Hello there everyone. I’m creating this topic to discuss about something I noticed on this community. I’m a livery creator, and everything I create is for free. I have worked on many flight simulators before, and never had a problem with reuploads and stuff, until I got to msfs. The main reason I’m creating this topic is to ask you, why? I found some liveries which I uploaded to only one website on over 5 different websites. This doesn’t seem to be a problem in any other flight simulator, except for msfs and fsx. One of the reasons appears to be the excess of wannabe add-on websites, but I don’t think that is the bottom of it, and I want your help to investigate the cause of it and finish this problem that has been affecting so many other freeware creators.
So Im not a creator like you. Thank you very much for yours and others hard work btw. But, I think the main issue is simply due to the fact that MSFS 2020 is popular. Due to its success globally, youll have lots of people going around, and copying everything they come across. X-Plane for example, is not for flight sim “newbies” whereas MSFS2020 and FSX were great for that crowd. Especially younger people.
As to fight it, I really dont know
This makes ZERO sense…
Maybe take it as a compliment 
. I truly appreciate the work the livery creators come up with. I’m amazed people actually do it. So thank you all for those beautiful planes. And I understand how you feel. It’s been a problem for like, forever. Now if someone starts charging money for your work then that is a big concern.
Its really a sad thing, many sites do it and its definitely wrong, a few things to protect against it. 1. Watermark all the photos that go with the scenery. 2. put a readme in the download and state the upload locations and that it shouldn’t be hosted anywhere else. and lastly, you can find their site provider and report it to their provider to possibly shut down the site.
It is a very fair point from the OP - whilst the sites in question are not directly charging money they are getting income from advertising AND their spammy download operators. For me, there is only one site that gets my custom and that is https://flightsim.to/ It is highly professional and advises you when a modder updates their work. No spammy download mechanism and you can search for anything in multiple ways. There is no overt advertising on the site and overall it is the only site anyone should be using for freeware downloads. If everyone were using this site only - the other cowboys would soon give up as they would have no click thru ad revenue etc. (disclaimer: I have no affiliation whatsoever with this site I just recognise hard work, attention to detail and a brilliantly executed service)
I’m not going to join 12 different discord servers to find mods
I do not see the problem here. You say that you make the liveries to be freely used by the community, so why should you care what the vehicle is to get it to the community.
If you are only trying to drive traffic to one website, doesn’t that conflict with the idea of making the liveries accessible to every and anyone?
My guess is that MSFS is mainstream whereas X-plane and P3D were more niche sims that attracted a loyal following- in general. Sure there were the occasional scammers, but for the most part, people respected creators and creators were held accountable by the community. Now this is a whole new world, with all kinds of opportunities as well as shenanigans are up for grabs. Couple that with a wide-range of sources that are promoting the sim and trying to generate traffic, there’s a lot of stuff flying around that we’re not used to.
We’ve moved on from Avsim and X-plane.org for our addons, as well as all of the controls established at those sites too. So, it’s kind of the wild west. I wish I knew what a good answer is. Maybe it will just take time for the good in the community to gravitate towards each other. Maybe someone will build a site that caters to the honest among us. Who knows. But, I doubt that we will be able to have much control over this as the sim has over a million users from around the globe unfortunately.
A bigger issue is the people stealing stuff and then selling it.
Over on Avsim there has been a lot of discussion about one developer who allegedly downloads freeware and repackages it for sale on their own website as their own product and also one particular popular download site that, allegedly, when advised of stolen content, basically says it is not their job to vet everything put up for sale for copyright violations.
This is a universal issue with digital content. Popular stuff is going to be copied.
I don’t see a good fix for it in this case. The way it’s handled with other media and platforms:
- DRM or copy protection software that uses encryption or online checks
- Walled access to third party content, like Apple Apps Store or YouTube does, or Microsoft could do if say they only allowed approved vendors and Flight Simulator Marketplace content to be added to the simulator
- Licensing/copyrighting your material and enforcing this yourself
That last option I think is the only realistic path you could take here. You could include a license agreement with your liveries, say something like Creative Commons or whatever. You could also register them with a copyright office. Then you could send a DMCA take down notice to the webhost of the download site. Basically a cease and desist asking them to take down your copyrighted material. Big sites like YouTube and Facebook will honor these requests as long as they’re properly backed up. But a third party download site? They might just throw it in your face unless their webhost is something big like Amazon or GoDaddy with a legal department that handles such requests. And it gets wonky because this is all international too.
As a livery creator myself, I tend not to even post my creations or share them for that exact reason. Some may wonder what the point of creating them is if I don’t plan on sharing them for others to use. Quite simply, I create them for my own use. Maybe I’ll share the one I’m just finishing up, maybe not.
