Commercial use of Microsoft Stock AFCAD files?

[Guest flightgamer]

Hey,Well hello, i have a simple Copyright and afcad question for you. I am a developer thinking of moving into the Commercial Field to sell my AFCAD's. I have released a 113 package to AVSim, and it has gotten alot of attention. However, those files were built off the default MS AFCAD files that were stock. The files i would sell would be those existing AFCAD's on AVSim but built up to payware standards using the commercial version of AFX. The payware file would contain both formats for FSX and FS9.... so i am rather excited :)However, what do you think? do i need t actually make a AFCAD completely from scratch in order to sell it?I will be consulting a Lawyer on this matter if the idea becomes reality.... but im just curious...Thanks Guys, Much Appreciated.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

It's hard to say, Kylan. All that you will get here are opinions, and they are not legally binding.Perhaps you can try writing to Microsoft directly - there is a link on the FS Insider web site. They will probably tell you not to do it, but I could be wrong.Best regards.Luis

[jvile 1]

KylanThe first thing is the words being used are not correct.AFCAD is a freeware Airport Facility CAD Utility program that decompiles a MS owned Copyright bgl. No where was this ever approved but it appears MS looks the other way when we used Lee's Utility to enhance a default airport.The approved method as per MS and the SDK is to write using the XML language and make enhancements you want to add to a airport. In that way you must use the SDK BGLComp compiler because there is no such thing as a MS decompiler available for Public use. That also follows the MS rules of blocking some of their code but we are not allowed to block all of it. Also the MS/FS BGLComp compiler is no longer free and MS/FS charges us for it.Many people term the enhanced airport as a AFCAD airport but that verbage is not correct. The airport was enhanced with a AFCAD Utility. That does not make it a AFCAD airport because it is still a MS/FS airport and you cannot change the ARP at any Utility level. MS gives us away to do that with XML and the BGLComp compiler called a preload header. MS/FS does not allow us to replace their airport with another that we designed with somones Utility. FS has to use the Basic airport in conjunction with the one you design. A so called airport made with AFCAD, AFX, FSXP, ADE cannot work by itself and needs FS to combine both the root and the higher priority airport together as one. AFX, FSXP, ADE are all utilities that do practically the same thing as Lee's AFCAD Utility in different ways but we don't call those enhanced airports AFCAD's.I agree with Luis that MS is the one to ask if you can sell their Copyright bgl that you enhanced with a 3rd party decompiler that you had to pay for. By the way there are also free Utilities available and also in beta that are much more powerful then AFX.The other question that comes to mine is how do you buy a license from a 3rd party utility designer for 200.00 dollars (AFX) that says you need this if you are going to sell any MS/FS airport that is enhanced with their program.I have yet to see anyone at AFX say that buying their Utility for reselling a MS Copyright enhanced airport bgl is fine and approved by MS. If the designers have it in writing that MS approves reselling a enhanced airport that was decompiled and compiled without the approved SDK BGLCompiler (that cost money and is protected by the delux version) then you don't have anything to worry about. Maybe you should ask the designer of AFX to join in with your initial contact to MS when asking for the right to sell their protected files with a Utility you had to pay for. Most if not all your highend scenery Payware designers never sold an enhanced airport made by AFCAD as part of their package. They sold the scenery but had people like myself and others make a airport with AFCAD that would track their taxiways and park in their parking spots for free (FlyTampa, Cloud9, FlightZone, etc).Do you think any payware scenery designer in his/her right mine would pay for a Utility to resell a protected MS bgl? Think about whyOne other unseen problem is all the code that MS wrote FS with is also Copyrighted. In order for any enhanced airport regardless of what Utility made it is done in XML code data. That XML code has to pass through the very protected MS .dll files for the airport to work.>>The files i would sell would be those >existing AFCAD's on AVSim but built up to >payware standards using the commercial >version of AFX.>Does that statement mean you are going to take enhanced airports off AVSIM and rework them with AFX? Or does it mean that no enhanced airport on AVSIM is up to what you refer to as payware standards.That won't work because AFX does not follow the rules of enhancing a airport like FSXP and other Utilities in Beta do. If you open and save any airport designed by any other Utility then AFX you destroy/corrupt the airport. AFX uses unconventional ways to place Elements, Attributes, Exclusions, Navdata, ILS/GS/DME data and of all things Model.mdl's that do not follow the standard SDK format of design.However on the flip side of that coin the newer Freeware Utilities when released will open a AFX airport, get rid of all the unconvention ways of doing things and then compile it back to the SDK MS approved code using the MS approved correct BGLComp compiler that has a cost.Keep in mine that you can go out and buy just about anything but there are laws that says you can't use it.