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VA's and piracy


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To Stephen:

My apologies, this indeed should never have appeared. The file has been deleted.

Stijn

Stijn,

Could you please be more proactive and remove *all* copyrighted Navigraph charts? The charts for WMKK is another example, it's in the same directory so you should find it quite easily...

Stephen

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Stijn,

Could you please be more proactive and remove *all* copyrighted Navigraph charts? The charts for WMKK is another example, it's in the same directory so you should find it quite easily...

Stephen

Stephen,

I'm checking all 208 DOTW's we've had so far.

Stijn

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  • Aerosoft

Stijn, it would also be worthwhile to investigate who uploaded them so the copyright holders can check if it is a legit customer. Downloading copyrighted products is one offence, but sharing it knowingly is a much bigger deal. Aerosoft always starts procedures against those things and we will not offer a settlement. If there is a pilot who uploaded them I think that is one pilot you better be without. If it is a staff member you got far bigger problems.

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Stijn, it would also be worthwhile to investigate who uploaded them so the copyright holders can check if it is a legit customer. Downloading copyrighted products is one offence, but sharing it knowingly is a much bigger deal. Aerosoft always starts procedures against those things and we will not offer a settlement. If there is a pilot who uploaded them I think that is one pilot you better be without. If it is a staff member you got far bigger problems.

Mathijs,

It's been sorted out internally and won't be repeated. The files were offered in our Destination of the Week series, where we try really hard to find charts, scenery links and other material to improve the mission's immersion. In nearly all cases, we obtain these charts from the destination's civil aviation authority's AIP website.

We can't change the error of judgement we made when offering these copyrighted files, as that happened in the past. That should not have happened, full stop. However, we can only change the present and the future, and in addition to a personal and public apology to Navigraph, removing the files and ensuring that this will not be repeated, there's not much more than we can do.

Stijn

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Hello all !
Mathijs, you're right.
However, and you probably know it, you must prove damages (financials or morals) to take a legal action.
And to be serious, I don't think damages are very important.
But I repeat, you're right, it's not fun to see copyrights files into several virtual airlines websites.
But, I think we are here between fanatics and probably some mistakes have been does by some virtual airlines (perhaps and probably without any intention to steal Navigraph or Aerosoft)...
In this cases, I think the better way to resolve those problems is to talk, quietly, without any menace.
A proof ?
Stijn has deleted all the copyrighted files in a matter of hours !
Do you think any legal action can be more efficiently than that ?
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  • Aerosoft

Mathijs, you're right.

However, and you probably know it, you must prove damages (financials or morals) to take a legal action.

To claim compensation, sure. But I'm not after a few Euro, we just want to get rid of these rats. And after we done our report with the police it it up to them, no need to proof damages in Germany for that. And although many young folks still do not believe it, you get convicted in a matter of days. Stijn did respond and that's rare, most VA think that if they stay quiet it will blow over. But the fact is that his VA was instrumental in distributing pirated software. Most of this pilots will have gathered up the files quickly before they were removed.

And we'll shout it from the rooftops so everybody knows when we catch a VA pirating. As I said many just ignore us until we start spamming their own Facebook pages and forums until we get some reply. We have no a fine set of pilots that are joining VA's to find out what's going on.

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(...) But the fact is that his VA was instrumental in distributing pirated software. Most of this pilots will have gathered up the files quickly before they were removed.

Mathijs, with all respect, the word instrumental is an exaggeration. I checked the page views of all DOTW's that had copyrighted charts removed, and they are consistent with all the other destinations that have charts that were obtained from civial aviation authorities. Furthermore, I understand that the files concerned were collected via a Google search. Again, we appreciate your and Stephen's justified anger. We made an error of judgement and these charts should never have appeared. For that, we have apologised and we have taken decisive and appropriate corrective action.

Stijn

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"Update" just got in toutch with the Vice and he replied they will be removing them. iff further action is needed let me know

Unfortunately, nothing has happened. All airports are still available for free download from the Ottoman VA site.

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watching this thread for a while.

@ Aerosoft/Navigraph

If one isn't equipped with sense of justice neither patience nor idle threat will ever dam piracy in VA

environment.

So if i wonna be taken seriously i'd contact VATSIM/IVAO officials to reset accounts, hours, ranks of any pirating involved VA member

and /or (time) ban. These portals should have that info in their databases to execute such request at the touch of a button,

if those files aren't deleted beween 3 days/a week, whatver.

I'm sure this info will rapidly spreading if being considered. This will of course not help to rat fellows but to pressurise administrators and

VA officials, without being a traitor yourself as VA member.

To reset painstaking earned virtual fame should be very effective if we talk about the digital generation.

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Unfortunately, nothing has happened. All airports are still available for free download from the Ottoman VA site.

At this point i also have not been able to contact them anny more all my messages seem to be ignored for the last days i will try again this evening.

