A new project for a team

swt455 · Post by **swt455** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:44 pm

ah ok thanks,

what do you mean by copyright?

djhedge · Post by **djhedge** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:55 pm

swt455 wrote:what do you mean by copyright?

Essentially it is permission to reproduce - thats what the little C in a circle means at the very bottom of this forum for instance.

trains2 · Post by **trains2** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 10:35 am

swt455 wrote:ah ok thanks,

what do you mean by copyright?

It means SWT have 'protected' if you will their logo from being used in WCW. Whether EB asked or not I don't know but you cannot just release the product with the SWT logo being used as this is an infringement of copyright (if permission has not been given) and will often involve some legal battle or else. It doesn't happen often because who would have to be very daft to take such a risk.

salopiangrowler · Post by **salopiangrowler** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:23 am

Another words the route your going to build (if you get started) wil have to be free, completely free wether it takes you 6 months to 5 years to do, start charging for it ie payware and face the copyright police

lumpchase · Post by **lumpchase** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:18 pm

saddletank wrote:Generally, the way a routebuilding team works is this:
1) The main route builder has the master copy of the route and does all the terraforming, tracklaying and scenery placement.
2) Other scenery builders produce models for the route builder to place.
3) and 4) Often one person builds locos and a second builds wagons.
5) Quite often another person specialises in activity writing which the whole team tests, this may include additional testers.

Usually the route builder is the boss although that's not always the case, it's often done by committee The routebuilder also builds scenery if he can.

Hope this helps
Martin

I must agree with Martin on this one, although I can only base my experience on the Metrolink route ....

I 'campained' for the metrolink route for a long time, no-one cam forthwith to help so I set about getting the information for myself. Once I had got the information I needed (and permission from Metrolink & GMPTE to use the name and logo) I found a route builder who was up to the challenge. The hierarchy of the Metrolink team is vary similar.
Terry builds the route, places the scenery and does all stuff RE.
We have someone who is building the activities, someone who is building the stock, Terry and I are building the scenery items and we have one additional beta tester (not involved in the route building part). The route is coming along very well and Terry is pretty much 'in charge' although we do discuss idea's and bring forth suggestions to improve the route.

Good luck with the route though. I hope you succeed and when it does finally come to fruition that you feel that it was worth the hard slog. I first received the information from Metrolink in 2002. It's now four years on, the routes been in production for two years and its finally on the home run with just a smallish section of scenery to build. Hopefully Metrolink will beat the new sims to release, if not it may not even get noticed.

Tony

buffy500 · Post by **buffy500** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 11:25 pm

swt455 wrote:I would now require a person to lay the scenery at tracklaying shall start later this week hopefully

I just need someone to add the scenery when its done,

i have tracklayers and a rolling stock creator, for now i just need a scenery layer

Have I missed the bit where you explained what you were going to do in this team ?

trains2 · Post by **trains2** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:18 am

While this thread is here seems like a good time to see how things are going, any progress in the past month?

salopiangrowler · Post by **salopiangrowler** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:00 pm

i doubt it but he might surprise us so id wait and see

paulz6 · Post by **paulz6** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:54 am

The copyright issue that was brought up is certainly an interesting one.
If I was to "digitally reproduce" my house, would I be flouting a design copyright, even though I own the house!
Think of all those bridges, stations, signs, phonebooths, fencing, signals, gantries, track, sleepers, fishplates ...(several pages later)
Remove them all! Leaves the trees, vegitation, dog muck etc...
One also has to consider that ones product may have an affect on a current going commercial concern.
Where and how does one dip one's toe in this minefield?

tango4262 · Post by **tango4262** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 12:03 pm

but a lump of dog muck is hardly a business (well it is but thats another story)

but im sure using your own home would not be breaching copyright laws
and same goes for trees, fish and horses (except maybe show horses but i dont know)and probably any other animals just take a trundle round LSE for example

regards david

trains2 · Post by **trains2** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 12:47 pm

paulz6 wrote:The copyright issue that was brought up is certainly an interesting one.
If I was to "digitally reproduce" my house, would I be flouting a design copyright, even though I own the house!
Think of all those bridges, stations, signs, phonebooths, fencing, signals, gantries, track, sleepers, fishplates ...(several pages later)
Remove them all! Leaves the trees, vegitation, dog muck etc...
One also has to consider that ones product may have an affect on a current going commercial concern.
Where and how does one dip one's toe in this minefield?

