SaQSoN
With respect sir, you are mistaken regarding copyright, intellectual property regarding game mods, at least regarding USA law
In USA, to sue you must show monetary damages, so while if anyone were to take 1C or UbiSoft copyright material and resell it without permission, 1C and Ubisoft would certainly be damaged .. if anyone were to distribute the core game and it's files, even for free, that would indeed be theft and damage 1C and Ubisoft
Mods as distributed, do not work without the player having a copy of IL-2 1946, presumably legally purchased .. if anything, an argument could be made that many more copies of IL-2 1946 have been sold because of mods, than if the game had not been cracked and modded
If game mods could be stopped through legal process, then why did not 1C - UbiSoft do so at the first chance ? ..
I will tell you why .. because this issue has existed since at least 1996, and no software company to my knowledge, much less a PC game company, has successfully sued to prevent distribution of mods or additions to a software. Since Half Life was modded to become CounterStrike, quite a few Game companies have encouraged modding and distributed the tools to do so, because it increases sales and can sometimes allow the company to acquire new content inexpensively and increase sales .. sometimes those mods become a *new* game like CounterStrike
TD does not own the rights to IL-2 1946 .. UbiSoft and 1C do .. if you have not been properly compensated for your work .. you can not sue modders over it .. in fact ...
I find it odd that TD claims it gains no compensation from 1C - UbiSoft for their work, that would likely be against labor laws in all 50 states in USA
I presume you get permission for any unique user content added "officially" to IL-2 1946, any unique textures, 3d models .. anything .. and permission from any user created hacking tools you may have used .. because not to do so would clearly be a violation of those authors' copyright
And while I'm not giving a legal opinion, I have protected authors' rights in another flight sim / game, and have lead 2 mod groups that dealt with IP rights of flight sim / game rights holders ..
I both greatly respect developers rights and software user / modder rights , so please don't misunderstand .. I greatly respect 1C and TD and the work you have done that is IL-2 1946 today
However I can say with complete confidence that TD would get nowhere attempting legal action against mod groups for adding or changing content of IL-2 1946, and to make threats accomplishes nothing except alienating most of those that read this forum
I am not, BTW, an IL-2 modder, however as a player of the game, I find your attitude objectionable, despite greatly enjoying the work TD has done for the game.
I also find it objectionable that the UP 2.01 splash screen does not included the TD logo .. 4.09m includes your work, and I always believe full credit should be given in any compiled work, and thanks given to all authors' work in readme files
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