> "Narrow-casting" (semi-peivate distribution) of "art" is the gray area
> we're
> talking about, and who'd win a suit would depend on who had the deeper
> pockets.
Exactly. I often wrote about this here, that we have to remember that 99%
of all modifications third-party users have done probably have some form of
legal gray area. Just take car paints, how many of them have decals and
sponsors which they have not agreed to? All of them. Heck even putting the
standard Nascar decals near the door number, is in the gray area (that was,
after Papyrus stopped having their own paintkit with licensed decals). Same
for tracks with billboards, etc...
So if they start stopping mods, they also enter in the gray area where
themselves don't put the effort to block completely ALL possible legal
issues. That would be crazy, basically the software would be a simple
client where we couldn't alter anything, from sounds, tracks, graphical
add-ons, etc... as they would fear public distribution of such
modifications.
They should have went the Microsoft way with the FS series, and just made it
open in their first release back a decade ago. FS will stop being popular
in the future if they start blocking more and more distributions of
third-party add-ons (that where they built their market), so
Papyrus/F1RST/whatever should have had gone the same road with their racing
sim, nowadays we wouldn't fight for these issues as it would be the selling
point behind the simulator.
--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...
