legitimate download button! "Mediafire" is one such site that comes to mind.

[DPSimulation 235]

23 minutes ago, n4gix said:

Oh yes, most especially those websites that have multiple [DOWNLOAD] buttons all over the page masking the one legitimate download button! "Mediafire" is once such site that comes to mind.

Unless the site author pays for premium hosting with Mediafire, in which case you just click and download without redirecting to an ad-infested page.

I've hosted tens of gigabytes of files with them for years on their premium service without complaint.

[kaosfere 3,115]

20 minutes ago, DPSimulation said:

I've hosted tens of gigabytes of files with them for years on their premium service without complaint.

Yeah, Mediafire are fairly respectable when it comes to this.  Their site is to the point and doesn't try overly hard to be deceptive.  They also provide decent download speeds without charging people for outrageously expensive "memberships" to get faster than a 56k modem, and they react to DCMA takedown notices.  They can be used for ill, but they're not too bad on their own.

Edited September 6, 2020 by kaosfere

[MatthewS 761]

On 9/5/2020 at 8:19 PM, mjahn said:

Our Digital Dakota Works team has just seen a new variant of it, a quick and decidedly dirty MSFS2020 portover of our popular freeware C-47. As was to be expected, the thing is largely dysfunctional in MSFS, causes CTD’s, and generally looks and flies terrible. Still, the downloads go into thousands.

So are you releasing a version for MSFS (either payware or freeware)?

Seems to me that you, as the original developer, could port over a "lite" version rather easily and "flog it" in the official store for $5.

I imagine you would sell 1,000 copies within a week.

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by MatthewS
added "lite" version

[Slides 1,552]

On 9/5/2020 at 6:19 AM, mjahn said:

For the record: I am not going to give permission for a MSFS portover, ever.

Why not?

[keithb77 305]

Picky points of law aside, the important principle  self-interest here is that Manfred and the team put a huge amount of work into the DC-3, if they get seriously ****ed off with half-baked ports (rather than one day their own re-implementation) then they are likely to **** off altogether and we will lose their future contributions.

So - no ports please!

Cheers
Keith

Edited September 7, 2020 by keithb77

[mjahn 61]

3 hours ago, keithb77 said:

Picky points of law aside, the important principle  self-interest here is that Manfred and the team put a huge amount of work into the DC-3, if they get seriously ****ed off with half-baked ports (rather than one day their own re-implementation) then they are likely to **** off altogether and we will lose their future contributions.

You are right, Keith. As far as I am concerned that is already decided.  

[DPSimulation 235]

19 minutes ago, mjahn said:

You are right, Keith. As far as I am concerned that is already decided.  

Very sorry to hear that Manfred and although I don't blame you for reaching that decision, I hope that instances such as the one that has happened here aren't continued and you are able to reconsider at some point.

Edited September 7, 2020 by DPSimulation

[cepact 517]

I understand your concerns @mjahn but honestly I'm having difficulty to understand the level of your anger in regard to what happened, because this doesn't seem to be such a big deal to me. Because as you said in the first post, the main (and only) problem seems to be " these faults attach to my name". No one is making money by distributing your product, you aren't losing any either. I haven't found any payware product from your company either, so even if this does hurt your image, I don't see what can you lose. Plus I'm quiet sure everyone in the flight sim community is aware that these are ports and they are buggy and you are in no way responsible for that.

I did not download this product and I'm not defending those who distribute without permission. I just don't understand why this is such a big deal, am I missing something ?

Edited September 7, 2020 by cepact

[kaosfere 3,115]

11 minutes ago, cepact said:

I did not download this product and I'm not defending those who distribute without permission. I just don't understand why this is such a big deal, am I missing something ?

I'm not sure if you're aware of the massive, massive mount of effort that Mr Jahn and his collaborators put into that plane, but it goes back almost a decade, even longer if you count prior versions.  Imagine you put 10 years of your life into a project, poured your own blood, sweat, and tears into it, striving for top quality and absolute perfection; and you created one of the crowning glories of flight sim freeware, highly lauded and able to rival almost any commercial plane; then after all that toil and care, someone produces a low-quality, poorly functioning ripoff, essentially, of what you put all that effort into, without your permission, and with your name attached to it for the world to see.

Don't you think that would upset you, just a teensy bit?

Edited September 7, 2020 by kaosfere

[cepact 517]

13 minutes ago, kaosfere said:

Don't you think that would upset you, just a teensy bit?

Maybe a little, but not very much. If it's clearly specified that it's a "port" of my work, and so it's buggy, why would I be upset ? The aircraft ported would be buggy, of course, because the porting doesn't work well. If someone starts to blame me for the bugs, I would simply point out that's not my fault. Even if an ig_norant person would think I'm responsible for these bugs, I wouldn't mind so much.

Again that's just me, people have different opinions. I'm just surprised to see he decided to stop developing because of this particular event.

Edited September 7, 2020 by cepact