Update: for the moment i got one off the staff members and they deleted the links on the site. only the direct paths to the files remain untilm the can contact the server manager to delete the files from the server. i know this is actually not satisfying even not for me but its a start and i do my best to get them to delete the files as its an unacceptable thing to do.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Came across this when googling PFPX templates for diffrent airplanes. Not sure what it is but looks like those products available for download by them. Its annoying to see people always taking the easy way out. I save a few bucks a month for my purchases as long as my wife allows it!! :boohoo_s:

Wellknown site

Link removed. We do not want to make it to easy for them. ;)

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I find it amusing that charts are actually considered pirated material as by Belarusian legislation there is absolutely no laws against software piracy since one of our virtual airlines got accused of it. In fact actions taken were nothing.

As for the case of Ottoman Virtual I personally know their staff members and they're honestly a "don't care attitude" about piracy as they have more important things to do. They're not very seriuous about their airline either and the management is a whole lot of a mess which is why I am not staff there anymore.

However, I do have one more interesting case of a well known FS software company using copyrighted navigraph charts included in their product that they sell for a very expensive rate. Selling copyrighted materials with your product is actually a very serious offense. If anyone's interested I can let them know as I'm not sure if I should mention any names right now. The sole reason I registered on this site is to warn people of this.

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  • Aerosoft

However, I do have one more interesting case of a well known FS software company using copyrighted navigraph charts included in their product that they sell for a very expensive rate. Selling copyrighted materials with your product is actually a very serious offense. If anyone's interested I can let them know as I'm not sure if I should mention any names right now. The sole reason I registered on this site is to warn people of this.

But we also include charts, we just buy the rights to do so. As far as I know all other commercial vendors do the same.

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With that, you mean all other vendors that do include charts with their products. By far not all developers do include charts, Aerosoft always does so.

It's a good thing you pay for the rights to include those charts, I wouldn't expect anything else. However, most of these charts are also free available on the web. On my tablet I got an app called SimPlates for Flight Simulator by Dauntless Aviation. It's a payware app, but once bought you can get all charts in the world free of charge. So how does that stand towards paying for charts?

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But we also include charts, we just buy the rights to do so. As far as I know all other commercial vendors do the same.

I guess that clears the case up for that other company too as most likely they are paying for their charts as well.

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With that, you mean all other vendors that do include charts with their products. By far not all developers do include charts, Aerosoft always does so.

It's a good thing you pay for the rights to include those charts, I wouldn't expect anything else. However, most of these charts are also free available on the web. On my tablet I got an app called SimPlates for Flight Simulator by Dauntless Aviation. It's a payware app, but once bought you can get all charts in the world free of charge. So how does that stand towards paying for charts?

Indeed, just go to google and search "UUEE charts", and you're going to several virtual airline pages and other websites who have uploaded charts right to the PDF viewer free of charge. Mostly jeppesen and navigraph. Very rarely real life charts.

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But we also include charts, we just buy the rights to do so. As far as I know all other commercial vendors do the same.

Mathijs ... being a developer that sells products to the retail world and having to protect the software we produce (not flight sim related), I can provide you some very good ways to identify and protect your property. PM me if you are interested (I'll provide you an email, sorry forums aren't secure). I know you have disagreed with me in the past on piracy prevention, subscriptions, and the like, but 60% of the population pirate software - an unfortunately reality.

It boggles my mine that folks can afford computers/hardware to fly simulators but claim to not be able to afford products like NavDataPro (SimPlates, etc. etc.) so they steal it. Unfortunately the cost required to prosecute these people often isn't worth the payoff even when the case is won and some international laws positively make it almost impossible to even file a case (I think most know the countries that fit that list). However, there are far more effective means that can be built into the software to identify and inhibit effective use of software ... hackers aren't the smartest tools in the shed, primitive at best ... we've designed a process that has not been hacked and is highly effective in ensuring our continue revenue from our work we do day in and day out.

Cheers, Rob.

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But nice people want to see you grow and develop more products, that can only be done with increased revenue.

60% piracy is a big problem, the more software developers "accept it", the more that number continues to increase.

Anyway, we've made a VERY successful stand against theft.

Cheers, Rob.

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I certainly believe you've made a very successful stand against theft, no doubt about that. But keep in mind that 60 percent piracy does not mean 60 percent more sales if piracy would vanish. There are always people who wouldn't buy it if they had to pay for it, but only use it if they can get a free (illegal) copy. Those are not lost sales. However, more tight security (making it harder to activate a legally bought product) might mean lost sales. People wouldn't buy it because they find it too difficult to activate it.

Let's face it this way. There's 60 percent piracy, but out of that 60 percent there's 40 percent who wouldn't have bought it anyway. That leaves 20 percent to gain. But on the other hand there's customers who wouldn't buy it if the security was too tight. Let's say that's also 20 percent. All together you don't win anything with it, you only piss of your customers. For these reasons I can understand the decisions being made.

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  • Aerosoft

Any system that is safe needs a connection to a server. That alone reduces sales by 10% (solid sales), increase support by 20% and increase the annoyance level from honest customers by 30%. The moment we dropped our online registration system we sold more and the amount of money made per sale increased 22%

DRM is outdated. It is simply not fair to annoy honest people to prevent rats from stealing.

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