AH-1 Merge Request

Hi,
My development of the Bell AH-1W Cobra is far enough along where
I feel it is time to commit it to GIT, especially in time for the new
release. I use GIT, but I don't know enough about it to commit it
myself. If somebody could commit it for me that would be really great.
Loading Image...

http://jackmermod.yolasite.com/resources/AH-1%2012-12-10.zip

The archive Jack has provided contains a Red Bull livery which is based on the RB logo as trademarked by Red Bull, Austria.

Unless it is clear that distributing this trademarked item is legal I propose not to include the livery into FlightGear GIT.
Otherwise legal action against FlightGear could be filed.

A clarification is currently ongoing.

Details start here: http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10130&start=195#p113224

Jack had been involved in this debate.

Oliver

Jack Mermod

2011-02-16 00:50:36 UTC

Hi,

The Red Bull livery has been removed from this release.

Download: http://jackmermod.bplaced.net/Files/cobra21511.zip

I find it ridiculous and a bit immature how Oliver people whine about
a simple logo.

If Oliver really cared about preventing fictitious lawsuits as he
claims to, he would concentrate his efforts on the several red bull
logos that are already in our database.

If this thread is further interfered with, I will be forced to result
to more forceful methods of having my work committed, or I may very
well change the license back to the CC license and our community will
have missed out on a very high quality aircraft.

Regards,
Jack

Arnt Karlsen

2011-02-16 02:27:11 UTC

On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:50:36 -0800, Jack wrote in message

Post by Jack Mermod
Hi,
The Red Bull livery has been removed from this release.
Download: http://jackmermod.bplaced.net/Files/cobra21511.zip
I find it ridiculous and a bit immature how Oliver people whine
about a simple logo.
If Oliver really cared about preventing fictitious lawsuits as he
claims to, he would concentrate his efforts on the several red bull
logos that are already in our database.

.._where_?

Post by Jack Mermod
If this thread is further interfered with, I will be forced to
result to more forceful methods of having my work committed, or I may
very well change the license back to the CC license and our community
will have missed out on a very high quality aircraft.
Regards,
Jack

..as you may know, we're not Big Blue, and Big Blue is still here:
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20031016162215566

..in 18 days, this _bullshit_ "case" celebrates its 8'th year in US
Courts. All it takes, is Big Money and Air Show Quality Litigation.

..the reason Big Blue survives, is it still _has_ Big Money.

..now, imagine where _we_ would have been if tSCOG _had_ a case
against Big Blue. You would have had to pay tSCOG US $1499
(or whatever it was) for every thread in your cpu. They were
targeting GPL code, and the GPL itself, as anti-American.

..even as we celebrate the approaching conclusion of:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110215183557939 in
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20040319041857760
it is _just_ a side show. http://groklaw.net/ has waaay more.

--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.

Peter Morgan

2011-02-16 11:29:18 UTC

PodaVhone issue:

http://code.google.com/p/flightgear-bugs/issues/detail?id=56&can=1&q=vodaphone

Tips:
#1 don't mention the "brand" name as you are are aware of it and thus
intentional.. (or patents)

Sorry, but I have worked in this area and they are out to kill as interest
is held...

Flightgear needs to avoid them completely, unless - we have permission

To have permission we need someone/something/entity to have agreement with..

Indeed PJ is very handy, my dream would be she could represent FG, lots of
choclates and free flights imagined..

pete

Reagan Thomas

2011-02-16 15:12:21 UTC

Post by Arnt Karlsen
On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:50:36 -0800, Jack wrote in message

.._where_?

..now, imagine where _we_ would have been if tSCOG _had_ a case
against Big Blue. You would have had to pay tSCOG US $1499
(or whatever it was) for every thread in your cpu. They were
targeting GPL code, and the GPL itself, as anti-American.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110215183557939 in
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20040319041857760
it is _just_ a side show. http://groklaw.net/ has waaay more.

Jack,

You know who takes trademark law seriously? Trademark owners.

An owner must protect their trademarks from being used in ways that
decrease the value to them. This tends to be two areas, one very
specific and the other kind of broad. The first thing they must protect
against is their trademark becoming generic; if everyone refers to an
adhesive bandage as a "Band-Aid", then Johnson and Johnson, who owns
that trademark, runs the risk of losing the exclusive use of it. In
fact, they made their advertising jingle many years ago to include
"stuck on Band-Aid brand" as a very public way of asserting their
ownership of the brand. Did you know Otis Elevator company came up with
and trademarked the name "escalator"? They did not actively (enough)
assert their ownership of that trademark and have lost any rights of
exclusivity to it. It is now a generic term that any company can use to
refer to stairs that move or anything else, for that matter. In these
cases, it is an *urgent* obligation of the trademark owner to sue the
pants off of any infringer.

The remaining broad category is your trademark being used in any other
way that decreases its value to you. This can be using it to refer to
products or things it isn't intended to be associated with, removing the
focus from the owner's product(s). Worse are cases where a trademark is
used in ways that are harmful to the image of the owner or the owner's
products.

A hopefully imaginary example here might be the questionable marketing
practices of certain people who are selling FlightGear to the public.
Hell, even *we* don't want to be associated with them... why would Red
Bull (tm) like it any better? They have much more to lose, in terms of
gross dollars, than anyone here does if their trademarks were to become
associated with misbehavior. So, you might say, let them go after
ProSimFraud if they are misbehaving. The ProFraudSimulator people would
simply point to FlightGear and say, "hey this is Open Source and *they*
did it!"

This topic has come up here before and I even checked with American
Airlines about use of their logos/trademarks. Their answer was dense
legal talk that I roughly translated to mean "we realize we can't stop
everybody from using our logos, but boy howdy, we have the right to kick
your ass in court if you do it and tick us off!"

How is open source Red Hat Enterprise different from open source
CentOS? Trademarks. The words "Red Hat" and any logos owned by them
are completely removed by the CentOS group, leaving the only
encumbrances those obligations covered by the GPL. It's kind of neat
that you can take a Red Hat installation, point it to a CentOS
repository instead of the Red Hat network and have it install updates.
When the updates are complete, Ta dah! You now have a CentOS branded
installation. Back on point, Red Hat differentiates its products by the
services they provide and the *trademarks* that they own. Sure, you can
use their operating system code freely, but not their services or
*trademarks*. Like American Airlines, they have the right to kick your
ass in court for doing so.

If the Red Bull were to get litigious on us, they'd have to put some
names on the law suit. There isn't a FlightGear Foundation or any
single entity responsible for FG, so right at the top of the list would
be names near and dear to us, starting with Curtis Olson. The list of
defendants would probably include anyone else identified as being
responsible for the infringement, such as whoever committed the livery
to git and whoever participated in releasing the software to the public
in any other way. Heck, they may even remember to include Jack Mermod.

We all break the law every once in a while, so let's do a risk weight
comparison between two things that seem pretty minor: Speeding and
trademark infringement. I often drive over 60 miles per hour in a 55
MPH zone. My main risk is a fine that will run at most about $80 and my
chances of getting caught are relatively low. In comparison, even
*successfully* defending yourself from an infringement suit will run at
least in the 10's of thousands of dollars. Oh, and given the public
nature of the FG project, I'd guess the chance of Red Bull noticing
trademark infringement is about 100%. Whether or not they would sue,
don't know, but would you risk it? Should Curtis Olson risk it on your
behalf?

Curtis Olson

2011-02-16 15:36:18 UTC

I hate to wade into mud wrestling matches. But for every one who is on
their high horse about being pristine in our non-use of any possible
trademarked items ... have you browsed through our aircraft? We have
liveries from just about every airline imaginable, past and present.

What I don't like to hear is arguments along the line of: person "A" can't
submit anything that could ever possibly be a trademark infraction by
anyone's estimation, but person "B" we will let get away with it. Oh and by
the way, we really should go through our repository and clean out any
possible trademark infringements ... maybe some day.

First of all this smacks of targeting or interpreting our policy differently
for different people... and that usually is done on the basis of some other
agenda. Maybe the person in question has invited some of this, maybe they
haven't, but applying our policies in different measures to different people
can quickly get petty and immature.

Second, saying that "oh I wish we'd retroactively fix our repository to
honor this policy perfectly", and then doing nothing about it also is really
weak. It sounds good on the face of it, but at the end of the day what
matters is action, not words.

I think it's pretty accepted that flight simulators can reproduce company
liveries in the process of realistically modeling the world. I know that
has been widely debated (AA, et. al) but the reality is that people are
creating liveries of all kinds of companies all the time.

Where do we draw the lines? Is it ok to reproduce an airline livery, but
not some other company livery? As far as I can tell the people arguing that
we can't have a red bull logo are on really shaky ground from a
"consistency" perspective.

Do you want to argue this from a legal standpoint? Do we only include
anything that we have written permission from the original company to use?
In that case probably we'll have to rip out half of our simulator. How far
do we want to take it? Do you think aircraft manufacturers have given us
explicit permission to replicate their designs? Aircraft systems and
cockpit displays? Tire manufacturers? ACME rivet company? I've got
nothing on file from them. Building shapes and names and logos? If we have
to get written permssion to replicate anything, then we might as well pack
it all up and go home, as should every other simulator developer.

I only wade in because this whole thing smacks of a pissing match and I get
strong indication that our policies are being selectively interpreted by
some to gain an advantage in this stupid pissing match and not for the
benefit and quality and safety of the FlightGear project itself.

Thank you,

Curt.

Post by Reagan Thomas

Post by Arnt Karlsen
On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:50:36 -0800, Jack wrote in message

.._where_?

Jack,
You know who takes trademark law seriously? Trademark owners.
An owner must protect their trademarks from being used in ways that
decrease the value to them. This tends to be two areas, one very
specific and the other kind of broad. The first thing they must protect
against is their trademark becoming generic; if everyone refers to an
adhesive bandage as a "Band-Aid", then Johnson and Johnson, who owns
that trademark, runs the risk of losing the exclusive use of it. In
fact, they made their advertising jingle many years ago to include
"stuck on Band-Aid brand" as a very public way of asserting their
ownership of the brand. Did you know Otis Elevator company came up with
and trademarked the name "escalator"? They did not actively (enough)
assert their ownership of that trademark and have lost any rights of
exclusivity to it. It is now a generic term that any company can use to
refer to stairs that move or anything else, for that matter. In these
cases, it is an *urgent* obligation of the trademark owner to sue the
pants off of any infringer.
The remaining broad category is your trademark being used in any other
way that decreases its value to you. This can be using it to refer to
products or things it isn't intended to be associated with, removing the
focus from the owner's product(s). Worse are cases where a trademark is
used in ways that are harmful to the image of the owner or the owner's
products.
A hopefully imaginary example here might be the questionable marketing
practices of certain people who are selling FlightGear to the public.
Hell, even *we* don't want to be associated with them... why would Red
Bull (tm) like it any better? They have much more to lose, in terms of
gross dollars, than anyone here does if their trademarks were to become
associated with misbehavior. So, you might say, let them go after
ProSimFraud if they are misbehaving. The ProFraudSimulator people would
simply point to FlightGear and say, "hey this is Open Source and *they*
did it!"
This topic has come up here before and I even checked with American
Airlines about use of their logos/trademarks. Their answer was dense
legal talk that I roughly translated to mean "we realize we can't stop
everybody from using our logos, but boy howdy, we have the right to kick
your ass in court if you do it and tick us off!"
How is open source Red Hat Enterprise different from open source
CentOS? Trademarks. The words "Red Hat" and any logos owned by them
are completely removed by the CentOS group, leaving the only
encumbrances those obligations covered by the GPL. It's kind of neat
that you can take a Red Hat installation, point it to a CentOS
repository instead of the Red Hat network and have it install updates.
When the updates are complete, Ta dah! You now have a CentOS branded
installation. Back on point, Red Hat differentiates its products by the
services they provide and the *trademarks* that they own. Sure, you can
use their operating system code freely, but not their services or
*trademarks*. Like American Airlines, they have the right to kick your
ass in court for doing so.
If the Red Bull were to get litigious on us, they'd have to put some
names on the law suit. There isn't a FlightGear Foundation or any
single entity responsible for FG, so right at the top of the list would
be names near and dear to us, starting with Curtis Olson. The list of
defendants would probably include anyone else identified as being
responsible for the infringement, such as whoever committed the livery
to git and whoever participated in releasing the software to the public
in any other way. Heck, they may even remember to include Jack Mermod.
We all break the law every once in a while, so let's do a risk weight
comparison between two things that seem pretty minor: Speeding and
trademark infringement. I often drive over 60 miles per hour in a 55
MPH zone. My main risk is a fine that will run at most about $80 and my
chances of getting caught are relatively low. In comparison, even
*successfully* defending yourself from an infringement suit will run at
least in the 10's of thousands of dollars. Oh, and given the public
nature of the FG project, I'd guess the chance of Red Bull noticing
trademark infringement is about 100%. Whether or not they would sue,
don't know, but would you risk it? Should Curtis Olson risk it on your
behalf?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pinpoint memory and threading errors before they happen.
Find and fix more than 250 security defects in the development cycle.
Locate bottlenecks in serial and parallel code that limit performance.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devfeb
_______________________________________________
Flightgear-devel mailing list
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel

--
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

Stuart Buchanan

2011-02-16 16:47:36 UTC

Hi Curt,

At the risk of being a case of "if the hat fits...."

Yes, and as I said in the other post (which crossed in the ether with
yours), I personally think that's a mistake and a legal risk (albeit a
small one).

What I don't like to hear is arguments along the line of: person "A" can't
submit anything that could ever possibly be a trademark infraction by
anyone's estimation, but person "B" we will let get away with it. Oh and by
the way, we really should go through our repository and clean out any
possible trademark infringements ... maybe some day.
First of all this smacks of targeting or interpreting our policy differently
for different people... and that usually is done on the basis of some other
agenda. Maybe the person in question has invited some of this, maybe they
haven't, but applying our policies in different measures to different people
can quickly get petty and immature.

I don't think I am holding Jack's work to a higher standard than anyone else
here, though other committers may have different standards to me.

As mentioned on the other post, I'm applying the same standards I've applied
to my own work based on discussions on this list:

http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-***@lists.sourceforge.net/msg13303.html

(Oh, that brings back memories - we were all so young, a new aircraft
was a big deal, CVS)

Melchior's comment is an interesting one, but I've no idea if it has
any legal basis.

Second, saying that "oh I wish we'd retroactively fix our repository to
honor this policy perfectly", and then doing nothing about it also is really
weak. It sounds good on the face of it, but at the end of the day what
matters is action, not words.

It might also lead to a commit war, which would be bad. I'd much prefer a clear
policy at a project level and then consistency with that policy.

At present I don't think we have a policy - though it's possible that
my experience
with the Pitts is an exception and we are quite happy to use trademarks in the
data package.

It sounds like your view is that including trademarks in the data repository is
perfectly OK. Correct?

If that's the case and the majority of devs agree then I'll bite my tongue,
though like Melchior I won't commit it myself.

I think it's pretty accepted that flight simulators can reproduce company
liveries in the process of realistically modeling the world. I know that
has been widely debated (AA, et. al) but the reality is that people are
creating liveries of all kinds of companies all the time.
Where do we draw the lines? Is it ok to reproduce an airline livery, but
not some other company livery? As far as I can tell the people arguing that
we can't have a red bull logo are on really shaky ground from a
"consistency" perspective.

See my post which crossed with yours. I think where there is precedent we're
(relatively) OK. the danger lies in trademarks that have not been used regularly
within simulators and which have litigious owners.