I think that's taking it a bit far. If I boil the copyright issue down, the TOC, taking SWT as an example, has only copyrighted its logo in terms of it being reproduced. We are perfectly entitled to make their trains for free or for a fee if no-where on it does it say SWT. However as soon as you apply a SWT vinyl, and charge money for it, you are in breach of copyright and could potentially face legal action.

Now say we have a new TOC, called South Western Trains, and they operate a similar service to SWT in the south west. They are looking for a logo to use. Obviously they cannot use the current SWT one, but they could take ideas from it and use them, AFAIK there is nothing to stop you doing that because you don't have any proof whatsoever that those ideas came from the standard SWT logo. Therefore you can't really copyright design features and colour schemes etc, because others are perfectly entitled to use similar ideas.

To transfer this to say your house or an office building, someone is going to have designed it, but then another designer might think its looks great, and decide to use some of those ideas in his projects. Hence why you see many offices/industrial buildings etc that look somewhat similar, and even with houses as well.

If people copyrighted their designs, eventually we would run out of designs, because designer x could just say that designer y has used his idea, even if he hasnt, but it may look similar.

Things like trees and dog muck are natural, they weren't designed by anyone so how can they be copyrighted.

Regards

Rich

djhedge · Post by **djhedge** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:11 pm

paulz6 wrote:One also has to consider that ones product may have an affect on a current going commercial concern.
Where and how does one dip one's toe in this minefield?

four "ones" in two lines - impressive

:D;)

trains2 · Post by **trains2** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:16 pm

djhedge wrote:
paulz6 wrote:One also has to consider that ones product may have an affect on a current going commercial concern.
Where and how does one dip one's toe in this minefield?
four "ones" in two lines - impressive :D;)

Does that mean we're playing 'Just A Minute' ?

paulz6 · Post by **paulz6** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:56 pm

Perhaps I should have said "Leave the trees", rather than "Leaves the trees!"
I wasn't trying to point out that anything natural could be copyrighted. Maybe a messy stinking business is a good one!
I would think copyright applies as much to freeware routes as commercial ones. In one case, 'one' leaves oneself open to being accused of attempting to make profit out of 'one' others effort without regard.
I think in law terms, digital reproduction is no different to physical reproduction. For a housing designer/company though, the copyright will be intended to protect his/her design from being exploited by another builder. Most probably won't care about a digital reproduction being used in a train simulator, but some may defend more aggressively.
Most courts are reasonable though, so I think if you give reasonable thought to what is "artistic impression" and "digital reproduction", and make the best attempt to resolve any arrising issues in a reasonable manner, than that would probably protect 'one' from the worst of scenarios.
I thought the use of 'one' may provoke a comment. It is not that 'one' is important, it is that one is neither you or I. Interchange the use of the words and the underlying statement of a comment can be changed considerably in the realm of perception.

trains2 · Post by **trains2** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:54 pm

paulz6 wrote:Perhaps I should have said "Leave the trees", rather than "Leaves the trees!"
I wasn't trying to point out that anything natural could be copyrighted. Maybe a messy stinking business is a good one!
I would think copyright applies as much to freeware routes as commercial ones. In one case, 'one' leaves oneself open to being accused of attempting to make profit out of 'one' others effort without regard.

In what way though? If the route is free then how can you make profit from it. The only thing you would gain is perhaps respect for making a nice route.

Rich