October 23, 20205 yr I'm sorry to intervene but isn't this thread about using bing map assets in FS2020 and not who's most qualified to tell whether this is a game or a simulator? And what P3D has to do with this FS2020 discussion? And yes, mea culpa, I pled guilty talking about the concepts of modding in this discussion, even if talking about modding is closer to the topic than comparing FS2020 to P3D...
October 23, 20205 yr 15 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said: Google encourage non-commercial use: https://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines/ The last bit of that page says: Quote Prohibited Conduct Note that you may not use output from Google Earth, Google Earth Pro and Earth Studio to reconstruct 3D models or create similar content I really wouldn't be surprised if flightsim.to gets a Cease and Desist letter from Google one of these days, especially considering that they are displaying ads and generating ad revenue on their site where they're hosting a very high number of scraped 3D models from Google Earth.
October 23, 20205 yr Commercial Member 26 minutes ago, JacquesBrel said: The last bit of that page says: I really wouldn't be surprised if flightsim.to gets a Cease and Desist letter from Google one of these days, especially considering that they are displaying ads and generating ad revenue on their site where they're hosting a very high number of scraped 3D models from Google Earth. That would be a shame as it is a really handy site, browsing freeware has never been so smooth in our sim world (we have many site, but they look kinda outdated most of the time).
October 23, 20205 yr I'm not saying that Google would try to shut down flightsim.to altogether, rather that they would demand that all content from Google Earth is removed.
October 23, 20205 yr 31 minutes ago, JacquesBrel said: I'm not saying that Google would try to shut down flightsim.to altogether, rather that they would demand that all content from Google Earth is removed. Get em while you still can. But seriously, you also have to look at it from a PR perspective. 1. None of this activity is causing damage to Google, In fact it is driving traffic to them that normally might not be. 2. As long as commercial developers do not use it, I can see that it might very well fall under "fair use", so if actually challenged, Google might lose. 3. Optics: What does Google gain by bringing out legal guns against flight simulator enthusiasts. What looks better? a. Google gracefully allows FS enthusiasts to improve their experience within Flight Simulator to make up for deficiencies in the product b. Google calls out the lawyers, and then gets vilified because it won't let poor FS enthusiasts to modify their game. Does the possibility exist that they can issue a C&D letter? Sure. Will they? We'll see.
October 23, 20205 yr 7 minutes ago, wthomas33065 said: As long as commercial developers do not use it, I can see that it might very well fall under "fair use", so if actually challenged, Google might lose. With the amount of Google Earth content already on flightsim.to, growing steadily day by day, I don't think that the site itself has any reasonable claim to be hosting all that content under "fair use" - especially not when Google's content draws traffic to flightsim.to and generates ad revenue for the site host. Each individual "content creator" could maybe have some fair use claim (though doubtful since Google explicitly disallows content using data from their 3D models), but for a site hosting such a large amount of content scraped from Google Earth - with ads - it's very unlikely they'll get away with "fair use". And in this case, I think Google can also get the PR angle on their side because of the large scale of data scraping that's going on. Personally I think it would be a shame if all that content had to be removed. I really like flying over Italian photogrammetry towns. But yeah, we'll have to see what happens. Worst case scenario is that flightsim.to has to remove all Google Earth content, but instead some dodgy Russian site would start hosting scenery mods and happily allow content ripped from Google Earth and happily ignore all legal threaths from Google.
October 23, 20205 yr 1 hour ago, JacquesBrel said: Worst case scenario is that flightsim.to has to remove all Google Earth content, but instead some dodgy Russian site would start hosting scenery mods and happily allow content ripped from Google Earth and happily ignore all legal threaths from Google. A lot of companies learned from the music industry what happens when you pull that chain. I think that Google would be a bit more savvy. Like either requiring freeware devs to note specifically if their sceneries contain Google scraped content, and hosting sites to provide Ad space to Google free of charge so that traffic to these sites financially supports Google and their ad partners as well.
October 23, 20205 yr Or if Google was really, really savvy, they'd make and host a large amount of MFS sceneries themselves using Google Earth photogrammetry, making them freely available under the heading "HEY MICROSOFT we notice your map data is a bit lacking so we thought we'd help you out. You're welcome!" That would be a PR stunt that would get some attention. And no doubt Google would also properly colour correct their sceneries for MFS...
October 23, 20205 yr 20 minutes ago, JacquesBrel said: Or if Google was really, really savvy, they'd make and host a large amount of MFS sceneries themselves using Google Earth photogrammetry, making them freely available under the heading "HEY MICROSOFT we notice your map data is a bit lacking so we thought we'd help you out. You're welcome!" They'll never do this, they're already preparing their servers to stream ortho and photogrammetry for XP12! 😈 PS: this is just a joke, not a forward statement or any insider information. Edited October 23, 20205 yr by RXP
October 23, 20205 yr 21 minutes ago, RXP said: PS: this is just a joke, not a forward statement or any insider information. They'd have to convince Austin first. 😉 P.S. Jean-Luc, any news concerning your Garmins and MSFS?
October 23, 20205 yr 1 hour ago, airlinejets said: P.S. Jean-Luc, any news concerning your Garmins and MSFS? Thank you for your support! Sadly the only news for now is no news, and I doubt the gauge SDK is going in any useful direction for now.
October 23, 20205 yr 10 minutes ago, RXP said: Thank you for your support! Sadly the only news for now is no news, and I doubt the gauge SDK is going in any useful direction for now. Sorry to hear that. No worry, we'll be here when you're ready to give us positive news. 🙂
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