Do you want to argue this from a legal standpoint? Do we only include
anything that we have written permission from the original company to use?
In that case probably we'll have to rip out half of our simulator. How far
do we want to take it? Do you think aircraft manufacturers have given us
explicit permission to replicate their designs? Aircraft systems and
cockpit displays? Tire manufacturers? ACME rivet company? I've got
nothing on file from them. Building shapes and names and logos? If we have
to get written permssion to replicate anything, then we might as well pack
it all up and go home, as should every other simulator developer.

There is a legal difference between objects/copyright and trademarks which is
important. We could fairly easily have aircraft liveries and buildings that do
not infringe trademarks.

I only wade in because this whole thing smacks of a pissing match and I get
strong indication that our policies are being selectively interpreted by
some to gain an advantage in this stupid pissing match and not for the
benefit and quality and safety of the FlightGear project itself.

I don't think there's much of a pissing match going on here - I encouraged Jack
to release his AH-1 under the GPL and committed the original version to git, so
to suggest I have an axe to grind is mistaken.

I admit I'm being paranoid here, and that there is a gray area. However, I think
it is a good idea to air these issues on the list.

-Stuart

Vivian Meazza

2011-02-16 17:11:54 UTC

Stuart Buchanan

Post by Stuart Buchanan
Hi Curt,
At the risk of being a case of "if the hat fits...."

Yes, and as I said in the other post (which crossed in the ether with
yours), I personally think that's a mistake and a legal risk (albeit a
small one).

What I don't like to hear is arguments along the line of: person "A"

can't

submit anything that could ever possibly be a trademark infraction by
anyone's estimation, but person "B" we will let get away with it. Oh

and by

the way, we really should go through our repository and clean out any
possible trademark infringements ... maybe some day.
First of all this smacks of targeting or interpreting our policy

differently

for different people... and that usually is done on the basis of some

other

agenda. Maybe the person in question has invited some of this, maybe

they

haven't, but applying our policies in different measures to different

people

can quickly get petty and immature.

I don't think I am holding Jack's work to a higher standard than anyone else
here, though other committers may have different standards to me.
As mentioned on the other post, I'm applying the same standards I've applied
http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-
(Oh, that brings back memories - we were all so young, a new aircraft
was a big deal, CVS)
Melchior's comment is an interesting one, but I've no idea if it has
any legal basis.

Second, saying that "oh I wish we'd retroactively fix our repository to
honor this policy perfectly", and then doing nothing about it also is

really

weak. It sounds good on the face of it, but at the end of the day what
matters is action, not words.

It might also lead to a commit war, which would be bad. I'd much prefer a clear
policy at a project level and then consistency with that policy.
At present I don't think we have a policy - though it's possible that
my experience
with the Pitts is an exception and we are quite happy to use trademarks in the
data package.
It sounds like your view is that including trademarks in the data repository is
perfectly OK. Correct?
If that's the case and the majority of devs agree then I'll bite my tongue,
though like Melchior I won't commit it myself.

I think it's pretty accepted that flight simulators can reproduce

company

liveries in the process of realistically modeling the world. I know

that

has been widely debated (AA, et. al) but the reality is that people are
creating liveries of all kinds of companies all the time.
Where do we draw the lines? Is it ok to reproduce an airline livery,

but

not some other company livery? As far as I can tell the people arguing

that

we can't have a red bull logo are on really shaky ground from a
"consistency" perspective.

Do you want to argue this from a legal standpoint? Do we only include
anything that we have written permission from the original company to

use?

In that case probably we'll have to rip out half of our simulator. How

far

do we want to take it? Do you think aircraft manufacturers have given

explicit permission to replicate their designs? Aircraft systems and
cockpit displays? Tire manufacturers? ACME rivet company? I've got
nothing on file from them. Building shapes and names and logos? If we

have

to get written permssion to replicate anything, then we might as well

pack

it all up and go home, as should every other simulator developer.

There is a legal difference between objects/copyright and trademarks which is
important. We could fairly easily have aircraft liveries and buildings that do
not infringe trademarks.

I only wade in because this whole thing smacks of a pissing match and I

get

strong indication that our policies are being selectively interpreted by
some to gain an advantage in this stupid pissing match and not for the
benefit and quality and safety of the FlightGear project itself.

I don't think there's much of a pissing match going on here - I encouraged Jack
to release his AH-1 under the GPL and committed the original version to git, so
to suggest I have an axe to grind is mistaken.
I admit I'm being paranoid here, and that there is a gray area. However, I think
it is a good idea to air these issues on the list.

Curt has it right. Get real guys. No one is going to sue a non-existent
organization with no assets. The worst they will do is tell us to desist.
Which we will do of course.

If you want to remove or alter almost every livery in our inventory, fork
the data in git and go right ahead ...

Vivian

Heiko Schulz

2011-02-16 20:05:41 UTC

Hi,

Post by Vivian Meazza
Curt has it right. Get real guys. No one is going to sue a
non-existent
organization with no assets. The worst they will do is tell
us to desist.
Which we will do of course.
If you want to remove or alter almost every livery in our
inventory, fork
the data in git and go right ahead ...
Vivian

Red Bull is an austrian company, and very famous among RC-model-fans.
In many german forums I found discussion about using their logo. And really many people there told that they are told by RedBull not to use their logos and marks.
There have been even some people which have been sued by RedBull. And I'm sure they find their way to sue the author if they want to do it!

And indeed it would be better to keep off the hands- I do know that one of their active heli-acrobatic pilots is quite aware of the Project FlightGear.

Ask RedBull if we may use, if not- well, there are other nice liveries out there waiting to be made.....

Cheers
Heiko

Arnt Karlsen

2011-02-16 20:41:00 UTC

On Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:05:41 +0000 (GMT), Heiko wrote in message

Red Bull is an austrian company, and very famous among RC-model-fans.
In many german forums I found discussion about using their logo. And
really many people there told that they are told by RedBull not to
use their logos and marks. There have been even some people which
have been sued by RedBull. And I'm sure they find their way to sue
the author if they want to do it!
And indeed it would be better to keep off the hands- I do know that
one of their active heli-acrobatic pilots is quite aware of the
Project FlightGear.
Ask RedBull if we may use, if not- well, there are other nice
liveries out there waiting to be made.....

..a way to sell them on the idea, is do 2 sim scenario videos on
air show concepts they could do, or show off FG as a training and
familiarization etc sim tool. One video with Red Bull, the other
with Red Bull's _Nice_ Competitor. ;o)

..mention "It probably needs the Board's Approval." ;o)

Duane Andre

2011-02-16 15:47:52 UTC

Re: Red Bull. One could ask for forgiveness rather than permission. But,
another approach might be to go directly to Red Bull for permission to use
their trademark in return for free advertising for them. I don't know how
several RC aircraft makers 'solved' this issue. There are several RC
aircraft with the Red Bull livery in addition to several other trademarked
liveries. However, one never really knows how lawyers will react on a case
by case basis.

Regards,
Duane

-----Original Message-----
From: Reagan Thomas [mailto:***@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 10:12 AM
To: flightgear-***@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] .."IP" and litigation risks, was: AH-1 Merge
Request

Post by Arnt Karlsen
On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:50:36 -0800, Jack wrote in message

Post by Jack Mermod
Hi,
The Red Bull livery has been removed from this release.
Download: http://jackmermod.bplaced.net/Files/cobra21511.zip
I find it ridiculous and a bit immature how Oliver people whine about
a simple logo.
If Oliver really cared about preventing fictitious lawsuits as he
claims to, he would concentrate his efforts on the several red bull
logos that are already in our database.

.._where_?

Post by Jack Mermod
If this thread is further interfered with, I will be forced to result
to more forceful methods of having my work committed, or I may very
well change the license back to the CC license and our community will
have missed out on a very high quality aircraft.
Regards,
Jack

..now, imagine where _we_ would have been if tSCOG _had_ a case
against Big Blue. You would have had to pay tSCOG US $1499 (or
whatever it was) for every thread in your cpu. They were targeting
GPL code, and the GPL itself, as anti-American.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110215183557939 in
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20040319041857760
it is _just_ a side show. http://groklaw.net/ has waaay more.

Jack,

You know who takes trademark law seriously? Trademark owners.

An owner must protect their trademarks from being used in ways that decrease
the value to them. This tends to be two areas, one very specific and the
other kind of broad. The first thing they must protect against is their
trademark becoming generic; if everyone refers to an adhesive bandage as a
"Band-Aid", then Johnson and Johnson, who owns that trademark, runs the risk
of losing the exclusive use of it. In fact, they made their advertising
jingle many years ago to include "stuck on Band-Aid brand" as a very public
way of asserting their ownership of the brand. Did you know Otis Elevator
company came up with and trademarked the name "escalator"? They did not
actively (enough) assert their ownership of that trademark and have lost any
rights of exclusivity to it. It is now a generic term that any company can
use to refer to stairs that move or anything else, for that matter. In
these cases, it is an *urgent* obligation of the trademark owner to sue the
pants off of any infringer.

The remaining broad category is your trademark being used in any other way
that decreases its value to you. This can be using it to refer to products
or things it isn't intended to be associated with, removing the focus from
the owner's product(s). Worse are cases where a trademark is used in ways
that are harmful to the image of the owner or the owner's products.

A hopefully imaginary example here might be the questionable marketing
practices of certain people who are selling FlightGear to the public.
Hell, even *we* don't want to be associated with them... why would Red
Bull (tm) like it any better? They have much more to lose, in terms of
gross dollars, than anyone here does if their trademarks were to become
associated with misbehavior. So, you might say, let them go after
ProSimFraud if they are misbehaving. The ProFraudSimulator people would
simply point to FlightGear and say, "hey this is Open Source and *they* did
it!"

This topic has come up here before and I even checked with American Airlines
about use of their logos/trademarks. Their answer was dense legal talk that
I roughly translated to mean "we realize we can't stop everybody from using
our logos, but boy howdy, we have the right to kick your ass in court if you
do it and tick us off!"

How is open source Red Hat Enterprise different from open source CentOS?
Trademarks. The words "Red Hat" and any logos owned by them are completely
removed by the CentOS group, leaving the only encumbrances those obligations
covered by the GPL. It's kind of neat that you can take a Red Hat
installation, point it to a CentOS repository instead of the Red Hat network
and have it install updates.
When the updates are complete, Ta dah! You now have a CentOS branded
installation. Back on point, Red Hat differentiates its products by the
services they provide and the *trademarks* that they own. Sure, you can use
their operating system code freely, but not their services or *trademarks*.
Like American Airlines, they have the right to kick your ass in court for
doing so.

If the Red Bull were to get litigious on us, they'd have to put some names
on the law suit. There isn't a FlightGear Foundation or any single entity
responsible for FG, so right at the top of the list would be names near and
dear to us, starting with Curtis Olson. The list of defendants would
probably include anyone else identified as being responsible for the
infringement, such as whoever committed the livery to git and whoever
participated in releasing the software to the public in any other way.
Heck, they may even remember to include Jack Mermod.

We all break the law every once in a while, so let's do a risk weight
comparison between two things that seem pretty minor: Speeding and
trademark infringement. I often drive over 60 miles per hour in a 55 MPH
zone. My main risk is a fine that will run at most about $80 and my chances
of getting caught are relatively low. In comparison, even
*successfully* defending yourself from an infringement suit will run at
least in the 10's of thousands of dollars. Oh, and given the public nature
of the FG project, I'd guess the chance of Red Bull noticing trademark
infringement is about 100%. Whether or not they would sue, don't know, but
would you risk it? Should Curtis Olson risk it on your behalf?

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Stuart Buchanan

2011-02-16 09:25:45 UTC

It is neither ridiculous nor immature.

Unfortunately the reality of the world that we live in is that
Intellectual Property licensing is very important, particularly for a
project such as FlightGear where we are all volunteers

While you may not see it as an issue, and be prepared to fight in
court, by having someone include the logo in the git repository we
would be making them, and possibly all the git maintainers, personally
liable for any infringement.

Red Bull might not care, but if they did, the costs of defending such
legal challenges would be huge, even if we were not infringing. If you
have no assets you might not be a target, but I have sufficient assets
and a wife and child to think about - it is simply not worth the risk.

Approaching Red Bull directly (as noted in the topic) seems by far the
most sensible option here. I would be very interested in what they
say, but I strongly suspect at the very least it would have some
non-commercial clause that would be incompatible with the GPL.

If Oliver really cared about preventing fictitious lawsuits as he
claims to, he would concentrate his efforts on the several red bull
logos that are already in our database.

IMO these need to be removed. Could you list them please so we can get
in touch with the maintainers?

FYI, when I initially created the Pitts biplane for FG, it had a "Duff
Beer" livery, after the beer in The Simpsons. So, a wholly fictious
brand in a cartoon. After some discussion, we decided that this wasn't
really appropriate and it was removed from (then) cvs. So, you're not
the first to be in this position.

If this thread is further interfered with, I will be forced to result
to more forceful methods of having my work committed, or I may very
well change the license back to the CC license and our community will
have missed out on a very high quality aircraft.

I don't think posting to the FlightGear-Dev list can be considered
"interfering". It is after all, a discussion group :)

It is important that these issues are discussed - and this is exactly
the correct forum for this.

I think you will find that any other git committer will want to
discuss these issues in an open forum and come to a consensus view
rather than just committing such work. I expect that they would have
exactly the same concerns as me.

This is not an issue with GPL/CC licensing. You are perfectly entitled
to release your aircraft with the Red Bull livery under the GPL - in
fact you have already done so! The issue is whether it is something
that we can risk adding to the core FG repository.

Note that to change to a CC license, you would need to get permission
from all the contributors to the aircraft. From reading the Forum
topic, it would appear to be a great example of cooperation between
many different people.

Frankly such threats of changing the license are beneath you.

-Stuart

Vivian Meazza

2011-02-16 14:26:47 UTC

Stuart Buchanan

Post by Stuart Buchanan

It is neither ridiculous nor immature.
Unfortunately the reality of the world that we live in is that
Intellectual Property licensing is very important, particularly for a
project such as FlightGear where we are all volunteers
While you may not see it as an issue, and be prepared to fight in
court, by having someone include the logo in the git repository we
would be making them, and possibly all the git maintainers, personally
liable for any infringement.
Red Bull might not care, but if they did, the costs of defending such
legal challenges would be huge, even if we were not infringing. If you
have no assets you might not be a target, but I have sufficient assets
and a wife and child to think about - it is simply not worth the risk.
Approaching Red Bull directly (as noted in the topic) seems by far the
most sensible option here. I would be very interested in what they
say, but I strongly suspect at the very least it would have some
non-commercial clause that would be incompatible with the GPL.

If Oliver really cared about preventing fictitious lawsuits as he
claims to, he would concentrate his efforts on the several red bull
logos that are already in our database.

IMO these need to be removed. Could you list them please so we can get
in touch with the maintainers?
FYI, when I initially created the Pitts biplane for FG, it had a "Duff
Beer" livery, after the beer in The Simpsons. So, a wholly fictious
brand in a cartoon. After some discussion, we decided that this wasn't
really appropriate and it was removed from (then) cvs. So, you're not
the first to be in this position.

I don't think posting to the FlightGear-Dev list can be considered
"interfering". It is after all, a discussion group :)
It is important that these issues are discussed - and this is exactly
the correct forum for this.
I think you will find that any other git committer will want to
discuss these issues in an open forum and come to a consensus view
rather than just committing such work. I expect that they would have
exactly the same concerns as me.
This is not an issue with GPL/CC licensing. You are perfectly entitled
to release your aircraft with the Red Bull livery under the GPL - in
fact you have already done so! The issue is whether it is something
that we can risk adding to the core FG repository.
Note that to change to a CC license, you would need to get permission
from all the contributors to the aircraft. From reading the Forum
topic, it would appear to be a great example of cooperation between
many different people.
Frankly such threats of changing the license are beneath you.

