Archive of content from Trainz Pro Routes?

[johnwhelan]

Everyone should give serious consideration to a legacy clause in their licensing. None of us will be here forever. My stuff is all free for the taking and using with only the ask that I be credited in any derivative works, but for those who insist on control: consider what worth that will have if your gone - either from this world or just this game.

Some will always insist on being the sad little king of their sad little hill but I suspect many simply never thought of it.

Meanwhile, if you don't have the asset then you don't have the license, it shouldn't be a capitol offense to simply ask.

Yeah but there are more than 500 reskins of my assets that need updating and I can't do it.

Thoughts?

Thanks John

 

[frogpipe]

You mean you have hundreds of assets you'd need to update the license on?

Seems to me I saw a thread around here somewhere where some authors basically reconned their licenses to make their items public domain in bulk. Maybe just say intentions there?

If that thread isn't pinned it should be.

 

[johnwhelan]

You mean you have hundreds of assets you'd need to update the license on?

Seems to me I saw a thread around here somewhere where some authors basically reconned their licenses to make their items public domain in bulk. Maybe just say intentions there?

If that thread isn't pinned it should be.

So you're suggesting that I should release my models to be public domain? How would that solve the problem that many reskins of my work need updating to meet the latest TS22 standards?

Cheerio John

 

[frogpipe]

So you're suggesting that I should release my models to be public domain? How would that solve the problem that many reskins of my work need updating to meet the latest TS22 standards?

Cheerio John

Wait... WHAT?! I did no such thing. I originally commented that folks should consider a clause in their licenses to allow distribution if they drop dead or disappear, I said absolutely nothing about outdated assets.

 

[johnwhelan]

Wait... WHAT?! I did no such thing. I originally commented that folks should consider a clause in their licenses to allow distribution if they drop dead or disappear, I said absolutely nothing about outdated assets.

Define disappear, after ten years?

Thanks John

 

[johnwhelan]

And given that the CRG can upload under the original kuid and we have many different communication areas such as discord servers, email groups and other forums how do you know if someone has disappeared. It's harder than you might imagine. We have had some success talking to executors when we know someone has died.

John

 

[frogpipe]

Define disappear, after ten years?

Thanks John

No, I don't think I will.

 

[poolboy]

And given that the CRG can upload under the original kuid and we have many different communication areas such as discord servers, email groups and other forums how do you know if someone has disappeared. It's harder than you might imagine. We have had some success talking to executors when we know someone has died.

John

The CRG can only update and upload kuids only from the DLS.

 

[johnwhelan]

The CRG can only update and upload kuids only from the DLS.

Yes but to the end user they can't tell if the CRG has uploaded or the creator has been active and uploaded another version.

Cheerio John

 

[rwk]

But how do you solve the problem of missing assets in routes from sites that are gone and even wayback can't get the files? And all you know is the creator ID and kuid number? How do you replace them if you don't even know what the assets are? This is one of the biggest problems with Trainz, missing vaporware assets in routes. There are even DLS routes out there with missing third party assets from TPR and other sites that went belly up and no other way to obtain the assets short of asking around. What is the solution to this problem? I don't like missing stuff in routes.

 

[jd_james]

Wait... WHAT?! I did no such thing. I originally commented that folks should consider a clause in their licenses to allow distribution if they drop dead or disappear, I said absolutely nothing about outdated assets.

I think this is a great idea and would solve so many problems with missing content. I know it would never happen but I would love to see a de facto community wide assumption and understanding of abadondoned content and the general adoption of such content by the community unless continued presents is displayed by the creator.

When a creator creates something, they acquire an implied copyright that gives them 100% control of how that creation is distributed. To add to that the MyTrainz Agreement recognizes that copyright to be valid and binding and requires all users to respect the rights of the creator as a condition of use of any service offered by N3V Games.

With regard to the use of the label "freeware" as an attempt to suggest that a creator that allows users to download their creation(s) from their website or from the DLS for free is somehow the same as the creator relinquishing their 100% control of how their creation is distributed is a false assumption. Unless the creator specifically gives users the right to redistribute their copyrighted content either on the their website or in the config.txt file of the asset, that right is not granted by downloading their copyrighted content.

Now we come to web archiving services. You are of the opinion that what they do is legal but yet there are at this moment thousands of copyright infringement lawsuits making their way through court systems all over the world. So clearly not everyone agrees with your opinion. In the case of The Internet Archive which is the parent organization of the web archive, they claim that they have the altruistic purpose of preserving the content of the Internet for future generations. They further claim that they are doing no financial damage to the copyright holders since what they are preserving was made available at no cost in the first place. And as well, they claim no copyright over the content they are preserving and are providing free access to said content. So it seems on the face of the matter that you might have a point. What they are doing might be legal. But the plaintiffs insist on pursuing legal action anyway. Why? It seems to me that their arguments are based on two ideas. First, it was their choice at the time to distribute some of their content for free for a promotional benefit to themselves. For example, JR and RRMods both offer older content on their sites as free downloads to attract people to their sites in hope of converting them to paying customers. From time to time, some of that older content is removed due to it no longer being consider of high enough quality to serve this purpose. The second argument is that a creation that once had low value now has a higher value and by it being distributed by the archive, the creator is denied the exclusive right to profit from it. An example would be a young writer that published short stories on a blog before being discovered and offered a book deal to publish the short stories as a book. The writer takes down the short stories from the blog but the archive continues to distribute the stories without permission. In the Trainz world, this could be seen as a creator choosing to start making payware based upon their older freeware which they rework and update to payware quality. In doing so they removed the older content from the website. RRMods chose to replace the old site with new sites that did not have the older assets available for download. That is their right. The web archive has no right to continue to make the old stuff available to anyone without the creator's permission. Recently, I saw that The Erecting Hall was granted permission to update and release some of the older RRMods content. That is the proper way to do things.

