If you make content for RW - Read the EULA

[Shadders]

Strongly recommend that you read the EULA "EULA TS2013-1.pdf" if your making content.

Draw your own conclusions.

[cnw1970]

Where do you find that???

[phile]

Well, they're trying it on but some of those clauses are clearly unenforceable. Rather cheeky of them.

[willwill88]

Explain please?

[Shadders]

Hi,
Bit of a copy & paste from the post I made on UKTS:

Paraphrasing from section 9 of the EULA.
9.2 B. RS.Com can take ownership of stuff you make and not reimburse you.
9.2 C. Nice big disclaimer must be added in a read me for all content.
9.2 E. You can't make the same thing for a rival simulator.
9.2 I. Any editors provided are provided As-Is, not warrantied or supported. Though since they are integral to RW, I'm not sure how they could legally uphold this.

And the best bit...
9.3 If you muck them about and breach the EULA, RS.com can remove access (ban you), see section 11.2

The EULA can be found in the Railworks\Manuals\En folder.

[Pridit]

9.2 B. RS.Com can take ownership of stuff you make and not reimburse you.

Well that's nice of them

[lonewolfdon]

Hmmmm, it's all a bit confusing leagalieze/lawyer-speak to me, but aside from some wording that basically says that any User-Generated-Content (UGC) now belongs to RSC and they can do anything with UGC as they like, "We have an irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, payment free right to take any actions
we consider appropriate in respect of the UGC (including without limitation to copy, reproduce, market, advertise, modify, adapt, merge, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the UGC)"

but it looks like (perhaps?) they no longer will allow 3rd-Party / Independent Developers to independently (or through non-RSC methods) sell any content they make?

"The UGC must be designed and used for personal use and not for any business
purpose or for any commercial gain;"

Well, if that's the case, then I suspect there may be lot of 3rd-Party / Independent Developers (myself included) that personally spent hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours of time and effort, to make (or was currently making) great content for Train-Simulator (be it either freeware and/or payware content), and had supported & promoted and helped to grow Train-Simulator, RSC and the Community in their own way, may now be considering to "close-up-shop" and no longer make any new content for Train-Simulator and may remove all of their old content as well.

So if you soon see Don (me), my website, and all addons I've ever made or was working on suddenly go "bye-bye Train-Simulator and Community", then aside from some of the many other obstacles that some of us Independent Developers face, you may have a hint of what happened and why some of us Developers become "squashed-out" by the big-mighty-boot of busine$$ and on the extinction list.

Have a nice day all. It's been quite a ride.
Cheers!

[lighthousepoet]

It all sounds a bit ambiguous to me but as far as I can tell with out seeing the whole EULA....What Railsim are saying is that once assets routes scenarios appear on their platform...i.e Trainsim 2013 then it belongs to them and they can do whatever they like with it.....Well they will trip over their own petard when it comes to the likes of Just trains and the other major developers.
The laws on copyright are quite explicit in the UK so the courts and the lawyers will have a field day if they are in breach regardles of what they say in the EULA.

[roguekiller2323]

i guess this explains why a lot of the DLC has been removed from the steam store.

this doesn't look very good for the future of the game.

[Sceptr]

I wonder if this is the reason why Just Trains asked me in an email today if i had a Steam account. http://www.justtrains.net/survey

13, anyone superstitious?

[rgarber]

Originally Posted by Shadders

Hi,
Bit of a copy & paste from the post I made on UKTS:

Paraphrasing from section 9 of the EULA.
9.2 B. RS.Com can take ownership of stuff you make and not reimburse you.
9.2 C. Nice big disclaimer must be added in a read me for all content.
9.2 E. You can't make the same thing for a rival simulator.
9.2 I. Any editors provided are provided As-Is, not warrantied or supported. Though since they are integral to RW, I'm not sure how they could legally uphold this.

And the best bit...
9.3 If you muck them about and breach the EULA, RS.com can remove access (ban you), see section 11.2

The EULA can be found in the Railworks\Manuals\En folder.