This is ridiculous. We have this discussion every so often, when we are not
arguing over FlightPro Sim. Do we have to change every airliner model in the
inventory? Of course we don't. Use the bloody thing. And if ever anyone
complains say: "Whoops! Sorry.", and take it down, as we would for any other
copyright infringement. We ways end up with this solution.

Simples.

Vivian

Martin Spott

2011-02-16 15:33:01 UTC

Red Bull is known to be very restrictive sensitive when it comes to
commercial use of their trademarked material. Therefore I'd call it
unjustifiable to put the FlightGear project at risk of facing a legal
battle.

Cheers,
Martin.

--
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stuart Buchanan

2011-02-16 16:02:00 UTC

Post by Vivian Meazza
This is ridiculous. We have this discussion every so often, when we are not
arguing over FlightPro Sim. Do we have to change every airliner model in the
inventory? Of course we don't. Use the bloody thing. And if ever anyone
complains say: "Whoops! Sorry.", and take it down, as we would for any other
copyright infringement. We ways end up with this solution.
Simples.

I think we would be safer not having real life airliner liveries. I
recall that MSFS 2002 (or was it 2004?) used fictional liveries,
presumably to avoid this entire issue. I don't know what FS-X does.

In the case of airliner liveries there is a history of them being used
in flight simulators. IANAL, but AFAIK the fact that they have been
used for a number of years without any enforcement from the trademark
owner can be considered precedent in court that the owner is not that
fussed about the use and makes enforcement more difficult in the
future.

I just had a quick look on avsim.com to see if add-on aircraft are
being sold with real life liveries, and they are. I'd be interested to
find out what licensing they have, if any. Nevertheless, if I was a
commercial FS aircraft developer or commercial FG distributor, I'd be
quite nervous about including trademarked liveries.

As Martin points out Red Bull is very careful about their trademark
licensing - I guess it's because they are very much a brand who
sponsors a whole load of liveried products, teams etc. on the back of
a rather sweet caffeinated drink (IMO it's a bit like Buckfast without
the alcohol ;) )

As I said above, I think asking for permission is the right approach
here, and I'd be interested in the response.

-Stuart

Stuart Buchanan

2011-02-18 22:55:00 UTC

Hi,
The Red Bull livery has been removed from this release.
Download: http://jackmermod.bplaced.net/Files/cobra21511.zip

Hi Jack,

I had a look at committing this, replacing the existing aircraft in
git, but there seem to be some problems with the textures. The livery
menu appears to be broken, and I'm getting a lot of errors of the
form:

Warning: Could not find plugin to read objects from file
"/home/stuart/FlightGear/fgdata/Aircraft/AH-1/Models/Cockpit/pilot1.png".
Warning: Could not find plugin to read objects from file
"/home/stuart/FlightGear/fgdata/Aircraft/AH-1/Models/Cockpit/pilot2.png".

Is that expected, or is there an error in the zip file?

Thanks,

-Stuart

Csaba Halász

2011-02-18 23:33:54 UTC

Post by Stuart Buchanan
Warning: Could not find plugin to read objects from file
"/home/stuart/FlightGear/fgdata/Aircraft/AH-1/Models/Cockpit/pilot1.png".
Warning: Could not find plugin to read objects from file
"/home/stuart/FlightGear/fgdata/Aircraft/AH-1/Models/Cockpit/pilot2.png".
Is that expected, or is there an error in the zip file?

Looks like quite a few of the files named .png are really jpegs:

$ identify pilot1.png
pilot1.png JPEG 512x512 512x512+0+0 DirectClass 8-bit 223.154kb

--
Csaba/Jester

J. Holden

2011-02-16 21:07:12 UTC

Hey everyone,

Based on my (brief) reading of some United States statutes, I would suggest we can continue using these trademarks until asked not to do so. I don't think this will bring forth a lawsuit, most likely a cease and desist action which is easily complied with, if it is on trademark grounds. However I would definitely suggest whenever we do use trademarks we should publish a notice we are not affiliated, connected, or associated with the companies whose trademarks we use. I think we should also be cautious of the screenshots we use to advertise the software.

See: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_00001125----000-.html#a

I am not a lawyer and this is not a legal opinion.

Yours
John Holden

Alexander Barrett

2011-02-16 21:15:29 UTC

To throw something into the mix here:
I've actually got experience of dealing with RedBull regarding the use of their logos and IP in Flight Simulation.

Several years ago I contacted them for an old Payware project and they were most supportive, provided an email stating that as long as nowhere we claimed that they endorsed the product then they saw it all as good publicity.

I'm sure they'd do something similar here, as would many companies.

In fact there is only two companies that I'm aware of, who have caused issues in the FS community, that was a large American airline who requested a VA stop using their name, and got quite aggressive about it, and a well known Bizjet manufacturer who flatly refuse to grant any permission for any of their aircraft to be represented, and will go to great lengths to stop people making a product out of it.

There's lots of history of probably most Aviation related companies being contacted by FlightSimulation enthusiasts/3rd party developers/ etc over the past few years and getting very positive results for doing so, in some cases huge gains as well.

Alex

Post by J. Holden
Hey everyone,
Based on my (brief) reading of some United States statutes, I would suggest we can continue using these trademarks until asked not to do so. I don't think this will bring forth a lawsuit, most likely a cease and desist action which is easily complied with, if it is on trademark grounds. However I would definitely suggest whenever we do use trademarks we should publish a notice we are not affiliated, connected, or associated with the companies whose trademarks we use. I think we should also be cautious of the screenshots we use to advertise the software.
See: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_00001125----000-.html#a
I am not a lawyer and this is not a legal opinion.
Yours
John Holden
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Heiko Schulz

2011-02-16 21:27:21 UTC

Hi,

To throw something into the mix here: >I've actually got experience of dealing with RedBull regarding the use of their logos and IP >in Flight Simulation.
Several years ago I contacted them for an old Payware project and they were most >supportive, provided an email stating that as long as nowhere we claimed that they >endorsed the product then they saw it all as good publicity.

According to many RC-forums, they don't do this anymore as they licenced their stuff to Third parties. So if a single, simple man wants to paint his aircraft into RD-colors, he is in the risk to be sued. But your example shows one special thing: ask, and wait to see what they say.

I'm sure they'd do something similar here, as would many companies.

No as they licences their logos and colors to certain third parties. If you don't belong to them: Good Luck!

In fact there is only two companies that I'm aware of, who have caused issues in the FS >community, that was a large American airline who requested a VA stop using their name, >and got quite aggressive about it, and a well known Bizjet manufacturer who flatly refuse to >grant any permission for any of their aircraft to be represented, and will go to great lengths >to stop people making a product out of it.

No, regarding VA's several airlines and companies more: Lufthansa, AirBerlin, ADAC, DRF...
But Condor, REGA and some others gave permission under certain circumstances.

There's lots of history of probably most Aviation related companies being contacted by >FlightSimulation enthusiasts/3rd party developers/ etc over the past few years and getting >very positive results for doing so, in some cases huge gains as well.

Yep, but depends on. I still wait for an answer by Eurocopter and Erricson AirCrane.On the other side The developer of the AutoGyro Hornet even gave us a 3d-model right of his CAD-program.... ;-)

Heiko

Jack Mermod

2011-02-17 02:45:47 UTC

Hi,

Technically, all these logos are under trademark:

Loading Image...

;h=43cfc5a15abb392519e1f95d34951d410d3c3c80;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=2c7854e28f50ebfd270551fea6ee17c161ca56a6;hb=HEAD
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;h=fb5a5e15737ff7d45cb4b6c4ecae1c664221fd4c;hb=HEAD
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;h=24cab3acc9be66ffa819d4b86b3d269d6c5c146d;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=feb509950de44037ee2ffe72d99e803820f2078c;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=6ac933fa22c33e0f0b637c032cdc473108fee367;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=6fa2d4d95c4e614bb67ba3514a09d60b253e45d7;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=c13d743667bf7de26df391ee1baf6627f012ae9b;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=5c93dbbe501aa1a44adbaeac305e4a637ff8adec;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=e516842b15c4cd8e42c3f20dd2bbd9e1cfcebb8e;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=76ca78871b1b5cd58eb0533aefc91eb63b5e7149;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=effa8b73133ad6991dc615ea670b5a3db58dcc0e;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=f4ca4abcc551aeca443ca68b06f60006ef84af12;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=4af09d1cb79a04528b824447190bc68e809ecceb;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=592707498df5f8f923b2c9da1f3e9a68370ddd7e;hb=HEAD
Loading Image...

;h=d60378d6af8635efc3f5b15a1345e2a810f65fcb;hb=HEAD

I can dish out links all day if I have to....

And go ahead, get them removed. ;) You know what you'll have
accomplished when you're finished? You'll have deleted hundreds of
hours of work, all in paranoia of a lawsuit that will never happen.

Unless you wish to delete nearly all our liveries, all of you that do
not wish for my work to be committed are being well, hypocrites.

On the subject of my AH-1; I have removed the content for now, what
other hoops do you want me to jump through? I'd like to see somebody
commit it relatively soon, so my (somewhat) recent work can be
included in the release.

Check Six,
Jack

syd adams

2011-02-17 05:57:10 UTC

Ok I tried to keep out of it ...;)
The issue isn't your work , it's the concern over the Red Bull livery
.... I haven't yet figured out why it's so important to include ,
there must be many other paint schemes that could be added instead.
I did 777 British Airways livery with some trepidation , and would
remove it immediately if instructed to do so.
What strikes me the most about these emails is your seemingly arrogant
responses to an issue that some are concerned about: It's not about
your great work , it's about Flightgear overall.
That's just my 2 cents , I'll shut up now :)

Syd

And go ahead, get them removed. ;) You know what you'll have accomplished
when you're finished? You'll have deleted hundreds of hours of work, all in
paranoia of a lawsuit that will never happen.
Unless you wish to delete nearly all our liveries, all of you that do not
wish for my work to be committed are being well, hypocrites.
On the subject of my AH-1; I have removed the content for now, what other
hoops do you want me to jump through? I'd like to see somebody commit it
relatively soon, so my (somewhat) recent work can be included in the
release.
Check Six,
Jack
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Gene Buckle

2011-02-17 14:32:24 UTC

Post by syd adams
Ok I tried to keep out of it ...;)
The issue isn't your work , it's the concern over the Red Bull livery
.... I haven't yet figured out why it's so important to include ,
there must be many other paint schemes that could be added instead.
I did 777 British Airways livery with some trepidation , and would
remove it immediately if instructed to do so.
What strikes me the most about these emails is your seemingly arrogant
responses to an issue that some are concerned about: It's not about
your great work , it's about Flightgear overall.
That's just my 2 cents , I'll shut up now :)

I think the problem is that someone got on their high horse and started
jerking him around. If I were him, I'd get just as snotty about it - more
so probably as I've got a much lower tolerance for that kind of nonsense.

Frankly, the inclusion of the livery is a tempest in a teapot. The flight
simulation community has been using commercial liveries without issue for
well over a decade. I've NEVER heard of anyone ever being sued by a
rights holder over a livery and I've been around this hobby for a VERY
long time.

There's entirely too much fear mongering going on and it really needs to
stop. It has no basis in reality. Never has. Frankly I think people are
stirring shit up JUST to stir shit up. If a rights holder contacts "us"
about removing a livery, you and I (and whether they'll admit it or not,
everyone else) knows that efforts to comply with that request will be very
swift indeed.

It's not like FlightGear is a commercial product that is leveraging
trademarked liveries in order to benefit from them. Companies like
Microsoft MUST license that kind of thing because they're selling a
product. (They also do it in order to prevent competing products from
benefiting from brand identity - it's why Fly! and Fly! II had to call
their Cessna 172 the "Trainer 172". MS couldn't beat them
technologically, so they jerked them around by arranging exclusive
licensing with Textron...but anyway)

Jack, I personally greatly enjoy the work you've put into that armed up
fling wing of yours. If people give you any crap about the textures,
tell 'em to See Figure #1 and ignore 'em. They're just a bunch of
bloviating windbags with nothing better to do but run in circles,
screaming about crap that'll never happen.

g.
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Oliver Fels

2011-02-17 16:02:04 UTC

Post by Gene Buckle
I think the problem is that someone got on their high horse and started
jerking him around. If I were him, I'd get just as snotty about it - more
so probably as I've got a much lower tolerance for that kind of nonsense.

[...]

Post by Gene Buckle
stop. It has no basis in reality. Never has. Frankly I think
people are stirring shit up JUST to stir shit up.

[...]

Post by Gene Buckle
If people give you any crap about the textures,
tell 'em to See Figure #1 and ignore 'em. They're just a bunch of
bloviating windbags with nothing better to do but run in circles,
screaming about crap that'll never happen.

The funny thing is that this mail ended up in my spam folder and I believe it should remain there due to its offensive character.

You can´t just walk through your neighbors garden just because he is not at home, won´t see it and won´t complain about it.

If we are going in circles then the reason is that some people ignore all information and links provided and restart everything with "give me evidence" and then "don´t care". Evidence *has* been provided that Red Bull is actively sueing folks using the logo for similar purposes, information *has* been provided that RB is seeking the web for copyright infringements and information *has* been provided that using the trademark without explicit grant is illegal. Why restart from scratch?

Simon already inquired RB and until then hold your breath and hope it goes well. Otherwise the state is pretty clear and we will have to take actions.

This is btw. another stupid effect of FlightProSim selling FlightGear- this makes it even worse and increases chances that FG will appear on RBs radar one day.

Oliver

Curtis Olson

2011-02-17 16:15:13 UTC

For what it's worth, the RedBull logo is currently used in the scene model
database to decorate the "redbull air race" pylons. We also have two
aircraft in git that also have RedBull logos.

These are just the instances I found in a 2 second search because they had
"redbull" in the file name. There could easily be other uses of it in
places with different file names ... that would be a bit harder to find
without examining each image in our database individually.

I'm sure these known usages of the redbull logo are actively being scrubbed
right now??? If not, it sure makes all of this rhetoric sound pretty
hollow. Hmmm, I just did a git pull and they are still there. I guess no
one is moving too quickly on these existing infractions.

I don't mind a healthy debate, but so far this whole thing has smacked of
inconsistency at best (assuming the purest motives of everyone involved and
that no one is speaking out of anger or frustration here.)

Best regards,

Curt.

Post by Gene Buckle
I think the problem is that someone got on their high horse and started
jerking him around. If I were him, I'd get just as snotty about it -

Post by Gene Buckle
so probably as I've got a much lower tolerance for that kind of nonsense.

[...]

Post by Gene Buckle
stop. It has no basis in reality. Never has. Frankly I think
people are stirring shit up JUST to stir shit up.

[...]

