... <snippage> ... the "grey area" comes in when someone has left the Trainz Community for a while and no longer responds to pm's or emails.
When someone has merely left the community, there is no change to copyright, at least in the US. However, in the US, when someone is deceased the situation may be different if they have failed to make provision for the proper transfer of their privileges under copyright law. The situation in the US is that copyright is a civil matter, and only the copyright holder, or the registered agent of the copyright holder, may initiate an infringement action. If a member of the Trainz community dies, and does not make provision for transfer, then the practical effect is that the work is still copyright, but there is no one who has standing to enforce the copyright, and any copyright action brought in US courts is likely to be dismissed on the grounds of lack of standing.
... <snippage> ... I am also pretty sure that when you use free programs such as Blender, GMax and Google Sketch Up that part of the conditions of using freeware is that you relinquish any rights of ownership.
I have insufficient knowledge to write as to the copyright implications of either GMAX or Sketchup, however, creators who use Blender have the option asserting copyright on the items they produce with Blender, under the terms of the Blender Artist License. I also know that GIMP, the image processing software, does not restrict the copyright privileges of a user who uses it to produce images.
... <snippage> ... If I have done something to improve Vern's "Ayr to Stranraer" - maybe added some harbour features where the assets weren't available when Vern built the route - a quick email to ask his permission to upload would elicit a response. If the reply was "no", then you have to respect that the author has his or her own reasons and move on!
Maybe, maybe not. Depends upon the asset. If you can create your improvements in a way that do not require copying and changing Vern's route, and you make reference to Vern's route in your improvements as a dependency, then Vern's failure, refusal, or inability to give consent may not even come into play.
I think also, in the early days, it was relatively easy to claim ownership of content. Now, with the millions of computers and 3d modellers out there, it is going to become ever more difficult to claim something as unique. If I decide to model an obscure station - say "Kings Nympton" (at one time known as South Molton Road) - it is quite posible someone may hit on exactly the same idea at the same time and, if we researched from the same sources and used the same track plans, we may end up with almost identical models.
However similar they may be, neither route is apt to be an infringement of the other. If the design of the buildings and layout of the track are old enough to be in the public domain, then there may not enough new content for the item to be copyright, at least not in the US, where copyright depends upon novel content. If the design of the building is newer, though, there may be an issue with whoever owns the copyright on the design of the building, which may be the architect, or the building owner.
ns
