Use of aircraft names in game legal or illegal?

[SPEKTRE76]

You be the judge, although I believe you will be happy with this law blog form Bradley & Gross Business Technology Law Firm. So, maybe we can get late corsairs in a new patch that is not part of a mod.

:grin:

http://www.bradleygross.com/2012/03/ea-sued-over-use-of-helicopters-in.html

[Pursuivant]

I'm glad to hear that legal opinion is turning against "copyright trolls" like Bell and possibly Northrop-Grumman. BUT:

1) The issue hasn't been fully decided yet. If it goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, there's every chance, given its recent history, that the court will decide in favor of the corporations and and against free speech.

UNTIL THE ISSUE IS CLEARLY DECIDED AND TD GETS OFFICIAL OK FROM 1C/UBISOFT TO DO DIFFERENTLY, THEY HAVE TO ABIDE BY THEIR CURRENT CONTRACT.

2) As regards the IL2 franchise, IT DOESN'T MATTER. 1C/UBISOFT SIGNED A CONSENT DECREE WITH NORTHROP-GRUMMAN. Different area of law entirely.

Subsequent legal precedents don't matter; 1C/Ubisoft is prohibited from adding Northrop-Grumman content, or any other content specified by the consent decree, to the game.

Only law which nullifies the consent decree will change things for certain.

Possibly, selling the IL2 franchise to a new owner, with a contract that doesn't oblige the new seller to abide by the NG consent decree might allow the new owner to add Northrop-Grumman content, but that depends on the exact wording of the consent decree. 1c/Ubisoft might be prohibited from selling without forcing the buyer to also accept the consent decree.

[Fighterace]

Shame we can't do much about that :(

[ElAurens]

Why keep beating this dead horse?

Nothing will change, no matter which way the US Supreme Court rules.
And besides, I doubt there is much interest in TD to push that particular envelope in any case.

'46 is selling for peanuts in the bargain bin, I don't expect that there will be much more after 4.13. I'm actually shocked that 1C keeps the lights on in here.

Look for that to change once BoS goes gold.

I don't like it, but that's how I see it.

[WhiskeyWhiskey]

I don't share your view, BoS and ClOD don't have the amount of development IL2 does, and so they lack long term potential.

Especially when you consider how limited they will be in aircraft, and for how long, which is pretty much forever.

ClOD I think will take too much private "hobby" development to get even a small selection of new aircraft, let alone the range that IL2 has. The Spits vs 109's type thing doesn't appeal to everyone. You don't have the P-40 or Tomahawk, or any other U.S. aircraft. But somehow the Italians are represented in the game with aircraft?

BoS excites me, but I still think that all the little details will take up all the development efforts, so we probably won't see anything new for a long time, let alone any US or British aircraft.

[ElAurens]

I agree with your assessment of CloD, BTW, the Italian planes are there, because the Italian planes were there during the Battle of Britain.

I don't know how long you have been around the original IL2 WW, but on release it was only the Eastern Front, and the number of flyable aircraft was quite small. Same as BoS is currently. Historical perspective and all that. IL2's
"long term potential" was a complete unknown at the time of it's release as well.

Now, if the new development team can make the new sim successful, and flesh it out beyond the initial offering is indeed an unknown, only time, and sales, will tell. I do find it troubling that they somehow found time and money to release another WW1 offering covering only the Russian aspect of the Great War. Seems an odd way to allocate finite resources to me.

We now know that 4.14 seems to be happening, so that is good for us. I hope that the fine people of DT continue supporting what is still the best WW2 air combat sim to date.

I do worry that once BoS goes Gold that there may be some fine print in the contract somewhere about 1C ending support for us here. The way things go in this world these days it would not surprise me in the least.

Cheers.

[IceFire]

I don't share your view, BoS and ClOD don't have the amount of development IL2 does, and so they lack long term potential.

Especially when you consider how limited they will be in aircraft, and for how long, which is pretty much forever.

ClOD I think will take too much private "hobby" development to get even a small selection of new aircraft, let alone the range that IL2 has. The Spits vs 109's type thing doesn't appeal to everyone. You don't have the P-40 or Tomahawk, or any other U.S. aircraft. But somehow the Italians are represented in the game with aircraft?