Anything they want they can put in a EULA but it's not necessarily legally enforceable. Depends what it is and how common law accepts it. To have any real teeth there needs to be a binding agreement with signatures in place and it would have to go before a judge to be settled. Same as an NDA, they can make you sign it but it's only enforceable if a judge agrees to it. So whether it's written or not written, anybody can take you before a judge as long as it's not deemed frivolous though the outcome could be effected by the licensing, but it's not a slam dunk. Most folks won't challenge something like this because a so called 'company' they think retains a legal team is behind it when usually that isn't so.

Rich

[Scorcher24]

Well, one way to kill an active communtiy of your game.

[lonewolfdon]

If RSC suddenly "Owns" any User-Generated-Content now, and they can decide to do what they want with it (perhaps they decide to sell some UGC themselves for a fee, but the person who actually made the content gets nothing for it), plus they now say they UGC can not be sold now (only RSC can sell any content for Train-Simulator now apparently), then they just closed-the-door on many 3rd-Party / Independent Developers (like myself) who put into tons of hours and work making content (either freeware or payware).

I suppose there will still be some Independent Developers that will continue to make new content and give away as freeware (and I may still make some new addons too and give away for free, as I already have done so in the past and currently), but I think we may now start to see less new projects/content being made for Train-Simulator by 3rd-Party/Independent Developers (though there will probably still be some), and overall I think this new policy/EULA by RSC will hurt the Train-Simulator Community and drive away a lot of Independent Developers from make any new content.

I may be making an announcement soon in regards to my RRYard.com site, any content/addons I have made previously (or was currently making) and about the future of my participation in the Train-Sim Community or being involved with Train-Simulator.

The train-of-life rolls on. Cheers!
---Don.

[Ilsimen]

If they didn't want people making User-Generated-Content, then why would they have implemented the Steam Workshop, a place specifically designed for people to share their own UGC. Personally, when I first saw the announcement for TS2013, the thing that got me the most excited was the Steam Workshop. Finally a place we ALL have access to, (you have to have Steam to own the game) that will make it easy to find all the great freeware that's out there. Plus, it makes it so much easier to install the files, you just subscribe to the one you want, and Steam will automatically install it for you. Frankly I've been shocked browsing the forums the last few weeks, and seeing absolutely no discussion about this. Maybe I'm the only one who finds this exciting!

Anyway, to get back on track, I have to wonder if this new language in the EULA has to do with ownership of files that have been uploaded to the Workshop. Kind of like how Facebook owns everything you post on your Facebook page. Or maybe I'm way off base, and don't have a clue what I'm talking about. It's probably the latter.

[lonewolfdon]

The Steam-Workshop for Train-Simulator is currently for Users to share User-made scenarios for free (and apparently, it looks like currently Users wanting to try and Publish any scenarios they've made up to the Steam-Workshop are quite limited to scenarios using a specific types of trainsets and routes; For example, I went and tried to upload some of my Horseshoe Curve scenarios, but that route doesn't show on the list at all when trying to "Publish". I went to try and upload some other scenarios from some other routes, but they don't show-up I guess because it's not a specific trainset allowed - which was "default" trainsets with TS2013, but perhaps no longer "default" with TS2013).

With the new TS2013 EULA, RSC can now "copy, reproduce, market, advertise, modify, adapt, merge, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the UGC"

and also states, "The UGC must be designed and used for personal use and not for any business purpose or for any commercial gain".

So, sure, Independent Developers are still welcome to make content for Train-Simulator, as long as it's given away for free by the User/Independent-Developer that made it, but RSC doesn't want Independent Developers to offer any UGC they make as Payware, "for any commercial gain".

Plus, having the scenarios on the Workshop can help to generate more sales for RSC too, because if some Users see some scenarios that require trainsets and/or routes that they don't already have, then they may be tempted to buy the required trainsets and/or routes so they can play those scenarios.