I recently ran into an issue where someone created a livery that so strongly resembled a livery I created several years ago and had posted pics of online. While I didn’t think, state, or imply that the individuals had done it deliberately, I was verbally attacked, demonized, banned from their discord, and temporarily banned from posting on this website, just for trying to get others’ opinion on whether it was just me thinking it was a strong resemblance and not really so, so that I could stop being concerned about it.
The problem is with today’s internet and a lack of understanding of digital rights and copyright law among the vast majority of people. As a musician with registered copyrighted songs publicly available, it was important for me to learn and understand the laws. The weird thing is people often tell me incorrect things about the law with a sense of authority and arrogance.
In the end, unless you authorize someone to distribute or otherwise post your creations, for which you are the sole owner of all rights, no one has the right to redistribute them. The lack of understanding around this very simple concept is what drives people to think its okay to do it…and then you end up finding your liveries in places you never authorized.
… or maybe just for the sake of money ? … it seems unlikely it was done out of kindness or as a response to salve the wounds of all those seen rending garments and gnashing teeth in the forums
Yes, having studied copyright law I agree with that. The typical “Internet Lawyer” with no legal background will speak with an assurity that no actual lawyer would approach. Often quoting great slabs of EULA that have no legal standing (you can say what you like in a EULA but it is a meaningless empty threat unless it can be enforced in a court of law) or sprouting “common-sense” when the law and common-sense have a minimal relationship if any. A good lawyer will say something like " A court will typically rule ***** in this sort of case, but in the end it all depends on the particular judge sitting on that day "
Everyone can use it, no problem with that. The problem is when they steal my work, upload to another website without permission and put their name on the credits.
Freedom to use a product should not be confused with intellectual property.
He gives free use of his liveries, but he is the owner of the intellectual property of his work.
Regards.
All about constant digs - ‘you are gaming, WE are simming’.
The dynamics and models will get there, and just like XPlane when it first arrived, it will take time. In the end I believe MSFS will be the most advanced home sim available. Until then there will be the sniping implications that the sim that doesn’t simulate the medium in which the aircraft flies in, is the one for big boys and girls, and everything else is a toy. I can’t wait for the day the game vs sim argument is put to bed.
Under what license did you publish your work? You describe yourself as a freeware creator, but doesn’t that mean that other people are allowed to do with it what they want? If you do not want that, which I would totally understand, then you have to specify the terms and conditions yourself. It is probably best to pick an existing license. Now enforcing the terms and conditions, that is a difference, the website you mention probably don’t care about it, but at least you can then point them to the license.
Lmao. It is obvious that people can’t do whatever they want with other people’s work. They can go read flightsim.to therms if they want. Freeware doesn’t mean do whatever you want.
What you said there is what is known as a red herring, so I’m not really sure what it has to do with what I said. The issue introduced for discussion by the OP is not whether someone is making an identical representation of a trademarked livery. Instead, it’s more about the distribution of a work or product without authorization, and seeking an understanding of why people feel entitled to doing it.
The moment you create anything, whether it’s a livery, a song, a poem, a video, etc., it is copyrighted and you own all rights. Registering the copyright is only necessary if you want to be able to utilize the legal system for remedy if you discover that the work has indeed been copied or redistributed as someone else’s work. Ownership of all rights to an original work is where copyright is relevant to the discussion. It is a violation of intellectual property rights to distribute someone else’s product without their permission, no matter how well-meaning the person doing it is. It is okay to post a link to the website where the work has been authorized to host distribution, but it is not okay to take the product and host it without permission.
As far as real-world liveries:
Technically, it is actually a violation of copyright to take a real world airline livery, such as Alaska Airlines, recreate it, package it, and distribute it as an original work without permission from Alaska Airlines, even if you were to note that the rights to the livery belong to Alaska Airlines. Even though Joe Shmoe created the digital copy of the livery, the work is not their own to any degree and they cannot claim to be the artist. This is true whether it is distributed for free or for profit, although for profit is considered more serious. But in order for Alaska Airlines to utilize the legal system for a remedy against someone who does so this, Alaska Airlines would have to prove that they suffered some sort of loss as a result of it. It would be very difficult for the airline to prove that they suffered some form of loss from their livery appearing on digital 3D models in a simulator for the purpose of realistic immersion, particularly if there is no money involved. While they could realistically make a case, they’re more likely to suffer a public relations loss for doing so, thus it is not worth their time or resources to do so.
Sorry, did not mean any disrespect. But if you do not explicitly stipulate the terms and conditions, people will fill in the blanks themselves. You say freeware does not mean without restrictions, but what does it mean? It would be nice if people would use your work respectfully, but sadly that are always a few that won’t. It is better to be explicit about your terms. In software there are many license options, have a look at BSD and MIT licenses if you want.