BoS excites me, but I still think that all the little details will take up all the development efforts, so we probably won't see anything new for a long time, let alone any US or British aircraft.
FYI: Italian aircraft are represented because the time period that Oleg's old team selected was from June 1940 to November 1940.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpo_Aereo_Italiano

"The "Italian Air Corps" (Corpo Aereo Italiano, or CAI) was an expeditionary force of the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) that participated in the Battle of Britain during the final months of 1940 during World War II. The CAI supported the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and flew against the British Royal Air Force (RAF). The CAI achieved limited success during its brief existence. In general, the corps was hampered by the inadequacy of its equipment."

And so forth.

Aircraft covered by the N-G agreement are never going to appear in an official IL-2 1946 release unfortunately. That ship sailed many years ago. Fortunately we do have a solid selection and a few more American types can still be added from Curtiss for example.

BoS will likely eventually subsume most of the interest that I still have with IL-2. But with a new patch on the way and some exciting new content, IL-2 4.13+ still has some life left in it I think. We had 50+ players on Battlefields1 on Hyperlobby last week. It's not dead yet and we can have so much fun playing so many different theatres.

[Fighterace]

FYI: Italian aircraft are represented because the time period that Oleg's old team selected was from June 1940 to November 1940.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpo_Aereo_Italiano

"The "Italian Air Corps" (Corpo Aereo Italiano, or CAI) was an expeditionary force of the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) that participated in the Battle of Britain during the final months of 1940 during World War II. The CAI supported the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and flew against the British Royal Air Force (RAF). The CAI achieved limited success during its brief existence. In general, the corps was hampered by the inadequacy of its equipment."

And so forth.

Aircraft covered by the N-G agreement are never going to appear in an official IL-2 1946 release unfortunately. That ship sailed many years ago. Fortunately we do have a solid selection and a few more American types can still be added from Curtiss for example.

BoS will likely eventually subsume most of the interest that I still have with IL-2. But with a new patch on the way and some exciting new content, IL-2 4.13+ still has some life left in it I think. We had 50+ players on Battlefields1 on Hyperlobby last week. It's not dead yet and we can have so much fun playing so many different theatres.

It's such a crying shame that IL-2 1946 will never ever get official Northrop Grumman aircraft into this great flight sim. The potential of these denied aircraft would of been enormous.

I'll go out on a limb here and say I'm still hopeful that one day, maybe one day the situation might change but for the moment I still love what Team Daidalos does for this great flight sim.

That's my 2 cents. Keep up the great work TD

Thanks.

[IceFire]

It's such a crying shame that IL-2 1946 will never ever get official Northrop Grumman aircraft into this great flight sim. The potential of these denied aircraft would of been enormous.

I'll go out on a limb here and say I'm still hopeful that one day, maybe one day the situation might change but for the moment I still love what Team Daidalos does for this great flight sim.

That's my 2 cents. Keep up the great work TD

Thanks.

You mean "any more N-G aircraft". We have a ton. We just cannot add anything more.

It unfortunately will not change. Not for this product. But as you can see other products that have shipped since then haven't run into the same problems... War Thunder and surely anything that comes from IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad would offer a kick at this stuff again. The legalities surround only Pacific Fighters and the rest of the original IL-2 product and that includes TD patches.

[Fighterace]

You mean "any more N-G aircraft". We have a ton. We just cannot add anything more.

It unfortunately will not change. Not for this product. But as you can see other products that have shipped since then haven't run into the same problems... War Thunder and surely anything that comes from IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad would offer a kick at this stuff again. The legalities surround only Pacific Fighters and the rest of the original IL-2 product and that includes TD patches.

"Any more N-G aircraft" was what I meant to say. My bad

[Janosch]

We had 50+ players on Battlefields1 on Hyperlobby last week. It's not dead yet and we can have so much fun playing so many different theatres.

Battlefields1 is an arcade server (open cockpit, padlock etc) and thus not a good indicator of anything. When there are no players left on at least halfway decent servers, on hyperlobby or not, then the game is dead. As it is, realistic servers are still drawing people in!

[RPS69]

Just for the record, IL2 appeared in a time where something like it was hungered for.
It raised the bar so high, that any new product that tries to emulate the same level of success, can't go that further away from the il2 general concept.

Right now, the market is going on the respawning way, not the cooperative way. It is more like having a quicky, and forget about the fullfilling life.

[IceFire]

Battlefields1 is an arcade server (open cockpit, padlock etc) and thus not a good indicator of anything. When there are no players left on at least halfway decent servers, on hyperlobby or not, then the game is dead. As it is, realistic servers are still drawing people in!

I understand that some like different realism settings and that's fine but "halfway decent" is insulting. We (and myself included) worked pretty hard to put 60+ detailed scenarios in place with a mix of history and action to appeal to a pretty wide audience. Our admins are on as often as possible to make sure rules are followed and people are having a good time.

