Thanks Shessi,
let me put it this way and I totally respect you Rami for your care of this kind of issue.
The sim was created by Microsoft so THEY have the senior copyright. In truth and all legal terms, THEY OWN anything we make regardless of who made it with the help of who else. From that, a main item like a ship or a plane or a structure has to be modeled by someone. that is also a fact of the tree of creation. So THAT person or persons has senior say on the placement of the model and frankly trumps any and all claims of anyone who may have contributed to the texture, the dps, the weapons load, the READ ME, or anything else. It is like a book, may contain quotes but those quotes are PART of the book and if the person quoted does not like the book they cannot hold the book back from publication or distribution or sale.
In this case, Colin made the ship, that is 99 percent of the file. the DPS is created by tweaking what he created. He HAD to release the ship WITH a dps. In the case of his ships, he made the originals and many including me contributed to tweaks of the dps. That person mentioned helped as well. But he never could have helped if Colin had not made the ship. Colin maintained the ships himself in his own library but now that he is gone I have not been yet able to get in touch with his family to find out what was or is to be done with his "intellectual property" or his models, his computers and his files. I hope to see them preserved for the community. I have helped with others who have likewise passed away and have worked to preserve their content. Sadly i was unwise in one case and the person I trusted to pass on the files to decided to "freeze" the assets and not allow any modding of them or distribution of them because of HIS own personal view that he didnt want the original "sullied" or touched by "unclean" hands> I am SURE the creator of this work would have wanted it to be shared and expanded but this one person for his OWN reasons grabbed the assests in this case a computer and all of the work that was really good and impossible to replicate and sits on it. The losers are the people who could have contributed to a large expansion of a major mod for that sim.
Frankly this can get kind of silly here. I mean this is a sim, and a very old one at that. Hundreds of thousands of add ons have been made, re textured, altered, added to, expanded on and improved on. That means there is a long long line of authoriship and none of us ever claims ownership of the time..and most are very generous about allowing repaints and expansion on their work.they leave their egos behind and give freely and with all their hearts. to try to claim ownership...that is crossing the red line to stealing commerical assets...ie the original Microsoft rights and that would bring their sleeping giant ..the Letter of Cease and Desist down on the community like a atom bomb.
So....if we are NOT trying to SELL the ships or their contents, and Colin is gone sadly now forever, I for one would like to see them maintained with respect and honour here in our library which is the purest and nicest place for assets. Over time there will be more changes hiopefully. I may see about making some other variations of his Japanese Marus and other alterations to other ships, always within the read me's restrictions but with the addional understanding that applies to all absent and missing authors of digital content. If they abandon their work or leave their contact range, that make them abandonware. Sadly in this case it is because of natural causes. Any people who try to withhold use of that content then become the problem, NOT the absence of the maker.
In this situation, I always demand respect for the original and the highest level of quality being observed. If the author themseves is demanding withdrawal, like with Lindsay, that is their right and we must respect that.
but a dps that was created by group effort is hardly a reason to withdraw or withhold archiving the models of a person who is gone. With another example Akemi-san who also passed away recently, his daughter posted on his site saying he would like it if people used and enjoyed his models ..that is a passage of the "title" to those who love and respect and honour his work.
IN this case, i believe honestly that Colin would rather his ships be enjoyed rather than lost. He worked hard to make them and to create them accurately He worked with actual paint chips for the camo and the colours he worked with plans and photos and did a great job. He also tested them extensively under a lot of conditions and those of us who helped test and contribute to them, such as Sully and me, we tried hard to help him for all our sakes.. I actually helped Colin get in touch with someone who had converted his ships for another sim without permission ..once the contact was made and the request was made he allowed it graciously and without reserve. He just wanted to be asked. Now we cannot ask him we must use our best judgement and I believe work for the good of the community and to honour him. He never told me "i never want to see my ships on SOH ever!...those lousy so and sos... he enjoyed and respected this community and was active with it for a long time. We all may have our ins and outs with people and he has some but never that I saw unreasonably and never to withhold his content from use when it was respected.
If at some point the Fox Four site vanishes that the ships are maintained on and that can happen over night for many reasons then they are gone forever. zip. nadda. Many of us have them i have them all archived...and some of them i helped test or contribute to....but i don.t ask for any control over them, I ask that they be preserved for the community. If anyone disagrees, i welcome the chance to debate the issues but I do work now as the admin of one of the largest groups of game developers, 3D simulation creators and people working in such work for both commercial and governments in over 120 countries with now over 2000 members. We work to support and help develop these kinds of resources, help recruit new staff for companies, new titles and projects and help maintain ethical standards over such content. In the end if there is no violation of commercial interest, ie no claim to OWN assets of the parent game and these are MODS the senior rights belong to the creator of an entity or model in this case ships. I hope we can help preserve them as we have Akemi's wonderful models for the future. More of my two cents and I welcome dialogue.
