rec.autos.simulators

(Tim.s TPTCC physics, GN1970 physics, etc..)   What's next?

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

Steve

No problem, in other words. Just a bit more work for us end-users...

---Asgeir---

Kaemmer's beef in his open letter is around copying his work. His analogy on
cars refers to taking a BMW M3 to a car copier and driving two out. Well
he'd better wake up to the world of warez and discover that new releases
most often are cracked and distributed on the net before the retail
distribution has even got started.

The modders have in general had a semi official status and been completely
open in their approach. I am not aware of any copying of NR2003 to the
extent that you didn't need the original product. Indeed the price of NR2003
has come back out of the bargain bin following the launch of GTP.

Pushing the mods underground to join warez would negate the need to do the
right thing and illegal mods would be accompanied with illegal copies of
NR2003. Even if not deliberately the mods would share the same distribution
network as the illegal copies.

Compared with the illegal copying this would be a drop in the ocean, but
tackling warez can't be achieved through some lawyers letters to people who
are doing nothing to conceal their identity. Quite why hacking is perceived
as worse than duplicating defeats me.

Their anti piracy efforts would prevent anyone playing modified exes online
anyway.

Therefore, I can only conclude the concern is with the NR2003 code being
independently developed to something better than F1RST can produce impacting
on sales in the future, which rather smacks of a lack of confidence doesn't
it?

Cheers
Tony

It gives the impression that what they are coming out with is not going to
have an all new look (graphics) and feel. That would be a disappointment to
me, especially when it's going up against rFactor. A rehash of the old
engine is not going to do it anymore.

--
David G Fisher

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

I reckon there's plenty life in the old dog yet.

I maintain that the issue is one of licensing.

Let's say exe modding was allowed to go on.  In future I might have 2
choices:

Option 1: Free N2003 mod that simulates (fudges?) Ferraris or Porsches
by a bunch of talented and well meaning people who pay nothing to the
marques.

Option 2: "pay-for" product that accurately recreates the feel of
driving car A (looks a bit like a Porsche) and car B (looks kind of
like a Ferrari).

Quality of the subtleties and nuances has little to do with it - people
want to pretend to drive real cars.

Does Kaemer make anything off sales of N2003 now?

    Then I'd like a version of F1 that is based on what F1 could be in 2005
if cost and safety were of no concern ie as fast as 2005 human technology
could make them go :))))

    Dream on! :)

    For me this is simple - Dave Ks concern over this means we can have
little confidence that FIRST will be blowing up anyones skirt anytime soon.

I'm saying the following after making it clear that this is what I _think_ is
true, but I may be wrong and have misunderstood these issues. So the following
may be entirely incorrect. That said, here goes...

I think I remember that in European trademark law, if the owner of a trademark
doesn't defend his trademark if someone wants to use it or a very similar, this
might cause him to lose the rights to that trademark,

What if something similar is the case with copyrights laws in the US or in
another market FIRST is targetting?

I.e., what if, if Kaemmer wouldn't defend his copyrights now but wished to do so
later, a lawyer might take this failure on Kaemmer's part to attempt to protect
his copyright as an implicit waiving of his copyright, even though this was
never intended?

Correct me if I'm wrong (but only do so if you really know better, not just
because it sounds unbelievable).

Also, Papy purchased licences for N2003. I think in such deals, the licensee
might sometimes be required to prevent the mis-use of that licence through his
product. I.e., the conditions of such a licence contract might force Kaemmer to
take action, simply to avoid that someone else takes action against him.

I probably should have just shut up, but if the above is true, i.e. if I haven't
misunderstood this, it would makes Kaemmers actions quite understandable,
wouldn't it.

Achim

It is certainly true that also according to the US _trademark_ law you can
lose your trademark if you don't defend it. However, with a quick search I
cannot find any mention of this being the case with copyrights. Actually
someone has apparently studied the issue and on page
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00916a says he cannot
find evidence of the need to defend a copyright in order not to lose it.

The issues mentioned in Kaemmers open letter are mostly about copyrights. If
we think about the GTP mod there could be trademark issues with the car
manufacturers if original names were used. But I don't think any contract
regarding Nascar 2003 could force First to defend those trademarks since the
car makes are different from Nascar 2003. It's up to the manufacturers to
protect their trademarks.

As for the copyright issues, First has, of course, full right to protect
their copyrights even if they are not in the risk of losing them. If you try
to look at it from a non-lawyer perspective I think it's a fine line between
sensibly protecting your rights and overprotecting them. It's anybody's
guess which side we are on now. It's perhaps a question of what could be the
damage to First Racing caused by mods such as the GTP mod. The answer to
that question, I think, depends on whether First Racing is planning to
introduce a really new product or just a mod of Nascar 2003.

Thanks for the info. Just got back from Egypt, hence the delay. Anyway, I'm glad
we got GTP now. It's great fun!

Achim