The funny thing is that this mail ended up in my spam folder and I believe
it should remain there due to its offensive character.
You canŽt just walk through your neighbors garden just because he is not at
home, wonŽt see it and wonŽt complain about it.
If we are going in circles then the reason is that some people ignore all
information and links provided and restart everything with "give me
evidence" and then "donŽt care". Evidence *has* been provided that Red Bull
is actively sueing folks using the logo for similar purposes, information
*has* been provided that RB is seeking the web for copyright infringements
and information *has* been provided that using the trademark without
explicit grant is illegal. Why restart from scratch?
Simon already inquired RB and until then hold your breath and hope it goes
well. Otherwise the state is pretty clear and we will have to take actions.
This is btw. another stupid effect of FlightProSim selling FlightGear- this
makes it even worse and increases chances that FG will appear on RBs radar
one day.
Oliver
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http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

Reagan Thomas

2011-02-17 16:42:33 UTC

Post by Curtis Olson
For what it's worth, the RedBull logo is currently used in the scene
model database to decorate the "redbull air race" pylons. We also
have two aircraft in git that also have RedBull logos.
These are just the instances I found in a 2 second search because they
had "redbull" in the file name. There could easily be other uses of
it in places with different file names ... that would be a bit harder
to find without examining each image in our database individually.
I'm sure these known usages of the redbull logo are actively being
scrubbed right now??? If not, it sure makes all of this rhetoric
sound pretty hollow. Hmmm, I just did a git pull and they are still
there. I guess no one is moving too quickly on these existing
infractions.
I don't mind a healthy debate, but so far this whole thing has smacked
of inconsistency at best (assuming the purest motives of everyone
involved and that no one is speaking out of anger or frustration here.)
Best regards,
Curt.

Post by Gene Buckle
I think the problem is that someone got on their high horse and

started

Post by Gene Buckle
jerking him around. If I were him, I'd get just as snotty about

it - more

Post by Gene Buckle
so probably as I've got a much lower tolerance for that kind of

nonsense.
[...]

Post by Gene Buckle
stop. It has no basis in reality. Never has. Frankly I think
people are stirring shit up JUST to stir shit up.

[...]

The funny thing is that this mail ended up in my spam folder and I
believe it should remain there due to its offensive character.
You can´t just walk through your neighbors garden just because he
is not at home, won´t see it and won´t complain about it.
If we are going in circles then the reason is that some people
ignore all information and links provided and restart everything
with "give me evidence" and then "don´t care". Evidence *has* been
provided that Red Bull is actively sueing folks using the logo for
similar purposes, information *has* been provided that RB is
seeking the web for copyright infringements and information *has*
been provided that using the trademark without explicit grant is
illegal. Why restart from scratch?
Simon already inquired RB and until then hold your breath and hope
it goes well. Otherwise the state is pretty clear and we will have
to take actions.
This is btw. another stupid effect of FlightProSim selling
FlightGear- this makes it even worse and increases chances that FG
will appear on RBs radar one day.
Oliver
--
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
<http://aem.umn.edu/%7Euav/>
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/
<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

Curtis Olson

2011-02-17 16:54:11 UTC

Here's the flip side of the argument. If we are pristine and use no
trademarks, then we have to go through and remove half our simulator
content. That's a scorched earth policy. No one wants to do that. So the
same people drawing the line in the sand on the redbull logo start waffling
on every other trademark about how it's probably ok, and others have done
it, and maybe a case or two where we actually got permission.

These people take themselves right back to the "what can we get away" with
side of the argument.

So if that's where we all are right now, why are we making such a stink
about one particular logo? Answer: because someone asserts (without any
provided evidence that I've seen) that this particular logo will cause us
trouble. Counter evidence #1 is that we've been using it for years without
problems. Counter evidence #2 is someone who claims to have asked redbull
and got a positive response in a different, but similar situation.

So what's it going to be? Scorch the earth and be purists? Go with the
accepted use in the simulation community and not worry about it unless
someone asks us to stop using their logo ... like we have been all along?
Or are we going to waffle in the middle on some hard to defend quick sand
and take pot shots at each other based on trademarks and logos when the real
issue of contention is probably something completely different.

If we are going to argue, we have to keep it fair, and we have to keep it
consistent ... otherwise this is just yet another run of the mill flame war
that isn't accomplishing anything but to piss everyone off ... and at best
the resolution is we stop fighting, but we do nothing because we are still
staring at each other out of our individual trenches. Personally I think
this whole drawing the line in the sand on just one particular logo is on
pretty shifty ground myself ...

Can someone who is arguing against redbull logo usage write up a clearly
defined, logical, consistant logo/trademark usage policy that results in the
same differentiation between the redbull logo and every other logo in the
world ... because I have trouble coming up with anything like that myself.

Best regards,

Curt.

Post by Reagan Thomas

Post by Gene Buckle
I think the problem is that someone got on their high horse and

started

Post by Gene Buckle
jerking him around. If I were him, I'd get just as snotty about

it - more

Post by Gene Buckle
so probably as I've got a much lower tolerance for that kind of

nonsense.
[...]

Post by Gene Buckle
stop. It has no basis in reality. Never has. Frankly I think
people are stirring shit up JUST to stir shit up.

[...]

The funny thing is that this mail ended up in my spam folder and I
believe it should remain there due to its offensive character.
You canŽt just walk through your neighbors garden just because he
is not at home, wonŽt see it and wonŽt complain about it.
If we are going in circles then the reason is that some people
ignore all information and links provided and restart everything
with "give me evidence" and then "donŽt care". Evidence *has* been
provided that Red Bull is actively sueing folks using the logo for
similar purposes, information *has* been provided that RB is
seeking the web for copyright infringements and information *has*
been provided that using the trademark without explicit grant is
illegal. Why restart from scratch?
Simon already inquired RB and until then hold your breath and hope
it goes well. Otherwise the state is pretty clear and we will have
to take actions.
This is btw. another stupid effect of FlightProSim selling
FlightGear- this makes it even worse and increases chances that FG
will appear on RBs radar one day.
Oliver
--
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
<http://aem.umn.edu/%7Euav/>
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/
<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

I knew I shouldn't have gotten into this, but since I haven't
contributed any textures at all, you could say I don't have a horse in
this race. While there is a murky "trademark fair use" defense, I'm
pretty confident of my stance on the legality of using trademarks
without permission. Of course there's what's legal and then there's
what you can get away with. I think most folks arguing here would agree
that we're debating the latter. I think have been convinced that we can
get away with it in most cases and make amends in the cases where a
sternly written letter is received. I agree it would be foolish and
wasteful for a TM owner to actually sue without trying a C & D first.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pinpoint memory and threading errors before they happen.
Find and fix more than 250 security defects in the development cycle.
Locate bottlenecks in serial and parallel code that limit performance.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devfeb
_______________________________________________
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https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel

--
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

Martin Spott

2011-02-17 21:07:12 UTC

Post by Curtis Olson
I'm sure these known usages of the redbull logo are actively being scrubbed
right now??? If not, it sure makes all of this rhetoric sound pretty
hollow. Hmmm, I just did a git pull and they are still there. I guess no
one is moving too quickly on these existing infractions.

Ah, do you expect us to take action _before_ negotiating ?

Strange,
Martin.

--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Curtis Olson

2011-02-17 21:30:42 UTC

Post by Curtis Olson
I'm sure these known usages of the redbull logo are actively being

scrubbed

Post by Curtis Olson
right now??? If not, it sure makes all of this rhetoric sound pretty
hollow. Hmmm, I just did a git pull and they are still there. I guess

Post by Curtis Olson
one is moving too quickly on these existing infractions.

Ah, do you expect us to take action _before_ negotiating ?

<sigh>

Since everyone here is putting redbull's interests ahead of there own, how
is it different from redbull's perspective when we happily continue to use
their logo in 3 places in our sim, but restrict the use in another place. I
really feel like we are in the middle of a logic void. I apologize, I have
this need to see logic in things ... I guess that's why I made a terrible
employee.

All this talk about trademarks and logos that we can use versus that we
can't use, and instances of the redbull logo that we are currently using
versus instances of the logo that we apparently can't use because of
litigation threats is about to make my head explode.

What am I missing here? I am really really really struggling with the way
people are justifying our use of a specific logo in one case, and then
turning right around and arguing that we can't use the very same logo in
another case? I'm thoroughly confused!

Curt.

--
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

Gene Buckle

2011-02-17 16:31:43 UTC

[...]

Post by Gene Buckle
stop. It has no basis in reality. Never has. Frankly I think
people are stirring shit up JUST to stir shit up.

[...]

The funny thing is that this mail ended up in my spam folder and I
believe it should remain there due to its offensive character.

I'm sorry if reality offends your delicate sensibilities.

Post by Oliver Fels
You canÂŽt just walk through your neighbors garden just because he is not
at home, wonÂŽt see it and wonÂŽt complain about it.

Nice strawman. Physical tresspass != trademark infringment.

Post by Oliver Fels
If we are going in circles then the reason is that some people ignore
all information and links provided and restart everything with "give me
evidence" and then "donÂŽt care". Evidence *has* been provided that Red
Bull is actively sueing folks using the logo for similar purposes,
information *has* been provided that RB is seeking the web for copyright
infringements and information *has* been provided that using the
trademark without explicit grant is illegal. Why restart from scratch?

I've never seen a link to a legal document that has shown RedBull to be
actively engaging any entity or group over the use of their trademark logo
in any open source project. Put up or shut up. Simple as that.

Post by Oliver Fels
Simon already inquired RB and until then hold your breath and hope it
goes well. Otherwise the state is pretty clear and we will have to take
actions.

Until RedBull says in very clear language, "Hey FlightGear! We need you
to remove all images that contain our trademark from your scenery &
aircraft databases!" you need to stop getting your undies in a twist.

Post by Oliver Fels
This is btw. another stupid effect of FlightProSim selling FlightGear-
this makes it even worse and increases chances that FG will appear on
RBs radar one day.

This doesn't have a damn thing to do with that and you know it. I'd LOVE
RedBull to chase after FPS! I'm all for anything that'll turn dan freeman
into a smoking hole in the ground.

Understand this - no company is going to go to the time and expenditure of
a lawsuit of any kind when they know full well a simple letter will
accomplish the same task. It would be completely different if FlightGear
was a commerical, for-profit project. If THAT were the case, we'd deserve
the suing we'd get.

g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!

Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.

Oliver Fels

2011-02-17 17:00:37 UTC

Post by Gene Buckle
I'm sorry if reality offends your delicate sensibilities.
They're just a bunch of bloviating windbags with nothing better to do >but run in circles,

If that is your style it does not deserve more comments.

Post by Gene Buckle

Post by Oliver Fels
You can´t just walk through your neighbors garden just because he is

not

Post by Oliver Fels
at home, won´t see it and won´t complain about it.

Nice strawman. Physical tresspass != trademark infringment.

So your sense for legal and illegal depends ? Illegal trespassing is not ok but copyright infringement (by intention) is?

For what it´s worth, trademark infringements are often higher punished than illegal trespassing. Depending on the value of the item in question, starting by a few thousands.

Post by Gene Buckle
I've never seen a link to a legal document that has shown RedBull to be
actively engaging any entity or group over the use of their trademark
logo in any open source project. Put up or shut up. Simple as that.

RB is against *any* unauthorized usage. RB *has* denied usage on various RC models (as Heiko and myself stated, links in German upon request) and just that they have not sued FG or a contact person yet does not mean they will not in the future.
Because they have every single right to do so and we don´t have any right to include RB trademarks into FlightGear GIT.

Post by Gene Buckle
Until RedBull says in very clear language, "Hey FlightGear! We need you
to remove all images that contain our trademark from your scenery &
aircraft databases!" you need to stop getting your undies in a twist.

Once again: Wrong direction. It is your/my/our responsibility to ensure legality. In case of RB we know that we are currently in an illegal state.

Post by Gene Buckle

Post by Oliver Fels
This is btw. another stupid effect of FlightProSim selling FlightGear-
this makes it even worse and increases chances that FG will appear on
RBs radar one day.

This doesn't have a damn thing to do with that and you know it.
I'd LOVE RedBull to chase after FPS!

The following would happen: RB says "hey they are selling our logo in that FPS thing" and address FPS. FPS will tell them something about GPL and point directly to FlightGear. There you are on the radar.
The fact that FPS is commercially selling derivates of FG is pretty critical.

Post by Gene Buckle
Understand this - no company is going to go to the time and expenditure of
a lawsuit of any kind when they know full well a simple letter will
accomplish the same task.

Sueing is not the first step today. The first step always is a declaration of discontinuance with an immediate penalty clause. Lawyers love those as it is pretty few effort and high benefit for them.

Oliver

Frederic Bouvier

2011-02-17 17:25:24 UTC

IMO, our use of trademarked material is just fair use (google 'copyright fair use' if you like) and it's something we shouldn't worry about.

-Fred

--
Frédéric Bouvier
http://www.youtube.com/user/fgfred64 Videos

Reagan Thomas

2011-02-17 17:29:33 UTC

Post by Frederic Bouvier
IMO, our use of trademarked material is just fair use (google 'copyright fair use' if you like) and it's something we shouldn't worry about.
-Fred

Close, but google "trademark fair use" instead.

Gene Lege

2011-02-17 17:30:32 UTC

As I am sure many other people will point out, "fair use" is a specific
provision of copyright law - it has absolutely nothing to do with trademark
law.

gl

Post by Frederic Bouvier
IMO, our use of trademarked material is just fair use (google 'copyright
fair use' if you like) and it's something we shouldn't worry about.
-Fred
--
Frédéric Bouvier
http://www.youtube.com/user/fgfred64 Videos
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pinpoint memory and threading errors before they happen.
Find and fix more than 250 security defects in the development cycle.
Locate bottlenecks in serial and parallel code that limit performance.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devfeb
_______________________________________________
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--
It's just an inch from me to you,
Depending on what map you use
- Jewel

HB-GRAL

2011-02-17 18:06:00 UTC

Post by Gene Lege
As I am sure many other people will point out, "fair use" is a specific
provision of copyright law - it has absolutely nothing to do with trademark
law.

It looks like Red Bull has licenses to use their trademark for Apps and
Games. An example for this is "Red Bull Motocross":

"Created & developed by Xendex. © 2010 Xendex Holding GmbH. All Rights
Reserved. Xendex is a registered trademark of Xendex Holding GmbH.
Published by Digital Chocolate. www.digitalchocolate.com © 2010 Digital
Chocolate. All Rights Reserved. The RED BULL trademark, the RED BULL &
Device trademark and Double Bull Device are trademarks of Red Bull
GmbH/Austria and used under license. Red Bull GmbH/Austria reserves all
rights therein and unauthorized uses are prohibited."

When a company has licenses for the use of trademark in software and has
also such a marketing strategy maybe we should really care?

-Yves

Arnt Karlsen

2011-02-17 22:16:09 UTC

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:06:00 +0100, HB-GRAL wrote in message

Post by HB-GRAL

Post by Gene Lege
As I am sure many other people will point out, "fair use" is a
specific provision of copyright law - it has absolutely nothing to
do with trademark law.

It looks like Red Bull has licenses to use their trademark for Apps
"Created & developed by Xendex. © 2010 Xendex Holding GmbH. All
Rights Reserved. Xendex is a registered trademark of Xendex Holding
GmbH. Published by Digital Chocolate. www.digitalchocolate.com © 2010
Digital Chocolate. All Rights Reserved. The RED BULL trademark, the
RED BULL & Device trademark and Double Bull Device are trademarks of
Red Bull GmbH/Austria and used under license. Red Bull GmbH/Austria
reserves all rights therein and unauthorized uses are prohibited."
When a company has licenses for the use of trademark in software and
has also such a marketing strategy maybe we should really care?

..we could ask Debian Legal, if Red Bull's license flies under DFSG
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines )
then we are ok, otherwise Debian will kick FG out of Main and either
into non-free or _out_.

..e.g. Mozilla's trademark policy on Firefox, is non-DFSG,
so it is forked and stripped of trademarks, as Iceweasel.
http://www.debian.org/legal/
http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/

..and, how does Debian deal with abuse of Debian's own logo?: ;o)
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2010/11/msg00056.html

Arnt Karlsen

2011-02-17 21:20:26 UTC

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:00:37 +0100, Oliver wrote in message

Post by Gene Buckle
I'd LOVE RedBull to chase after FPS!

