Quote:
Originally Posted by nearmiss
MSFT and many other flight sim games have a workaround.
They opened up the sim to 3rd parties that provided free aircraft. It is real hard to make a legal issue out of stuff created by "individuals" that make no money from their creations.
Anytime commercial enterprises have gotten involved the patent and copyright junk became an issue.
I don't know if TD could be considered a commercial enterprise, but maybe because it is a team effort involved with a commercial enterprise it might be an issue.
SO... I"d say if Oleg opens up the SOW for aircraft builders and doesn't put his name to anything or credentials anything I'd say suing 3rd party individuals wouldn't be much of a payback for the patent and copyright holders.
Remember, most legal stuff associated with copyrights or patents on old stuff is just not worth pursuing unless the so-called violators are making money from the stuff.
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Well generally it doesn't go as far as suing. Its your classic stand over tactics. "Regardless of whether we have a legal claim or not we will hold up your products release for 2 years until some obscure overworked local magistrate/judge gets time to look at our case OR you can settle out of court and the problem goes away". Which generally means a tricky work around like TD are a third party with no money is going to fail. as i suspect the real the issue is the threat of time consuming litigation rather than it actually making it too court
The other option for adding aircraft from litigious companies in America is home made 3rd part aircraft however personally i have little interest in user generated aircraft without some central authentication. This stems from being introduced to the flight sim community during the 90's and early 2000's where everything from the Starship Enterprise to Harry Potter broomsticks was available to download, many aircraft were "corrected" to match anecdotal and movie performances and 9 times out of 10 the downloads crashed your system anyway
It got to the point where people were actually excited to see paid addons of up to $100 per aircraft because at least paid addons promised some hope of quality and the possibility addon might actually work