If there is one lesson I learned in life, 90% of an given legal system is just lawyers circle jerkering each other at the expense of their clients. Copyright and intellectual Property lawyers are at the same level of ambulance chacers.

 

[martinvk]

But how do you solve the problem of missing assets in routes from sites that are gone and even wayback can't get the files? And all you know is the creator ID and kuid number? How do you replace them if you don't even know what the assets are? This is one of the biggest problems with Trainz, missing vaporware assets in routes. There are even DLS routes out there with missing third party assets from TPR and other sites that went belly up and no other way to obtain the assets short of asking around. What is the solution to this problem? I don't like missing stuff in routes.

Did someone say unintended consequences?
So all those who went on about how they had to protect their rights by not uploading to the DLS - great while those third party sites worked. Now that they have gone- thanks.

 

[johnwhelan]

Did someone say unintended consequences?
So all those who went on about how they had to protect their rights by not uploading to the DLS - great while those third party sites worked. Now that they have gone- thanks.

To upload to the DLS the content must be licensed in such a way that it can be sold by N3V. Some content uses textures that are free to use provided it is not for commercial use but if it is for commercial use then a license fee is payable. Asking content creators to pay for a license for commercial use is I think unreasonable. Other content creators simply are uncomfortable with N3V making money off their creations, which I think is their right.

You don't have to use content from third party sites and you can always delete missing content and add in a few assets from elsewhere.

Cheerio John

 

[JCitron]

The simple fact is TPR was a victim of malware. Just like many 3rd-party websites, they disappeared in a flash without a trace. Unlike other sites, they required a login and that prevented the content from being archived, and even then, that's no guaranty that the content will be available.

Initially, TPR suffered a hard disk crash and was able to be rebuilt. I remember Robinhoods asking for some donations at the time for the rebuild and to keep the site on the rails. I kindly sent him a hefty sum from PayPal at the time and did so another time. It wasn't the lack of funds that killed the site, however. The site ended up being attacked by malware that inevitability killed it completely beyond what the team could do to repair it.

From what I remember, TPR became the go-to place to upload content that N3V would no longer accept assets below build 2.9 on the DLS. Later on, people who had a fit over the DLS license agreement put their content there as well. This was all in addition to the content that they normally hosted such as Lars's LLJ commodities and many of Dave Drake's buildings, and a bunch of bridges from Ben Dorsey.

I made it a habit to "harvest" content from sites like this when I visited them for dependencies and still do so today. Something told me way, way back, that this content won't be there forever, besides they had a lot of cool stuff not found on the DLS that made its way on to my routes.

@rwk : regarding your search for Baltimore Cityscape buildings, they look exactly like those building blocks up on the DLS. There's no difference between those and many others except for the name as far as I can tell.

 

[rwk]

I have the Baltimore buildings already. The main problem with Trainz is that Auran/N3V has made it a pain to replace missing assets in routes. You can't do a bulk replace in Surveyor. Somebody mentioned a workaround somewhere like for faulty trees, to temporarily replace them with ones with your kuid, then bulk replace in Surveyor, I forget the exact method. That would probably work for some other assets as well but if you have no thumbnail or other info about what the missing asset is, then what? What if all you have is the author ID and kuid number?

 

[JCitron]

I have the Baltimore buildings already. The main problem with Trainz is that Auran/N3V has made it a pain to replace missing assets in routes. You can't do a bulk replace in Surveyor. Somebody mentioned a workaround somewhere like for faulty trees, to temporarily replace them with ones with your kuid, then bulk replace in Surveyor, I forget the exact method. That would probably work for some other assets as well but if you have no thumbnail or other info about what the missing asset is, then what? What if all you have is the author ID and kuid number?

The workaround works fine for a single asset having to do this with a lot of assets is outright painful.

The method requires opening an asset for editing in explorer.
Copying the folder to another location such as your desktop.
Reverting the opened asset to original since it's no longer needed.
Editing the config.txt file for the asset now located on your desktop to the same one that you are replacing.
Importing the folder into Content Manager using drag and drop or via the File import folder method.

 

[rwk]

But how do you find out what a missing asset is if the info box for the asset has no thumbnail and there is no other info anywhere what the asset is? I have no idea if missing asset X is a road, a tree, a building, all I have is an author ID and a kuid number which turns up nothing in google. i no longer have access to the kuid index, my subscription expired and it's closing in December. They aren't taking any more subscriptions.

 

[JCitron]

But how do you find out what a missing asset is if the info box for the asset has no thumbnail and there is no other info anywhere what the asset is? I have no idea if missing asset X is a road, a tree, a building, all I have is an author ID and a kuid number which turns up nothing in google. i no longer have access to the kuid index, my subscription expired and it's closing in December. They aren't taking any more subscriptions.

Sometimes you need to use your hunch. Go into Surveyor and inspect the route.

Tracks can be replaced by replacing the white splines. There's a method for that, but you need to replace roads, grass splines and fences first manually because there's a good chance that they'll turn to tracks too. Other assets such as buildings, trees, and minor detail assets require working through the route and manually replacing the missing assets.

Once you've replaced everything manually, run Delete Missing Assets to remove the missing ones from the route, otherwise, they'll still be referenced in the data.

 

[rwk]

Yeah, I thought there was something in routes that identified where missing non-spline assets are supposed to be as well. Like a wireframe for a building. I can always do a delete missing assets if the few missing ones don't seem to be very important.