The following would happen: RB says "hey they are selling our logo in
that FPS thing" and address FPS. FPS will tell them something about
GPL and point directly to FlightGear. There you are on the radar. The
fact that FPS is commercially selling derivates of FG is pretty
critical.

Post by Gene Buckle
Understand this - no company is going to go to the time and
expenditure of a lawsuit of any kind when they know full well a
simple letter will accomplish the same task.

..riiight, tell IBM, Autozone, Chrysler, Novell and Red Hat. ;o)

Post by Oliver Fels
Sueing is not the first step today. The first step always is a
declaration of discontinuance with an immediate penalty clause.

..that's the first step, the next is allege "There was no response!"
and support their allegation with volumes of paper work to someone
who restricts his response to verbose 4-letter language and fails
to hire an attorney to put said language on paper and properly file
it with the relevant court, which isn't neccessarily the same as
the one the prospective plaintiff would like to use to pin us down.

..our problem is, we _have_ to respond properly, or,
watch the bad guys screw us by default.

Post by Oliver Fels
Lawyers love those as it is pretty few effort and high benefit for
them.

.."amen!".

Michael Sgier

2011-02-17 07:11:34 UTC

i doubt...have a look at FSX. Even commercial products alike xtraffic etc use such liveries.

--- On Thu, 2/17/11, Jack Mermod <***@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Jack Mermod <***@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] .."IP" and litigation risks, was: AH-1 Merge Request
To: "Devel List" <flightgear-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Date: Thursday, February 17, 2011, 3:45 AM

Hi,
Technically, all these logos are under trademark:
Loading Image...

;h=6fa2d4d95c4e614bb67b
a3514a09d60b253e45d7;hb=HEADLoading Image...

;h=f4ca4abcc551aeca443ca68b06f60006ef84af12;hb=HEADhttp://mapserver.flightgear.org/git/?p=fgdata;a=blob;f=Aircraft/ZivkoEdge/Models/Liveries/Fuse
lage-RedBull.png;h=4af09d1cb79a04528b824447190bc68e809ecceb;hb=HEADLoading Image...

;h=d60378d6af8635efc3f5b15a1345e2a810f65fcb;hb=HEAD
I can dish out links all day if I have to....

And go ahead, get them removed. ;) You know what you'll have accomplished when you're finished? You'll have deleted hundreds of hours of work, all in paranoia of a lawsuit that will never happen.
Unless you wish to delete nearly all our liveries, all of you that do not wish for my work to be committed are being well, hypocrites.

On the subject of my AH-1; I have removed the content for now, what other hoops do you want me to jump through? I'd like to see somebody commit it relatively soon, so my (somewhat) recent work can be included in the release.

Check Six, Jack
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----

Oliver Fels

2011-02-17 06:11:38 UTC

Post by Jack Mermod
Hi,
The Red Bull livery has been removed from this release.

Jack, thanks for caring and removing the livery from the package. As I said
you can still provide it separately from your web site. This does not make it
legal but moves FlightGear out of the focus.

Post by Jack Mermod
I find it ridiculous and a bit immature how Oliver people whine about
a simple logo.

For the trademark owner (which happens to be Red Bull) it is more than a
simple logo. It is identification, cult and trend and it is worth money.
So they are pretty picky who to grant usage rights.

Post by Jack Mermod
If Oliver really cared about preventing fictitious lawsuits as he
claims to, he would concentrate his efforts on the several red bull
logos that are already in our database.

These are two different steps to take. First secure the area from more risks to
come in, then remove the existing ones.

There sure should be a debate how to deal with the ones already existing and I
am glad you found the others.

Post by Jack Mermod
If this thread is further interfered with, I will be forced to result
to more forceful methods of having my work committed, or I may very
well change the license back to the CC license and our community will
have missed out on a very high quality aircraft.

I am surprised that you still think this has something to do with the
outstanding work on your aircraft.

Michael Sgier

2011-02-17 07:05:53 UTC

so what happened to fgfs 2.2? can we get a Linux installer as well?

as it's not yet released, what about changing licence to something alike CC etc.(see the forum) Android uses Apache licence...I didn't read those but am sure that there's one to keep off jerks.

Heiko Schulz

2011-02-17 10:13:18 UTC

Hi,
Technically, all these logos are under trademark:
Loading Image...

;h=feb509950de44037ee2ffe72d99e803820f2078c;hb=HEADhttp://mapserver.flightgear.org/git/?p=fgdata;a=blob;f=Aircraft/767-300/Models/
ANZ.png;h=6ac933fa22c33e0f0b637c032cdc473108fee367;hb=HEADhttp://mapserver.flightgear.org/git/?p=fgdata;a=blob;f=Aircraft/767-300/Models/AUA.png;h=6fa2d4d95c4e614bb67b
a3514a09d60b253e45d7;hb=HEADLoading Image...

;h=effa8b73133ad6991dc615ea670b5a3db58dcc0e;hb=HEADhttp://mapserver.flightgear.org/git/?p=fgdata;a=blob;f=Aircraft/ec135/Mo
dels/fuselage.anwb.png;h=f4ca4abcc551aeca443ca68b06f60006ef84af12;hb=HEADhttp://mapserver.flightgear.org/git/?p=fgdata;a=blob;f=Aircraft/ZivkoEdge/Models/Liveries/Fuse
lage-RedBull.png;h=4af09d1cb79a04528b824447190bc68e809ecceb;hb=HEADhttp://mapserver.flightgear.org/git/?p=fgdata;a=blob;f=Aircraft/ZivkoEdge/Models/Liveries/WingTail-RedBull.png;h=592707498df5f8f923b2c9da1f3e9a68370ddd7e;hb=HEADhttp://mapserver.flightgear.org/git/?p=fgdata;a=blob;f=Aircraft/Zlin-50lx/Models/Liveries/red-bull.png;h=d60378d6af8635efc3f5b15a1345e2a810f65fcb;hb=HEAD
I can dish out links all day if I have to....

I surprised that you mentioned ADAC and ANWB. Both are known that they won't give any problems.
Problem is more the Eurocopter-logo which I should better remove.
I hope I find some time tomorrow to do that.

The problem is, Jack, and that's something it seems to me you didn't understand:
The problem is really only the Red Bull logo, as they are known to make problems. If other sims use this logo, then only because Red Bull didn't discoverd it yet.
Mostly all other logos using in this sim are known not to be a problem.

Cheers
Heiko

Heiko Schulz

2011-02-17 10:50:55 UTC

Interesting to read: http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?198223-Why-Don-t-Some-Airlines-Manufacturers-Like-their-Planes-Liveries-In-Flightsim/page1

Quote:"Do you mean used on flightsim add-ons - if so how do you know the airlines have agreed? I suspect that, if they know about it, they have decided not to enforce their rights because it isn't worth it."

Gene Buckle

2011-02-17 14:39:19 UTC

understand: The problem is really only the Red Bull logo, as they are
known to make problems. If other sims use this logo, then only because
Red Bull didn't discoverd it yet. Mostly all other logos using in this

Citation please.

g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!

Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.

Heiko Schulz

2011-02-17 20:05:16 UTC

Hi,

understand: The problem is

really only the Red Bull logo, as they are

known to make problems. If other sims use this logo,

then only because

Red Bull didn't discoverd it yet. Mostly all other

logos using in this
Citation please.

Easy: Google "Red Bull Trademark" and you will find forums discussing this topic.
Better: Google: "Red Bull Trademark sue"

But for the lazy ones: (in german)
http://www.rc-network.de/forum/showthread.php/49082-Red-Bull-Vorlage-Folie/page1

http://www.rclineforum.de/forum/thread.php?threadid=261953
Here the user "Stefan" asked Red Bull for using their logo for a RC-model which he does use only for his own and now got an answer (in german):

"weshalb wir natürlich größtes Verständnis für Ihre Anfrage haben. Trotzdem können wir Ihrem Wunsch, Ihre Modellflieger in unserem Design zu lackieren, aus nachstehenden Gründen keine Flügel verleihen.

Wie Sie sich sicherlich gut vorstellen können, wird unser Logo naturgemäß immer mit der Red Bull Firmengruppe in Verbindung gebracht, obwohl der potentielle Nutzer des Logos tatsächlich gar nicht mit Red Bull in Verbindung steht. Genau diese Situation versuchen wir aber mit unserer stringenten Markenstrategie zu verhindern, weil die Marke sonst verwässert wird. Wir investieren sehr viel Arbeit und Geld, um unsere Marken entsprechend zu positionieren und dies ist auch mit einer sehr starken Kontrolle unserer Markenrechte verbunden. Aus diesem Grund bitten wir für die ablehnende Entscheidung um Verständnis.

Der guten Ordnung halber erlauben wir uns, Sie darauf hinzuweisen, dass sowohl der Name Red Bull, die zwei Stiere vor der Sonne als auch das Blau/Silberne Trapez (mithin der gesamte Marktauftritt von Red Bull) markenrechtlich vollumfänglich geschützt sind und nur mit Erlaubnis von Red Bull verwendet werden dürfen. Andernfalls steht eine Markenrechtsverletzung im Raum.

Wir hoffen auf Ihr wertes Verständnis und wünschen Ihnen weiterhin alles Gute!

Mit besten Grüßen,

Harald Reiter
Geschäftsführer
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
i.A. Andrea Hattinger
Assistant to Harald Reiter
"

In the last sentence they clearly say:
"The name, the bulls in front of the sun and the trapez (with that the whole trademark) are completly copyrighted and registered trademark by Red Bull and may only used with permission of Red Bull."

Cheers
Heiko

Gene Buckle

2011-02-17 20:54:43 UTC

understand: The problem is

really only the Red Bull logo, as they are

known to make problems. If other sims use this logo,

then only because

Red Bull didn't discoverd it yet. Mostly all other

logos using in this
Citation please.

Easy: Google "Red Bull Trademark" and you will find forums discussing this topic.
Better: Google: "Red Bull Trademark sue"

"red bull sue" is a lot funnier.

Regardless, nothing relating to open source use of logos on aircraft
models in flight simulator.

Note that I actually found a picture of a real AH-1 Cobra
(http://www.airplane-pictures.net/image49158.html) in Red Bull livery -
this tells me that if Jack's AH-1 uses this same livery, there is likely
no infringement at all. No more so than someone painting a picture of the
Red Bull Cobra would be.

Post by Heiko Schulz
http://www.rclineforum.de/forum/thread.php?threadid=261953 Here the user
"Stefan" asked Red Bull for using their logo for a RC-model which he

Awesome. Presented in a country in which I don't reside _and_ in a
language I don't read or speak.

If the model the person wanted to put the RB logo on is one not
traditionally marked by them, then yeah, I can see they'd have a problem
with it. However, if it's an accurate representation of something found
here:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&biw=1191&bih=700&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=red+bull+aircraft+collection&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=

I would suspect that RB a) would have no problem with and b) would have no
reasonable legal remedy because the model would be an accurate scale
representation of a real world object. This of course may be an incorrect
assumption - I'm (obviously!) not a trademark attourney.

Note that while hard to see from your high horse, you might want to look
closely at every single aircraft in the library. See a "Boeing 747" in
there? Sorry, that's a trademark violation! Get rid of it or rename it.
Ohh, I see a Ryan Navion. That's a violation too. We'll have to call it
"Plane, General Aviation, Monocoque Design, 1947". Oh darn, lookee
there! It's a Piper Seneca II! That's gotta go! We'll call that one
"Plane, General Aviation, Twin, Reciprocating Engine".

Like Curt mentioned earlier, you'd better apply the same standard across
the board or don't bother. I think your best bet is to create your own
little private sanitized aircraft collection so you don't have to be
horrified by the rest of us scoff-laws.

After you're done taking chainsaw to the FlightGear repository, you really
should head over to Avsim.com, flightsim.com, etc. and make sure there's
no icky trademark infringement going on over there as well. I'm sure
they'll appriciate you just as much as we do!

g.
--
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Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.

Heiko Schulz

2011-02-17 21:21:57 UTC

Post by Gene Buckle
Like Curt mentioned earlier, you'd better apply the same
standard across
the board or don't bother. I think your best bet is
to create your own
little private sanitized aircraft collection so you don't
have to be
horrified by the rest of us scoff-laws.
After you're done taking chainsaw to the FlightGear
repository, you really
should head over to Avsim.com, flightsim.com, etc. and make
sure there's
no icky trademark infringement going on over there as
well. I'm sure
they'll appriciate you just as much as we do!
g.

To be honest:
Yes, according to international laws a lot of the content is indeed an infringement.

It depends on each company how they react. Most companies won't say anything, but in the past there have been some.

Red Bull is known here that they don't like to see their logo on things they aren't affiliated with. This means as I translated: Without their permission you are not allowed to use it- even it is just for your own pleasure.

But the whole flightsim with MSFS, X-Plane, Fly! and FlightGear has grown so much, that the most companies won't say anything anymore. As I described already here on the list, some companies even likes this and see it as free advertisement; some just don't want to see no Virtual Airline using their name, but are o.k. with using the logo for a repaint....

If Red Bull wasn't known here for his strict view Oliver never had say anything.

It is our own risk how we act.

Heiko

Curtis Olson

2011-02-17 21:35:56 UTC

Post by Heiko Schulz
Yes, according to international laws a lot of the content is indeed an infringement.
It depends on each company how they react. Most companies won't say
anything, but in the past there have been some.
Red Bull is known here that they don't like to see their logo on things
they aren't affiliated with. This means as I translated: Without their
permission you are not allowed to use it- even it is just for your own
pleasure.
But the whole flightsim with MSFS, X-Plane, Fly! and FlightGear has grown
so much, that the most companies won't say anything anymore. As I described
already here on the list, some companies even likes this and see it as free
advertisement; some just don't want to see no Virtual Airline using their
name, but are o.k. with using the logo for a repaint....
If Red Bull wasn't known here for his strict view Oliver never had say anything.
It is our own risk how we act.

So why aren't we *removing* all our existing uses of the redbull logo ... or
at least the ones that I can find in 2 seconds? None of the people who are
saying Jack can't submit his helicopter with a redbull livery are saying
anything about the 2 aircraft and several scenery database models that
clearly also use the redbull logo and have existed in our sim for years.

This smells strongly of a case where we like our policy better when it's
applied to others and not ourselves. I'm not saying there isn't some
logical explanation that I'm totally missing, I'm just saying what it smells
like to me.

Curt.

--
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

Stuart Buchanan

2011-02-17 22:28:48 UTC

IMO we should do just that (and they shouldn't have been included in the first place). I had forgotten about them when I wrote my first email on this subject, otherwise I would have suggested they be removed as well. We should be consistent.

However given that there us such disagreement on this subject I'm not going to unilaterally remove them.

I think by far the best option is to wait to see what comes out of the request that someone on the forums made to RB. Assuming they reply that will provide clarification one way or the other.

This smells strongly of a case where we like our policy better when it's applied to others and not ourselves. I'm not saying there isn't some logical explanation that I'm totally missing, I'm just saying what it smells like to me.

Yes, you've said so twice. I think I've answered why I do not think that is the case and given an explicit example where the same standards have been applied to my own work. I'd like to think that you had a slightly higher opinion of my motives :)

I have a policy of always assuming the best of intentions in others, even if I disagree with them. It's a great way to avoid getting worked up about things.

-Stuart

Vivian Meazza

2011-02-17 23:25:28 UTC

Stuart Buchanan

Snip ...