We still have players interested in playing on a regular basis. That's a good thing. Even if it doesn't fit some narrow definition.

[ElAurens]

While I prefer more difficult settings for some things, the whole notion that "more difficult = more real", and strident comments like Janosch made, is what is slowly and surely killing this genre.

"Hard core" players have always made up the minority of those playing the IL2 franchise, yet, because we screamed the loudest on the various forums, the game (yes it is a game guys) became more and more a niche playground for those the like the most difficult, if not the most realistic, settings. Thus, the majority of players that paid the bills for the thing in the first place, were left behind, and by and large went offline or stopped playing altogether.

Any future combat flight sim has to be scalable and inclusive of all game play types to be successful, otherwise we end up with two totally divergent camps, study sims like DCS that offer little content for big bucks, or arcade shooters like War Thunder, neither choice is acceptable to the majority of players that made IL2, to this day, the best WW2 virtual air combat title ever.

[Janosch]

Let's shoot down one misconception, shall we? Realistic settings do not in itself equal more difficult gameplay. Realism makes the gameplay deeper and more interesting, and some things actually become easier! It is easier to make a surprise attack on a realistic server (at least since things like dead low 6 exist), it's easier for jabos to sneak on deck, if all opponents are at 5000m or so, and you actually gain some advantage from the excellent cockpit visibility of planes like P-51D, since cockpit graphics cannot be turned off, et cetera.

With realistic settings, the learning curve can be bigger than with arcade settings. However, in online conditions, difficulty ultimately comes from other players. Let's not forget that the "difficult" settings apply equally to all your opponents and teammates! I have absolutely no doubt that if servers like bf1 suddenly changed to full or 90,44% real, people would adjust in a relatively small amount of time.

Why anyone would buy Il-2 '46 today (or more importantly BoS) just to play them on arcade settings is beyond me. There's no use in directly competing with games like War Thunder.

[GF_Mastiff]

Don't worry guys, we have Law firms that play this Sim; so its being worked on behind the scene's.

[Furio]

Let's shoot down one misconception, shall we?

Who decides what is a misconception? I learned to fly in real airplanes before trying flight sims, and – in my opinion – many “realistic settings” are not realistic at all, while others represent simply more workload. Generally speaking, I agree with El, above. I play offline, and I play my way, without asking other people to share my tastes.

[IceFire]

Let's shoot down one misconception, shall we? Realistic settings do not in itself equal more difficult gameplay. Realism makes the gameplay deeper and more interesting, and some things actually become easier! It is easier to make a surprise attack on a realistic server (at least since things like dead low 6 exist), it's easier for jabos to sneak on deck, if all opponents are at 5000m or so, and you actually gain some advantage from the excellent cockpit visibility of planes like P-51D, since cockpit graphics cannot be turned off, et cetera.

With realistic settings, the learning curve can be bigger than with arcade settings. However, in online conditions, difficulty ultimately comes from other players. Let's not forget that the "difficult" settings apply equally to all your opponents and teammates! I have absolutely no doubt that if servers like bf1 suddenly changed to full or 90,44% real, people would adjust in a relatively small amount of time.

Why anyone would buy Il-2 '46 today (or more importantly BoS) just to play them on arcade settings is beyond me. There's no use in directly competing with games like War Thunder.

I agree with you up to the point where you think that people have to play with the most difficult settings. The easier settings on IL-2 1946 are still (IMHO) better than anything you'll get in War Thunder - War Thunder's arcade is another style altogether.

What you said still strikes me as rude or maybe elitist. Accept that people play this differently and still enjoy it.

I've had fun on all levels of difficulty and I'm glad they exist.

[Treetop64]

I don't expect that there will be much more after 4.13. I'm actually shocked that 1C keeps the lights on in here.

Look for that to change once BoS goes gold.

I don't like it, but that's how I see it.

You and me both. Everything beyond 4.12 is a bonus as far as I'm concerned. I wasn't even expecting any talk about 4.14, and frankly will be surprised if that version ever becomes realized.

Makes it a bit difficult to plan for campaign building when you're waiting for content from the latest version to be released, though. I've got two that have been put in deep freeze waiting (for years, as it turned out) for the release of v4.13.

As for the NG issue: let it die, people. That horse bolted long, long ago.

[robday]

As for the NG issue: let it die, people. That horse bolted long, long ago.

Not only bolted, it's long dead. So let's stop flogging it!