Sid P., on 16 May 2014 - 07:30 AM, said:
I was thinking about some of the statements that I find in some contributed MSTS material on TrainSim.com and ElvasTower.com, such as Cabview sets, locomotive shape files, etc.. These files are really the heart of the user world of MSTS (and ORTS). In some cases, the authors simply request an acknowledgement of source. If the original files were part of payware, for example, modifying them and distributing them could be a problem.
Or am I being concerned unnecessarily?
Sid
No......... I discussed this whole topic on another forum that had more than a few "legal types" on it. They said files like the eng cvf and all such config files are derivative of some else's (Micrsoft or whoever current holds MSTS's Intelectual property rights) work so cannot be copyrighted again. So one is free to distribute such files.
He case for the artwork, shapes and textures, is a completely different story.
There's a lot of missunderstanding of Interlectual property rights in the MSTS world I have found, this makes the whole process very distressing so I have almost given up entirely any hope of producing anything decent and keep all work to myself and I know I am not the only one working that way.
Lindsay
PS, I come from the linux world where this problem simply does not exist and I find MSTS very frustrating to work in after doing much work in far free-er Linux.