Post by Stuart Buchanan
However given that there us such disagreement on this subject I'm not
going to unilaterally remove them.

I should think not!

Vivian

Duane Andre

2011-02-18 00:07:10 UTC

Although Flight Gear is a 'not for profit', there are at least a couple of
'businesses' (ProFlightSimulator & FlightProSimulator) that use FGS's
software as their core including aircraft and world map. And, since those
companies are in the 'for profit' realm, certain companies that are really
serious about trademark infringement might consider going after them and, by
association, come after FGS precisely because FGS software is the core of
their product(s). Just a thought.

Regards,
Duane

-----Original Message-----
From: Stuart Buchanan [mailto:***@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 5:29 PM
To: FlightGear developers discussions
Cc: FlightGear developers discussions
Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] .."IP" and litigation risks, was: AH-1 Merge
Request

Post by Curtis Olson
So why aren't we *removing* all our existing uses of the redbull logo ...

or at least the ones that I can find in 2 seconds? None of the people who
are saying Jack can't submit his helicopter with a redbull livery are saying
anything about the 2 aircraft and several scenery database models that
clearly also use the redbull logo and have existed in our sim for years.

IMO we should do just that (and they shouldn't have been included in the
first place). I had forgotten about them when I wrote my first email on this
subject, otherwise I would have suggested they be removed as well. We
should be consistent.

However given that there us such disagreement on this subject I'm not going
to unilaterally remove them.

I think by far the best option is to wait to see what comes out of the
request that someone on the forums made to RB. Assuming they reply that will
provide clarification one way or the other.

Post by Curtis Olson
This smells strongly of a case where we like our policy better when it's

applied to others and not ourselves. I'm not saying there isn't some
logical explanation that I'm totally missing, I'm just saying what it smells
like to me.

Yes, you've said so twice. I think I've answered why I do not think that is
the case and given an explicit example where the same standards have been
applied to my own work. I'd like to think that you had a slightly higher
opinion of my motives :)

I have a policy of always assuming the best of intentions in others, even if
I disagree with them. It's a great way to avoid getting worked up about
things.

-Stuart
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Peter Brown

2011-02-18 00:27:59 UTC

This is getting ludicrous.
I guess there won't be complaints about "The Forum" anymore.

Move on, before you kill FG by removing all content that encourages someone to use it.
There are other discussions more worthy of your expertise.
Beating this one over and over again will only drive each of you further away from the reason you're here.

Curt said it, Gene said it, others stated it. FG uses logos, it's part of the environment. It's part of the texture world.
Curt's not worried about any issues arising from it, take some comfort there and leave it be.

Chris Wilkinson

2011-02-18 00:58:58 UTC

I've been lurking on this discussion, and feel a need to add my $0.02. If there
is a question over the legality of the use of certain trademarked logo's, why
not ask the copyright holder(s)? Rather that than waste time on a pointless
debate where the arguments either way are speculative at best...

Frankly flightgear is a mature project that has been around a long time, and
during that time has certainly made available any number of textured models
displaying copyrighted logos etc. That no copyright holder has asked the team to
remove any of those logos yet tells me that perhaps as a not-for-profit
community based enterprise we're not considered a target for copyright
enforcement. But again, only the copyright holders can clarify that with us with
any certainty...

Regards,

Chris Wilkinson, YBBN/BNE.

________________________________
From: Duane Andre <***@gmail.com>
To: FlightGear developers discussions <flightgear-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Fri, 18 February, 2011 10:07:10 AM
Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] .."IP" and litigation risks, was: AH-1 Merge
Request

Although Flight Gear is a 'not for profit', there are at least a couple of
'businesses' (ProFlightSimulator & FlightProSimulator) that use FGS's
software as their core including aircraft and world map. And, since those
companies are in the 'for profit' realm, certain companies that are really
serious about trademark infringement might consider going after them and, by
association, come after FGS precisely because FGS software is the core of
their product(s). Just a thought.

Regards,
Duane

-----Original Message-----
From: Stuart Buchanan [mailto:***@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 5:29 PM
To: FlightGear developers discussions
Cc: FlightGear developers discussions
Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] .."IP" and litigation risks, was: AH-1 Merge
Request

Post by Curtis Olson
So why aren't we *removing* all our existing uses of the redbull logo ...

Post by Curtis Olson
This smells strongly of a case where we like our policy better when it's

Jon S. Berndt

2011-02-18 01:43:52 UTC

Chris' point is well-taken.

If in doubt - in fact, even if not in doubt - it's good to ask.

Here's an actual data point.

There was an "event' a few years ago that lead me to inquire with Boeing
about the use of their company name in identifying certain aircraft that had
been modeled in JSBSim and distributed with the source code. This was the
response I got:

Hello Jon,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding use of Boeing trademarks.

Since it appears as though JSBSim will use the product identifiers
(e.g..Boeing 737) in a descriptive manner, and no profit will be derived
from said usage, then we have no objection to inclusion of the product
identifiers on the software. However, if a situation arises in which the
aircraft models are to be sold for a profit, please contact us to discuss
implementation of a Trademark License Agreement for the sale of consumer
products.

Please be advised that inclusion of the Boeing logo on any JSBSim is not
compliant with our Corporate Brand Strategy, and is not approved.

We have no objection to the proposed disclaimer provided, and prefer that it
is used.

Sincerely,

Now, we (JSBSim) don't have a problem with this since we don't use the
Boeing logo anywhere. I understand that this does open a huge can of worms.

We've taken the step of putting a disclaimer in each aircraft model.

Jon

Chris Wilkinson

2011-02-18 03:35:52 UTC

Excellent. That is exactlyÂ what is needed - good clear advice direct from the
source. It does appear they're not willing to allow anyone to use elements of
copyrighted works in any 'visible' aspects of the models, so that would present
some difficulty when it comes to re-creating liveries - at least it is better to
know this than to not know...

Regards,

Chris Wilkinson, YBBN/BNE.

________________________________
From: Jon S. Berndt <***@comcast.net>
To: FlightGear developers discussions <flightgear-***@lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Fri, 18 February, 2011 11:43:52 AM
Subject: [Flightgear-devel] Logos and licensing

Chrisâ point is well-taken.
Â
If in doubt â in fact, even if not in doubt â itâs good to ask.
Â
Hereâs an actual data point.
Â
There was an âeventâ a few years ago that lead me to inquire with Boeing about
the use of their company name in identifying certain aircraft that had been
modeled in JSBSim and distributed with the source code. This was the response I
got:
Â
Hello Jon,
Â
Thank you for your inquiry regarding use of Boeing trademarks.
Â
Since it appears as though JSBSim will use the product identifiers (e.g..Boeing
737) in a descriptive manner, and no profit will be derived from said usage,
then we have no objection to inclusion of the product identifiers on the
software.Â However, if a situation arises in which the aircraft models are to be
sold for a profit, please contact us to discuss implementation of a Trademark
License Agreement for the sale of consumer products.

Â
Please be advised that inclusion of the Boeing logo on any JSBSim is not
compliant with our Corporate Brand Strategy, and is not approved.
Â
We have no objection to the proposed disclaimer provided, and prefer that it is
used.
Â
Sincerely,
Â
Now, we (JSBSim) donât have a problem with this since we donât use the Boeing
logo anywhere. I understand that this does open a huge can of worms.
Â
Weâve taken the step of putting a disclaimer in each aircraft model.
Â
Jon

Stuart Buchanan

2011-02-18 11:40:52 UTC

If in doubt – in fact, even if not in doubt – it’s good to ask.
Here’s an actual data point.

<snip>

I agree with Jon on this - ideally we should be pro-active about
asking for permission, even if we don't like the answer.

We could send out a series of emails to all the trademark holders we
can identify, starting with the airlines as the most obvious case of
us using trademarks. I would be happy to draft a standard text
describing FG and our use of trademarks, so it would be a case of a
simple cut-and-paste and not much effort on our part. Obviously as
soon as we do that we are increasing our visibility, and would really
need to be prepared to respond and remove content if they said "no".

I understand that is not really going to be acceptable to the "better
to ask forgiveness than permission" side of the argument, so I'm just
putting it out there as an option. No need to shoot it down.

Trying to be a bit more constructive and to find a compromise, we
could follow the JSBSim lead, and include some form of disclaimer that
we are not connected or endorsed by any of the trademark holders whose
trademarks are included in FG, and all trademarks are the property of
their respective owners, yada yada yada. If we were feeling
particularly keen we could include some defined process for trademark
holders to contact us if they want their trademarks removed.

It could be included in a README, and the manual. That would at least
show any trademark holders that we're not attempting to rip them off.

Jon - could you post the disclaimer text you eventually used?

-Stuart

Jon S. Berndt

2011-02-18 12:39:34 UTC

From: Stuart Buchanan [mailto:*.*.*]
I agree with Jon on this - ideally we should be pro-active about
asking for permission, even if we don't like the answer.
...
Jon - could you post the disclaimer text you eventually used?
-Stuart

With JSBSim, our situation is a little different, considering that we deal
with data and performance characteristics and not tangible, visual, IP
(logos, etc.). So, this is the disclaimer we ended up using:

This model was created using publicly available data,
publicly available technical reports, textbooks, and guesses. It contains no
proprietary or restricted data. It has been validated only to the extent
that it seems to "fly right", and possibly to comply to published, publicly
known, performance data (maximum speed, endurance, etc.). Thus, this model
is meant for educational and entertainment purposes only.

This simulation model is not endorsed by the manufacturer.
This model is not to be sold.

I think that last sentence maybe should have "for profit" tacked on the end,
and even that might still cause some heartburn within the OSS community. It
might also have a bearing on the Fli*ght Pr* S*m discussion. ;-)

I found Boeing's response to our query to be friendly and reasonable.

Jon

Oliver Fels

2011-02-18 12:50:25 UTC

Post by Stuart Buchanan
<snip>
I agree with Jon on this - ideally we should be pro-active about
asking for permission, even if we don't like the answer.

Very good points mentioned. Especially the point that this will increase FGs appearance on some radars.
However lots of people are nowadays using Google so the debate has become public anyway.
I would to point out that besides the two results "yes" and "no" there might be a third one worth considering which is: "No answer from the TM holder".
This might be treated the same as "yes" or "no". In case of treating it as "yes" we should agree how to treat potential consequences ;)

Oliver

Arnt Karlsen

2011-02-19 12:30:57 UTC

On Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:50:25 +0100, Oliver wrote in message

Post by Stuart Buchanan
<snip>
I agree with Jon on this - ideally we should be pro-active about
asking for permission, even if we don't like the answer.

Very good points mentioned. Especially the point that this will
increase FGs appearance on some radars. However lots of people are
nowadays using Google so the debate has become public anyway. I would
to point out that besides the two results "yes" and "no" there might
be a third one worth considering which is: "No answer from the TM
holder". This might be treated the same as "yes" or "no". In case of
treating it as "yes" we should agree how to treat potential
consequences ;)
Oliver

..that third option can easily be split in 3;
3a) Prepare to plead mercy in the courts,
3b) Depend on mercy in the courts, and
3c) Plead mercy in the courts. ;o)

Heiko Schulz

2011-02-26 17:56:22 UTC

Hi,

Just out of curiosity:
anyone already asked for permissions?

Regarding "No answer from the TM holder" I guess treating it as "yes" is our all risque.

I must admit: I still can understand Jack very well when I browse through the Internet and see the many, many liveries made.

I will write some Emails to some copyright-holders this weekend like Lufthansa, ADAC,...
I'm curious to see how they react, but I also fear a bit the answers and consequences.
Hmmm.....

Post by Stuart Buchanan

Post by Stuart Buchanan
<snip>
I agree with Jon on this - ideally we should be

pro-active about

Post by Stuart Buchanan
asking for permission, even if we don't like the

answer.
Very good points mentioned. Especially the point that this
will increase FGs appearance on some radars.
However lots of people are nowadays using Google so the
debate has become public anyway.
I would to point out that besides the two results "yes" and
"No answer from the TM holder".
This might be treated the same as "yes" or "no". In case of
treating it as "yes" we should agree how to treat potential
consequences ;)
Oliver
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Melchior FRANZ

2011-02-26 18:20:19 UTC

Post by Heiko Schulz
I will write some Emails to some copyright-holders this weekend
like Lufthansa, ADAC,... I'm curious to see how they react, but
I also fear a bit the answers and consequences.

Severe tactical error a.k.a. shooting yourself in the foot.

What if they (or some of them) are well aware of our use, but they just
decided not to care, pretending not to know "officially", because
it's a small, harmless, not-for-profit sim. But once you officially
asked, they can no longer pretend. And the answer will be *no* in
most cases. Then the silent gentlemen agreement is voided. By us!
And now they *have* to take measures to protect their brand.

They might think: "You idiots! Why did you have to ask?!"

It's like asking a policeman if you may cross the street at red
traffic light. He might have ignored you doing it. But he sure
can't say "go ahead", nor can he then tolerate you ignoring his
order.

m.

Heiko Schulz

2011-02-26 18:37:50 UTC

Hi,

Post by Heiko Schulz
I will write some Emails to some copyright-holders

this weekend

Post by Heiko Schulz
like Lufthansa, ADAC,... I'm curious to see how they

react, but

Post by Heiko Schulz
I also fear a bit the answers and consequences.

Severe tactical error a.k.a. shooting yourself in the
foot.
What if they (or some of them) are well aware of our use,
but they just
decided not to care, pretending not to know "officially",
because
it's a small, harmless, not-for-profit sim. But once you
officially
asked, they can no longer pretend. And the answer will be
*no* in
most cases. Then the silent gentlemen agreement is voided.
By us!
And now they *have* to take measures to protect their
brand.
They might think: "You idiots! Why did you have to ask?!"
It's like asking a policeman if you may cross the street at
red
traffic light. He might have ignored you doing it. But he
sure
can't say "go ahead", nor can he then tolerate you ignoring
his
order.
m.

Jari Häkkinen

2011-02-26 18:48:34 UTC

Post by Heiko Schulz
The question is still: how to proceed?

Just pretend this discussion never was. That is, do whatever we did before the issue was raised. Are we prepared for the consequences of negative responses?

Cheers,

Jari

Curtis Olson

2011-02-26 20:05:58 UTC

Post by Jari HÃ¤kkinen
Just pretend this discussion never was. That is, do whatever we did before
the issue was raised. Are we prepared for the consequences of negative
responses?

We are trying to find a reasonable way forward, not forget about anything.
No one wants to remove existing content from the FlightGear project, even
though some of that same content would not be allowed to be submitted by
some authors as it stand right now. Because it was submitted by other
authors or was submitted in the past we are ok with it. Our consensus so
far is not 100% internally consistent unfortunately.

We have some arguing for a completely pristine "do nothing without explicit
permission" approach. We have some arguing for a "do whatever we can get
away with" approach.

Think of the implications of doing nothing without written permission. We
would literally do nothing in that case except for a few very rare cases
where someone did manage to get written permission -- and we would need to
remove most of the work that we have done to date. But those arguing for a
more pristine policy, are unwilling to actually present a specific policy --
I believe because they realize to be logically consistent would require them
to advocate removal of just about all FlightGear content. The implications
of doing whatever we can get away with are equally bad. This sets us up as
bad guys operating only in our own self interest and puts us in a position
that we at least seem willing to break laws if we can get away with it.

I think a reasonable way forward is to follow the commonly accepted
standards in the simulation community: that it is fine to create virtual
representations of real world vehicles, buildings, land marks, etc. and
decorate them with the same markings they have in the real world. We are
trying to have fun and create faithful representations of the real world.
If a specific company has a specific issue, they are welcome to approach us
and we will do whatever we can to accommodate their concerns.

