fsfrance closes its doors....

[microlight]

This is an issue that merits serious thought, because there's potential here for something even worse to happen, and I don't know if this has been aired yet. It's this - if it has become possible somehow to reverse-engineer a .mdl file and alter it slightly (and it looks like this might have been done with the Lucariny 797 model unless the original author was involved - but why would he have been if it was then credited to somebody else??), then nobody's work is safe from pirates, not even the payware developers. If this happens, then I fear that we will see a drastic reduction in the amount of freeware and payware add-on aeroplanes, because who would bother to do it if the models could be re-engineered and re-labelled?

I'm not sure how we might go about Kat's suggestion, but we need to make a start somewhere, or at least generate some suggestions. Mods - do you agree?

[Formula_1]

This is very sad news.
I once had something similar happen too. I don't know how many of you guys play race sims, but GTR was a mod for F1 2002. Myself and 2 other members of a race club I was in decided to convert the Ferrari F360 from GTR mod to F1 Challenge. We got FULL permission from everyone involved in the original and spent a couple months working on it. We made a public announcement to let everyone know it was to be releast the following week. Well this jerk takes the F360 and runs it through a utility called stupid tool and released it, without anyones permission. It was a very poor quality conversion, since nothing was corrected to work well in F1C. Anyway, it put off all of use that had worked so many hours at getting it right we decided not to release our version. We shared it among our members only as well as the guys that actually made the mod in the first place.
Thankfully the community got wind of what had happened and really shamed the jerk that did the quicky conversion.

What is really sad is that this happens in manufacturing as well. Many designs have been stolen by companies, making very small changes and putting their own name to it. They spend nearly nothing on development, where the original had 100's of thousands spent to develope it. I see this way too often as a product developer.

[JBaymore]

Just to let you know, the site admin is aware of this thread's subject and it will be reviewed.

[Katahu]

[quote]Just to let you know, the site admin is aware of this thread's subject and it will be reviewed.

[Lazerbeak]

Well, this is just dreadful news. I've truly had my fill of these bloody pirates ruining the freeware community. FSFrance was one of my favourite developers, and they've developed several addons that myself and others have waited years for (Concorde, the Beluga, the Rafale, and the Me-262, to name a few), and now because a few pathetic twats couldn't control themselves, that's all gone down the tubes...

Though despite my outrage, I can see why the folks at FSFrance are so upset. Nothing ruins one's day like having your hard work stolen, and it seems like this problem is only growing. Personally, I'm beginning to think twice about releasing any more of my own work, only to see it stolen as well...

[Xyn_Air]

I am saddened to read that various developers for the Flight Simulator series are calling it quits due to piracy and other related issues.  Certainly, piracy has been a constant thorn in the side of software development, whether it be pay-ware or free-ware.

The common comment I see here is that many members of this community (and perhaps the FS community at large) have a strong desire to ensure a friendly and rewarding environment for add-on developers, including taking action against pirates.

A common question, it would seem, regards how we as a community could possibly take on piracy and support the add-on developers.

JBaymore did offer an excellent suggestion when he commented that one option is to try and add some legal teeth to intellectual property protection.  Though at first glance the idea of courting a lawyer to take up our cause may sound overly daunting, I do not think it an improbable option to consider.  Of the thousands of aviation and flight simulation enthusiasts out there, I do not think it wholly unlikely that one or more may be a lawyer.  If nothing else, as far as legal representation is concerned, finding out if we having any lawyers in the extended Flight Simulator community (more about our community later) is a place to start in regards to getting some legal teeth.

In regards to fighting piracy and supporting the add-on developers, I think it may be useful to split this into two separate yet interrelated goals.  Fighting piracy is tough work with often uncertain results.  On the other hand, we all can work together to take a proactive, well-defined, and readily accomplished approach to creating a favorable approach to supporting the developers.  I would like to take a quick look at these two challenges.

First, quality add-ons require quality developers.  As with many other software releases, Flight Simulator has enjoyed a great deal of support from independent developers and development teams who have committed themselves to improving the Flight Simulator game, often for free.  As we enjoy the fruits of developers' labors, it would behoove the Flight Simulator community to find out what makes development a rewarding and enjoyable experience for the developers and see if we might add to that.  Ways in which we can support developers are truly open to the imagination and could include offering some sort of sponsorship and gifts.  Hey, could you imagine if we came together and offered to outfit a development team with their own custom flight jackets?  For some teams this may seem silly and for others it may make their day.  The two important things to remember are, 1) Come up with any and all ideas, because you never know what may encourage a developer to keep going; and, 2) Take the time to find out what makes the developers happy, because they may make rewarding them easy for us and tell us straight out what they want.

As for fighting piracy, this is going to require a lot of cooperation among the major Flight Simulator communities.  I hate to say it, but we may require something akin to our own FAA, but for the Flight Simulator community at large.  At Simviation, everyone may be doing there utmost to stomp out piracy and keep our own downloads on the up-and-up, but that will only help marginally if an unscrupulous user can go over to NaughtyAirways.com and download pirated add-ons to their shriveled heart's content.  It may help our cause to make connections with other prominent Flight Simulator community sites and open lines of communication regarding this issue.  Perhaps we may want to form an advisory and regulatory board comprising interested parties from the 10 largest FS communities that offer add-on downloads.  I know it sounds messy and like a lot of effort to go through, but if we are committed to protecting our communities and our developers while fighting piracy, it may be a valid and reasonable idea to form a larger oversight committee to address this specific issue.

Backtracking a little it, I would also like to address the idea of how community can play into all of this.  One of the things I mentioned above was sponsoring developers and their add-ons.  This can be one way of addressing control over intellectual property rights and secure distribution.  It is impossible to control every member of a large community (and outside of a megalomaniac, who would want to?), but perhaps by 'sponsoring' a developer or a specific development project and working to ensure secure distribution to trusted members of our community, we can help control piracy and provide a secure outlet for development release.  There are many ways this could be done, including staggered releases to limited numbers of users (if you release an add-on to 10 users a week, for example, and in week 3 you suddenly see a pirated copy appear on a rival site, you can theoretically narrow down your range of suspect individuals who did a no-no).  Also, it may seem downright unfriendly and counter-intuitive to growing interest in Flight Simulator, but if you require community participation as a prerequisite to receiving sponsored add-ons, you are going to go a long way towards inhibiting casual piracy.

OK, I am out of room, but would love comments on what I have mentioned already.  My last words at this point are don't give up and don't be afraid to try!