8 hours ago, ShawnG said:

Lawyers for airlines don’t care enough to chase down a million broke az modders,  it would be time consuming and pointless.  If Microsoft starts doing it, those same lawyers will salivate and will fall all over themselves filing the lawsuits, because Microsoft has tons of money to sue for, and they already know how to find them. Different reality.  Modders can just do it,  Microsoft has to step carefully.

All these testimonies put on the table once again an evidence: it's only about money, not dignity. FSLTL, Justtraffic, modders, and the other dozens of traffic software for prepar3d, fsx, etc, would have committed a huge illegality. Remember FSX, with all the airlines and traffic. They would have to report that first. In any case, MSFS should not therefore announce real air traffic online in its sales if it has not asked for permission from all the airlines in the world. Wouldn't it be a crime too?

13 hours ago, Abriael said:

The image of your house isn't covered by trademark law. An airline logo is. 

Fair use - Wikipedia

Bruh......If the surprise turns out to be 4th of July fireworks I'm gonna be so upset hahahaha

12 hours ago, ShawnG said:

Lawyers for airlines don’t care enough to chase down a million broke az modders,  it would be time consuming and pointless.  If Microsoft starts doing it, those same lawyers will salivate and will fall all over themselves filing the lawsuits, because Microsoft has tons of money to sue for, and they already know how to find them. Different reality.  Modders can just do it,  Microsoft has to step carefully.

Not sure how I missed this business discussion, but I love to participate in the business discussions of flight simulators 🤣

Yup, I agree with @ShawnG. Technically, the airlines can sue FSLTL, AIG, etc, to get them to stop using their liveries. But they probably won't, because it probably makes for bad PR for the airlines, especially because FSLTL and AIG are free.  Plus, the makers of FSLTL and AIG may be broke, so their isn't much money to be gained by the airlines.  However, if Microsoft added airline liveries without the airline's permission though, then it's easy for the airlines to make Microsoft out to be the bad guy (so it's not bad for the PR of the airlines), plus the airlines can potentially get some decent money from a lawsuit against Microsoft.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Matt Sdeel said:

Fair use - Wikipedia

Fair use is an extremely murky doctrine. The burden of proof is on the user and it's *very* hard to prove, even more related to trademarks than to copyright. 

What ya'll don't seem to understand is that the fact that airlines don't have sued some small flight simulation developers doesn't mean that they could not. They can. 

When instead of a small flight simulation developer they find their trademark used without license by a multi-billion dollar corporation, that possibility increases, as the level of scrutiny increases.

It's not that Microsoft is specirfically afraid of being sued, but they're simply playing by the rules to be on the safe side, as multi-billion dollar corporations tend to do. 

Edited July 4, 20232 yr by Abriael

The July Surprise was the City Update Texas and the fireworks.

Looks like we're in for another world update this month though, and a bunch of vintage foloatplanes one per month for 4 months 😛

Edited July 6, 20232 yr by Abriael

Planes that float might mean a rescue Amelia mission !

Regarding liveries, you have to consider MSFT's position. They do not want to knowingly violate trademark law and they go after those that violate theirs. Thus no executive at MSFT is going to seriously consider using trademarked logos without the permission of their owners. If twenty other similarly-sized companies were doing it -- and getting away with it -- they still wouldn't do it. For a really big company to consider doing something they know to be illegal, there generally has to be a big reward and some ethically-challenged leadership. It happens all the time. Just not in the games division at MSFT.

In other news, looks like Eastern Europe (or at least Prague) will be in the next World Update.