Our main constraint in creating content for the FlightGear simulator is that
we make sure that our work is our own, or borrowed and adapted with proper
permission.

As many others have pointed out, we are creating an issue here where none
existed and wasting a lot of time with it. The best we can do by pursing
this issue is to shoot ourselves in the foot and harm our project. If we
pursue this issue, and do not proceed in a pure, self-consistent manner, we
also put ourselves in the position of knowingly violating our own policies
or knowingly violating our own interpretation of the law ... that is the
worst possible path we can take.

As the project coordinator, I have *never* been contacted by any company
with any concern that we have improperly used their logos or trademarks. I
have never been contacted by any company with even the slightest concern or
smallest question.

Look at this another way: every man made object in the world is made by some
person or company. Every building was designed by some architect and built
by some company or group of companies. Every aircraft design is owned by
someone, every vehicle, every livery, every logo. All those things that
weren't built by specific companies were designed or built by governments or
government sponsored groups.

Can we not agree that it is ridiculous for people to suggest that we need to
get written permission before we can model anything that has been designed,
built, touched, altered by any individual, company, or government without
their written permission?

I know that a few out there will still assert that we need some permission
from some companies to model some things. PLEASE!!! Tell me where you draw
the line and how you draw the line; and if possible use LOGIC!!!

Until then, I submit that we should be able to create realistic and fair
representations of vehicles and buildings that are found in the real world
including logos and trademarks. To disagree with this position means that
you are advocating that we move a *HUGE* portion of the content of our
simulator.

Jon: I respect your position, but I humbly ask then that you please post or
send me your letters for usage permission from Boeing, Airbus, Douglas,
Lockheed, Aérospatiale, BAC, deHavilland, McDonnell, Cessna, Fokker, (New)
Piper, etc. etc. all of which (and more) you have modeled in JSBSim and
distribute on the official JSBSim web site.

Best regards,

Curt.

--
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

Jon S. Berndt

2011-02-26 21:06:35 UTC

From: Curtis Olson [mailto:***@gmail.com]

Jon: I respect your position, but I humbly ask then that you
please post or send me your letters for usage permission from Boeing,
Airbus, Douglas, Lockheed, Aérospatiale, BAC, deHavilland, McDonnell,
Cessna, Fokker, (New) Piper, etc. etc. all of which (and more) you have
modeled in JSBSim and distribute on the official JSBSim web site.

Best regards,

Curt.

Curt,

As you may recall, a few years ago myself and at least one other JSBSim
developer did have an event that caused us to look over our "operating
procedures" - and I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that it
was not a pleasant experience, although it turned out OK and in my case I
was apologized to for the inconvenience. I never did figure out the exact
reason why I was contacted and "questioned."

As you may also recall I did post the correspondence I received from Boeing
IP personnel here in this thread a couple of weeks ago. It was that response
that lead us to reevaluate our process and to withdraw some aircraft models
from distribution for a while. We then added some disclaimers and statements
in most of them and made sure that our data was traceable to public sources.

We have it much easier than FlightGear does, since the reference to an
aircraft "type" using the company name (such as "Boeing 737") is far
different than the use of a trademark or logo - particularly for a logo.

I can't tell you guys what to do, but if it was me I would take maybe one of
two approaches:

1) Make a README file that contains an appropriate disclaimer and
distribute that with each model. I don't know what that disclaimer would
state.
2) Continue as if nothing had changed, but contact the various
trademark/logo owners and very carefully inform them of the project and ask
them for permission.

In any case, I strongly suspect that the worst that can happen is that if a
company takes issue with the unauthorized use of its IP it will simply ask
that further use be discontinued and that will be the end of it.

Jon

Curtis Olson

2011-02-26 21:23:25 UTC

Hi Jon,

I apologize for being persnickety here, but I am searching for clarity and
consistency on this issue.

Has the JSBSim project asked permission from all the aircraft manufacturers
that you create and distribute models for?

If not, have you only dealt with Boeing in terms of asking for and receiving
permission?

If you've only received permission from one company, then why? I assume
it's because they contacted you and forced this issue. In any case, why is
it ok to proceed with explicit permission from Boeing, and at the same time
ok to proceed *without* explicit permission from every other aircraft
manufacturer on the planet?

If it's ok for JSBSim to proceed without permission from most companies,
then why suggest that FlightGear should get permission before we model
aircraft from various manufacturers with logos representing various owners
of specific aircraft?

I don't understand. By my reading of your messages, I feel like you are
making ethical comments (or perhaps suggestions would be a better word)
related to the actions of the FlightGear project without applying that same
standard consistently to the JSBSim project? I don't see how (from a
logical perspective) that getting permission from one aircraft manufacturer
exempts you from asking for permission (and not proceeding without it) for
any other aircraft manufacturer. And this is my difficulty with everyone
who is arguing that FlightGear should get permission before modeling any
aircraft or liveries ... I don't see any consistent application of these
suggestions or any way to consistently apply anything close to them without
either (a) gutting our project, or (b) acting in ways that would be
completely inconsistent with these hypothetical policies.

I'm not trying to be a PITA here, just trying to understand ...

Thanks,

Curt.

Post by Jon S. Berndt
As you may recall, a few years ago myself and at least one other JSBSim
developer did have an event that caused us to look over our "operating
procedures" - and I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that it
was not a pleasant experience, although it turned out OK and in my case I
was apologized to for the inconvenience. I never did figure out the exact
reason why I was contacted and "questioned."
As you may also recall I did post the correspondence I received from Boeing
IP personnel here in this thread a couple of weeks ago. It was that response
that lead us to reevaluate our process and to withdraw some aircraft models
from distribution for a while. We then added some disclaimers and statements
in most of them and made sure that our data was traceable to public sources.
We have it much easier than FlightGear does, since the reference to an
aircraft "type" using the company name (such as "Boeing 737") is far
different than the use of a trademark or logo - particularly for a logo.
I can't tell you guys what to do, but if it was me I would take maybe one of
1) Make a README file that contains an appropriate disclaimer and
distribute that with each model. I don't know what that disclaimer would
state.
2) Continue as if nothing had changed, but contact the various
trademark/logo owners and very carefully inform them of the project and ask
them for permission.
In any case, I strongly suspect that the worst that can happen is that if a
company takes issue with the unauthorized use of its IP it will simply ask
that further use be discontinued and that will be the end of it.
Jon
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--
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

Jon S. Berndt

2011-02-27 00:37:46 UTC

From: Curtis Olson

Hi Jon,

I apologize for being persnickety here, but I am searching
for clarity and consistency on this issue.

Has the JSBSim project asked permission from all the
aircraft manufacturers that you create and distribute models for?

If not, have you only dealt with Boeing in terms of asking
for and receiving permission?

If you've only received permission from one company, then
why? I assume it's because they contacted you and forced this issue. In
any case, why is it ok to proceed with explicit permission from Boeing, and
at the same time ok to proceed *without* explicit permission from every
other aircraft manufacturer on the planet?

If it's ok for JSBSim to proceed without permission from
most companies, then why suggest that FlightGear should get permission
before we model aircraft from various manufacturers with logos representing
various owners of specific aircraft?

...

Curt,

Actually, I contacted Boeing myself - and only Boeing. It was for no other
reason than it's the only one (with the exception of the Fokker aircraft)
that mention a company name. [I have no reason to believe that they were in
any way responsible for the complaint that lead to the "incident" years
ago.] The other aircraft names in the JSBSim CVS repository do not feature
the company name or any other trademark, logo, or other proprietary
material. The type names such as 172, 747, F4N, etc. are not proprietary or
trademarked designations or anything, as far as I can tell. Nevertheless, we
went beyond what was probably necessary and included a disclaimer in many
(perhaps all?) of the aircraft in the JSBSim repository, taking the input
from Boeing and proceeding with an excess of caution.

To be safest we probably ought to rename the Fokker aircraft models as F100
and F50.

Jon

Erik Hofman

2011-02-27 09:07:20 UTC

Post by Jon S. Berndt
To be safest we probably ought to rename the Fokker aircraft models as F100
and F50.

I hardly believe that's necessary. I've never heard any complaint about
using the Fokker name in any flight simulator. In fact the Fokker
project for MSFS does have some support from the Fokker company I
believe.

Also the situation for JSBSim is slightly different since it only
concentrates on the Flight Dynamics part of the simulator and
configuration files therefore could be misinterpreted as being accurate.
If, after simulated tests, some oddity shows up and someone decides to
contact the manufacturer of the particular aircraft then that pushes
JSBSim right in front of the radar.
So stating that the FDM is in no way endorsed or backed up by the
manufacturer actually makes sense.

Erik

Martin Spott

2011-02-26 22:39:50 UTC

Post by Curtis Olson
No one wants to remove existing content from the FlightGear project, even
though some of that same content would not be allowed to be submitted by
some authors as it stand right now. Because it was submitted by other
authors or was submitted in the past we are ok with it.

Curt, by repeating a wrong statement as often as you already did in
this context, you don't make it a true statement.
People _are_ concerned about some of the content in our Base Package,
but, as I already wrote via private EMail (17th February), I consider
removing controversial content from the Base Package as being much more
ressouce-intensive as preventing new, controversial content to creep
in. Because everyone's busy, as usual, sorting things out might take a
while.

Post by Curtis Olson
Think of the implications of doing nothing without written permission. We
would literally do nothing in that case except for a few very rare cases
where someone did manage to get written permission -- and we would need to
remove most of the work that we have done to date. But those arguing for a
more pristine policy, are unwilling to actually present a specific policy --
I believe because they realize to be logically consistent would require them
to advocate removal of just about all FlightGear content.

I'm one of those who think that a written policy doesn't help in this
context. Not because I'm generally against policies but, instead,
because past experience has shown that this very FlightGear project
doesn't have a good track record about dealing with people who are
persistently ignorant about policies.
Yes, I'm convinced that the FlightGear project is affected by 'social'
issues. I also sense that identifying this sort of social issues might
have been your most apparent blind spot over the past years ....

Post by Curtis Olson
I know that a few out there will still assert that we need some permission
from some companies to model some things. PLEASE!!! Tell me where you draw
the line and how you draw the line; and if possible use LOGIC!!!

Might be quite easy: At least void those companies who are _known_ for
being sensitive about using their trademarked content. Examples have
been presented on this very list on the past one or two weeks.

Cheers,
Martin.

--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vivian Meazza

2011-02-26 20:09:42 UTC

Heiko

Post by Heiko Schulz
I will write some Emails to some copyright-holders

this weekend

Post by Heiko Schulz
like Lufthansa, ADAC,... I'm curious to see how they

react, but

Post by Heiko Schulz
I also fear a bit the answers and consequences.

Severe tactical error a.k.a. shooting yourself in the
foot.
What if they (or some of them) are well aware of our use,
but they just
decided not to care, pretending not to know "officially",
because
it's a small, harmless, not-for-profit sim. But once you
officially
asked, they can no longer pretend. And the answer will be
*no* in
most cases. Then the silent gentlemen agreement is voided.
By us!
And now they *have* to take measures to protect their
brand.
They might think: "You idiots! Why did you have to ask?!"
It's like asking a policeman if you may cross the street at
red
traffic light. He might have ignored you doing it. But he
sure
can't say "go ahead", nor can he then tolerate you ignoring
his
order.
m.

As Melchior said - or nearly said - "let sleeping dogs lie."

Vivian

Gene Buckle

2011-02-18 14:34:38 UTC

Post by Stuart Buchanan
I agree with Jon on this - ideally we should be pro-active about
asking for permission, even if we don't like the answer.
We could send out a series of emails to all the trademark holders we
can identify, starting with the airlines as the most obvious case of
us using trademarks. I would be happy to draft a standard text
describing FG and our use of trademarks, so it would be a case of a
simple cut-and-paste and not much effort on our part. Obviously as
soon as we do that we are increasing our visibility, and would really
need to be prepared to respond and remove content if they said "no".
I understand that is not really going to be acceptable to the "better
to ask forgiveness than permission" side of the argument, so I'm just
putting it out there as an option. No need to shoot it down.

I don't have any problem with being proactive about it. What I do have a
problem with is all the hand-wringing going on in the absense of any
factual information. If someone wants to take the time to sift through
all the textures and then chase down the various trademark holders for
official releases, I think that's great. However, there's no sense in
gutting the database while cowering in a corner until that point.

Disclaimers are a good thing to have regardless - it removes any perceive
ambiguity about the intentions of the project that is using potentially
infriging content.

g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!

Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.

Oliver Fels

2011-02-18 09:17:56 UTC

Post by Curtis Olson
So why aren't we *removing* all our existing uses of the redbull logo ... or
at least the ones that I can find in 2 seconds? None of the people who are
saying Jack can't submit his helicopter with a redbull livery are saying
anything about the 2 aircraft and several scenery database models that
clearly also use the redbull logo and have existed in our sim for years.

Sorry Curt, but I did say we have to care ;)

Oliver

Oliver Fels

2011-02-18 09:52:33 UTC

Post by Gene Buckle
Regardless, nothing relating to open source use of logos on aircraft
models in flight simulator.

It does not matter whether open source projects, private persons or commercial enterprises.
In fact in certain areas (eg. file sharing) private persons are more frequently approached just because it is more beneficial for lawyers.
Putting a trademarked icon on an ebay sell? On a private web site? Good luck.
Various chambers have built their own business model around copyright and trademark enforcement by actively seeking for infringements.
If you think RB will not approach us, you might be right.
However such a lawyers chamber might realize the infringement in FlightGear and approach Red Bull to act as a representative for them. Such requests are often granted as this is a win-win situation: The lawyer gets all penalties and fees and RB has its TM enforced.
Next step: Finding out where the content is hosted and distributed from. Which is the FlightGear web site and the scenery database. Get the owners of the sites.
Calculate the penalty fee- the higher the better for the lawyer, therefore in the worst case it is calculated based on the number of downloads. If unknown it is estimated. Send out the letter which is preformulated. Effort: At max 1 day. Return on invest ensured.

Would you say a chamber would just say "Oh no, poor open source guys, I suspend my business model" in a country in which mothers are sued to pay 3 mio. US$ just because they have shared half a dozen music titles?

Post by Gene Buckle
Note that I actually found a picture of a real AH-1 Cobra
(http://www.airplane-pictures.net/image49158.html) in Red Bull livery -
this tells me that if Jack's AH-1 uses this same livery, there is
likely no infringement at all.

The AH1 is a picture of a AH1 which either belongs to RBs fleet or for which someone has paid licenses to have it.
Photographing the real thing, especially if publically presented, is not an issue.
If one rebuild this livery (reproduction) and distributes it is a clear violation of trademarks as you make a copy. In fact distributing the logo is the by far more problematic issue from a legal point of view.

Post by Gene Buckle
Awesome. Presented in a country in which I don't reside _and_ in a
language I don't read or speak.

Red Bull has subsidiaries in the US and trademark law is enforced on a global scale. This has nothing to do with language or country borders.

Post by Gene Buckle
Note that while hard to see from your high horse, you might want to look

I am no longer surprised that various discussions end up becoming pretty personal sooner or later. It is propably peoples nature or education how to show respectful or disrespectful behavior towards people and trademarks.

Oliver

Alexander Barrett

2011-02-17 15:15:44 UTC

Heiko,

As I've said before, this simply isn't true!
Red Bull are very accommodating, I've spoken to them before about this on a "commercial" product and they required no licensing agreement at all, simply an email from myself saying that we weren't marketing it as a "Red Bull" product, simply a product that had a Red Bull livery.

