Will user MODS, find their way into MSFS updates.?

Will user MODS, find their way into MSFS updates. ?

An interesting question from both the Technical, Moral & Legal perspective ?

Do ASOBO look at user Mods, learn from them, and then incorporate those idea, or even directly the same code, into MSFS,

If they do, do they acknowledge this, or maybe even compensate those whose idea and code they have used.

What is the Copyright situation here ??

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They cannot use a persons mod unless it’s under a permissive license or they have permission to use it, I doubt they would include mod content in any case, generally speaking you can’t copyright ideas but specific code and content they cannot include.
I.E if you made a plane mod, they or anyone else can make the same plane, provided it’s not outright copying your code, models, textures, etc.

Yes… all true.

But at what point does Code from a Mod, stop being code from a Mod, and original Asobo created code.

This is the difficult one… Typically it is ultimately decided (by the courts) to be an original creation, no matter how closely it matches the other content, by being able to prove that the original content has not been viewed.
Once you look at the original code, it become very difficult to prove that it was not copied in someway.

I just though it was an interesting situation. Microsoft making $$ Millions on MSFS, while amateur (or professional) Moders may be having their work taken and used without any “Consideration” – (another key legal term here ).

If the transfer of Modders IP was handled in far & open way, it would be a win-win situation for everyone … Modders- Microsoft/Asobo - and MSFS users.

Already, just after a few months after release, looking at the number of Man-Hours that Modders have put into Mods, far exceeds any time or resourse that Asobo could possible come close to.

Adding mods to the marketplace would be the ideal situation. They would be able to be centrally updated as well. I believe this is listed as being investigated on the list-o-things roadmap tracker they release.

Not so sure I like the sound of that idea, for so many reasons …

I am 100% for Moders getting compensated for their work, but having a mass of Mod, on the Marketplace, DRM locked, may not be the best answer.

Then Complication of Mods interacting with each other.
Who is going to check that a new Mod, is not going to break another Mod - massive task as Mods increase.
Many Modders learn how to mod by example. Locking up those examples in encoder DRM packages, will limit that spread of knowledge.

Personally I would far prefer to see Asobo approach a Modder who has produced something that Asobo believe is worth while adding to the Sim, make then a fair offer for its use, and then Officially include it, or an Asobo updated version of it, into the Sim, fully integrated with whatever else it needs to work with.

Then, we are back to the more Repeatable and Stable condition, that the Sim should work, reliably for ALL with nothing in Community, rather than the alternative, of many have a differing selection of Mods and not knowing what is messing up what.

Maye the plan is to just have “THE ONE BIG ASOBO CONTROLLED MOD” – that one can opt to use or not … but that still presents problems.

The idea situation would be if NO mods were Needed, and the closest way to get to that is to have Mods include and integrated into the base package ??

That’s just my thoughts — … I think it should be up to the Modders to have the majority say in how this should work, and how their IP should be used and compensated for.

They have certainly looked at what is going on with mods to get an idea of what people want added or fixed. An example of this would be the glass cockpit refresh mod which then turned in to an option in game to alter the refresh rate. The implementation may differ but conceptually they are the same. I’ve seen this in another game that is has been developed over nearly ten years now. Mods that come about and become considered almost essential within the community have slowly had their concept added to the core game. The developers don’t outright copy the mods but inevitably there is a certain amount of similarity as the functions they implement are the same.

I must admit, I didn’t read the EULA because it’s one of those things where my want to use the software outweighs the typically egregious overreaching they insist on (plus, I’ve probably agreed to most of it because Windows) but it wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve already claimed certain rights to any of your creations made within the software, including using those ideas.

Also no, turning the marketplace in to free for all mod hosting is just too much of a headache. What keeps getting lost in translation here is what people asked for was a means to submit fixes in the scenery and airports to Microsoft / Asobo and they get integrated to the core download. People don’t want and shouldn’t need to be adding a hundred mods that correct the taxi ways or fix terrain height. Somehow the dev streams always turns in to this misunderstanding that people want google maps photogrammetry on the marketplace. :man_facepalming:

Mod and addon developers both freeware and payware should be responsible for bug fixing and compatibility updates.