In fact if anyone wants I'll dig out the old contact and see if they are still there and would be willing to make a statement about FG's use. I imagine it will be very similar, but responses don't come fast.

Alex

Post by Heiko Schulz
The problem is really only the Red Bull logo, as they are known to make problems. If other sims use this logo, then only because Red Bull didn't discoverd it yet.
Mostly all other logos using in this sim are known not to be a problem.

J. Holden

2011-02-17 16:43:19 UTC

You are all being ridiculous except for Curt.

We have the ability to sell the product and could theoretically get sued even though we are open-source. As I have said, the best thing to do is put in a legal disclaimer saying we are not affiliated with any companies which may be represented in our product. It appears much of trademark law deals
with misrepresentation - if we misrepresent the fact they are not associated
with us then we are in trouble (IE: an ad saying Red Bull (logo) loves
FlightGear to practice air racing would be bad).

Cheers
John

Arnt Karlsen

2011-02-17 17:24:02 UTC

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:43:19 -0800 (PST), J. wrote in message

Post by J. Holden
You are all being ridiculous except for Curt.
We have the ability to sell the product and could theoretically get
sued even though we are open-source. As I have said, the best thing
to do is put in a legal disclaimer saying we are not affiliated with
any companies which may be represented in our product. It appears
much of trademark law deals with misrepresentation - if we
misrepresent the fact they are not associated with us then we are in
trouble (IE: an ad saying Red Bull (logo) loves FlightGear to
practice air racing would be bad).

..the mere absence of such a legal disclaimer, can be construed
as a misrepresentation, and done in a frivolous law suit, it
_will_ cost us money to hire some law shark to file a formally
acceptable response to such a claim to the "relevant" courts.

..yes, it _is_ possible to try do it yourself, in about
the same way FG qualifies each of us as F-104G pilots.

.."not responding", means _lose_ by default.

J. Holden

2011-02-17 18:36:59 UTC

Fair use is also a defense for trademarks.

The problem is these are defenses - they will only work if we are defendants in a lawsuit, and we don't want to litigate.

We should take a path which maximizes our resources while minimizes our potential to get sued, or at least have a lot of data removed from our repository.

For instance, it is clear we can't use Google data for mapping by the terms of their license agreement.

It is less clear on these trademark issues. Stating we do not endorse any companies or products which may be used within the simulator is a step forward, because it seems we would be in compliance. However as I've said before I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

The good news is we are unlikely to be sued. Still it is a good idea to state we do not endorse any products or companies presented in this software, stated in section 1125(a) found here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_00001125----000-.html

Cheers
John

Heiko Schulz

2011-02-17 21:50:46 UTC

Hi,

This smells strongly of a case where we like our policy better when it's >applied to others and not ourselves. I'm not saying there isn't some >logical explanation that I'm totally missing, I'm just saying what it >smells like to me.

Myself wasn't aware of that we have other models with the RD-logo as well.
I'm not sure if Oliver, the starter of this debate is.

But if so, I can understand that Jack is pissed off- and yes, to be consequent we would have to remove them as well.

The whole thing "Repaints-Copyrights-trademarks" isn't very logical.
It is like so much in real life: you are allowed to do anything, as long noone sees it.

Or better: If there's no claimant, there's no judge.

Oliver Fels

2011-02-18 09:20:05 UTC

Post by Heiko Schulz
Myself wasn't aware of that we have other models with the RD-logo as well.
I'm not sure if Oliver, the starter of this debate is.

I pretty much am since Jack pointed me to those *sigh* (never noticed it before) and yes, I did say that we have to care about them to Jack. There is no reason to take it personal.

Oliver

Jack Mermod

2011-02-19 04:54:59 UTC

Hi,
As many of the textures were originally photos, they were edited
in .jpg format and sent to me like that. I made the careless mistake
of simply changing the extension from jpg to png. I will convert these
the proper way in photoshop, and commit it to the AH-1's repository,
which can be seen here:

http://www.gitorious.org/bell-ah-1-cobra

If I commit my changes there, will you be able to merge the files
directly from my repo into fgdata?

Check Six,
Jack

Stuart Buchanan

2011-02-19 10:45:19 UTC

Hi,
As many of the textures were originally photos, they were edited
in .jpg format and sent to me like that. I made the careless mistake
of simply changing the extension from jpg to png. I will convert these
the proper way in photoshop, and commit it to the AH-1's repository,
http://www.gitorious.org/bell-ah-1-cobra
If I commit my changes there, will you be able to merge the files
directly from my repo into fgdata?

Sure. Let me know when you've sorted out the textures. Note that
I can't guarantee I'll be able to get to it immediately, so I'll just
commit whatever is in HEAD when I get to it. Is that OK?

BTW, it's grown quite a bit since the last update - from 24MB to
38MB. You might want to see if there are any textures that can be
reduced in size.

-Stuart

Jack Mermod

2011-02-19 20:45:04 UTC

Hi Stuart,
I've converted the textures, deleted unused/outdated
files, and done my best to keep the file size down. Now the AH-1 is
ready to be merged.

http://gitorious.org/bell-ah-1-cobra

Thanks,
Jack

Jack Mermod

2011-02-26 18:32:01 UTC

I'm planning on contacting Red Bull today. If I get the green light, I
better see my livery in the database lickity split!

syd adams

2011-02-27 04:41:43 UTC

Just a thought , but maybe asking nicely rather than demands and
threats might work better ;)

Post by Jack Mermod
I'm planning on contacting Red Bull today. If I get the green light, I
better see my livery in the database lickity split!
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Chris O'Neill

2011-02-27 06:57:53 UTC

I'm no lawyer, and I'm certainly not up on the law around the world, but
there's a concept in North American common law that one must take
"reasonable and prudent" steps to avoid liability. With this concept in
mind, I respectfully ask whether it is "reasonable and prudent" to
explicitly take the position that we'll "look the other way" when a
possible copyright infringements are occurring? Likewise, is the "if we
don't ask permission they can't say no" position reasonable and prudent?

If this *really* is the position the developers want to take on this
issue, then my recommendation is that ALL discussion on this subject
cease IMMEDIATELY, and someone go through the archives ASAP and delete
all traces of this conversation having taken place! Otherwise, someday
some ticked-off company is going to hang us by our own words!

And, finally, if the "it's okay as long as we can get away with it"
argument is a valid defence, then maybe we should also shut up about the
folks over at FlightProSim.

Respectfully submitted...

Regards,

Chris

Erik Hofman

2011-02-27 09:09:19 UTC

Post by Chris O'Neill
I'm no lawyer, and I'm certainly not up on the law around the world, but
there's a concept in North American common law that one must take
"reasonable and prudent" steps to avoid liability. With this concept in
mind, I respectfully ask whether it is "reasonable and prudent" to
explicitly take the position that we'll "look the other way" when a
possible copyright infringements are occurring? Likewise, is the "if we
don't ask permission they can't say no" position reasonable and prudent?

To be honest I don't see any legal difference between creating an
accurate livery for a virtual aircraft or publishing a photograph of the
real aircraft.

Erik

Jon S. Berndt

2011-02-26 18:47:25 UTC

I think that a key with all this is that none of the models will be sold for profit. You could argue that even if the models are on a cd that is sold for profit since they are also available freely that the models are not the source of the profit.

Jon

Sent from my Samsung Captivate(tm) on AT&T

Post by Heiko Schulz
I will write some Emails to some copyright-holders

this weekend

Post by Heiko Schulz
like Lufthansa, ADAC,... I'm curious to see how they

react, but

Post by Heiko Schulz
I also fear a bit the answers and consequences.

Severe tactical error a.k.a. shooting yourself in the
foot.
What if they (or some of them) are well aware of our use,
but they just
decided not to care, pretending not to know "officially",
because
it's a small, harmless, not-for-profit sim. But once you
officially
asked, they can no longer pretend. And the answer will be
*no* in
most cases. Then the silent gentlemen agreement is voided.
By us!
And now they *have* to take measures to protect their
brand.
They might think: "You idiots! Why did you have to ask?!"
It's like asking a policeman if you may cross the street at
red
traffic light. He might have ignored you doing it. But he
sure
can't say "go ahead", nor can he then tolerate you ignoring
his
order.
m.

I thought about that, but hoped no one will raise this up....
The question is still: how to proceed?
One of my liveries uses like Jack a copyrighted logo (taken from an own phto) and may not be used without permission.
-->
http://www.adac.de/impressum/default.aspx?ComponentId=6019&SourcePageId=6729#ank6019-5
On the other side: there are many hundreds liveries with this Logo out there available.
Feeling a bit helpless....
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Melchior FRANZ

2011-02-26 18:56:26 UTC

Post by Jon S. Berndt
I think that a key with all this is that none of the models will
be sold for profit. You could argue that [...]

No, the key is that all the arguing will be between their lawyers
and ours. Except, we don't have lawyers and can't afford them. ;-)

m.

Gary Neely

2011-02-26 19:06:19 UTC

I agree with Melchior. In the most situations they will be obliged to
say no. It's the easiest, safest, most proven course for them.

It seems rare that someone in our community is approached by a
copyright-holder and told to remove some objectionable element. Even
if it does happen, it's likely that someone will get a letter from a
law firm saying "Take-XYZ-down-or-else". You shrug, comply, and move
on.

There's a saying in English about "bearding the lion in his den". It's
probably better to stay beneath the lion's radar.

-Gary

Gene Buckle

2011-02-26 22:44:50 UTC

Post by Gary Neely
There's a saying in English about "bearding the lion in his den". It's
probably better to stay beneath the lion's radar.

Especially considering the rather top-heavy population of fuzzy bunnies we
have around here. :D

g.
--
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http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
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Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.

Peter Brown

2011-02-26 23:49:45 UTC

Post by Gene Buckle

Post by Gary Neely
There's a saying in English about "bearding the lion in his den". It's
probably better to stay beneath the lion's radar.

Especially considering the rather top-heavy population of fuzzy bunnies we
have around here. :D
g.
--

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jon S. Berndt

2011-02-26 19:42:53 UTC

"Staying beneath the radar" might be effective but do you feel good about it? Is it the ethical thing to do? Unethical? Hoping that ignorance is bliss? Trying to ignore a perceived problem and wishing it would go away because it is too hard to do things the "right" way?

OTOH even if a company feels that a violation is taking place they would surely make a friendly request first.

Jon

Sent from my Samsung Captivate(tm) on AT&T

Post by Gary Neely
I agree with Melchior. In the most situations they will be obliged to
say no. It's the easiest, safest, most proven course for them.
It seems rare that someone in our community is approached by a
copyright-holder and told to remove some objectionable element. Even
if it does happen, it's likely that someone will get a letter from a
law firm saying "Take-XYZ-down-or-else". You shrug, comply, and move
on.
There's a saying in English about "bearding the lion in his den". It's
probably better to stay beneath the lion's radar.
-Gary
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Gary Neely

2011-02-26 20:06:21 UTC

Post by Jon S. Berndt
"Staying beneath the radar" might be effective but do you feel good about it? Is it the ethical thing to do? Unethical? Hoping that ignorance is bliss? Trying to ignore a perceived problem and wishing it would go away because it is too hard to do things the "right" way?
OTOH even if a company feels that a violation is taking place they would surely make a friendly request first.
Jon

I don't want to be misunderstood: I applaud Heiko's sentiment. But in
this case, yes, I would feel good about it, and yes, I believe it's a
reasonably ethical position for a loose collection of people who make
non-commercial virtual aircraft and who are totally willing to comply
with legal requests.

-Gary

Erik Hofman

2011-02-26 21:57:17 UTC

To be honest I think most companies would see their logo ending up on a virtual aircraft as a way to get free advertising;
That is; as long as it's a genuine representation of their business.

In this case I would therefore argue;
Keep it real and stay out of trouble. I could easily see Red-Bull complain about their logo on a
assault helicopter and as a result want their logo removed from any aircraft in the database.

Erik

Curtis Olson

2011-02-26 22:08:32 UTC

Post by Erik Hofman
To be honest I think most companies would see their logo ending up on a
virtual aircraft as a way to get free advertising;
That is; as long as it's a genuine representation of their business.
In this case I would therefore argue;
Keep it real and stay out of trouble. I could easily see Red-Bull complain
about their logo on a
assault helicopter and as a result want their logo removed from any
aircraft in the database.

Well I hope Red Bull doesn't see the following link. But hopefully they'll
be so busy suing the jerks that painted their logo on a Cobra that they
won't worry about us:

Loading Image...

:-)

Curt.

--
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org -
http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/<http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/personal/curt/>

Erik Hofman

2011-02-26 22:12:47 UTC

On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 16:08:32 -0600

Post by Erik Hofman
To be honest I think most companies would see their logo ending up
on a virtual aircraft as a way to get free advertising;
That is; as long as it's a genuine representation of their business.
In this case I would therefore argue;
Keep it real and stay out of trouble. I could easily see Red-Bull
complain about their logo on a
assault helicopter and as a result want their logo removed from any
aircraft in the database.

Well I hope Red Bull doesn't see the following link. But hopefully
they'll be so busy suing the jerks that painted their logo on a Cobra
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KYZKqfdOPt0/THfmWhBVvpI/AAAAAAAAALQ/877pUiP9dtk/s1600/cobra+-+flying+bulls.jpg

Interesting, I didn't know that an frankly I'm a bit surprised .. was
that authorized by Red Bull? If so then I think FlightGear will be safe
too.

Erik

Heiko Schulz

2011-02-26 22:17:44 UTC

Hi,

That's their own heli- Red Bull owns it indeed!
This are the new colors.

--> http://www.hangar-7.com/de/the-flying-bulls/flugzeuge/

Post by Erik Hofman

Post by Erik Hofman
To be honest I think most companies would see

their logo ending up

Post by Erik Hofman
on a virtual aircraft as a way to get free

advertising;

Post by Erik Hofman
That is; as long as it's a genuine representation

of their business.

Post by Erik Hofman
In this case I would therefore argue;
Keep it real and stay out of trouble. I could

easily see Red-Bull

Post by Erik Hofman
complain about their logo on a
assault helicopter and as a result want their

logo removed from any

Post by Erik Hofman
aircraft in the database.

Well I hope Red Bull doesn't see the following

link. But hopefully

Post by Curtis Olson
they'll be so busy suing the jerks that painted their

logo on a Cobra

Post by Curtis Olson
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KYZKqfdOPt0/THfmWhBVvpI/AAAAAAAAALQ/877pUiP9dtk/s1600/cobra+-+flying+bulls.jpg

Interesting, I didn't know that an frankly I'm a bit
surprised .. was
that authorized by Red Bull? If so then I think FlightGear
will be safe
too.
Erik

Melchior FRANZ

2011-02-26 21:51:54 UTC

[...] but contact the various trademark/logo owners and very
carefully inform them of the project and ask them for permission.

Such requests go to the legal department, right? Their job is to
protect the company, so their response will almost certainly be
"no" -- tbe safest and most protective answer they can give. And it
doesn't matter one bit if they have a leg to stand on legally!
It's probably a gray area in many jurisdictions, but isn't what
we do sculpting and painting, hence *art*? So what you end up
with is an almost certain questionable "no". How much better
is that than a questionable "maybe"?

m.

Jack Mermod

2011-02-26 22:03:15 UTC

Hi,
So, is there any ruling? Who's in charge right now?

If there are already instances of the Red Bull logo in the database,
why isn't my AH-1 getting committed? Why aren't the other logos
getting deleted?

I just want to see something done. Somebody just commit the aircraft
and get it over with. I can assure the gates of hell will not open the
moment it is committed.

Thanks,
Jack

J. Holden

2011-02-26 22:57:18 UTC