Questions regarding content rights

I've only been using Trainz a year and a half, and a recent post on the Trainz Mac forum regarding content rights and ownership made me wonder how people redistribute Trainz content for profits.

The person was starting a website selling routes they created. They however used content from other creators. This made me wonder, who really owns the rights to any of the content. NV3 created Trainz, so they own it. But they're modeled off railroads created by someone else. The game is full of locos, rolling stock, industries, sounds, that are all real world objects, companies, and logos. BNSF, BR, etc...

So this made me wonder, who really owns any of it?

As long as they don't redistribute other's creator's content without permission, there is no issue. Routes and sessions merely reference content, not include it. As for logos and trademarks of, say, the railroads themselves, well, used in content itself some copyright/trademark owners don't enforce their IP and some do.

RRSignal said:

As long as they don't redistribute other's creator's content without permission, there is no issue. Routes and sessions merely reference content, not include it. As for logos and trademarks of, say, the railroads themselves, well, used in content itself some copyright/trademark owners don't enforce their IP and some do.

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There's also 'Fair Use Policy' and all that other government crap...

Thanks thats kind of what I was getting at. I'm amazed at the amount of time people put into building assets and routes for Trainz because they love doing it. I certainly wouldn't want someone profiting from something I made and distributed for free.

gd5150 said:

Thanks thats kind of what I was getting at. I'm amazed at the amount of time people put into building assets and routes for Trainz because they love doing it. I certainly wouldn't want someone profiting from something I made and distributed for free.

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If you upload it to the DLS, it can be used in Payware routes, also, why not? They wouldn't be taking credit for your assets, they'd merely be referencing it. Same as if I wrote a book and used a specific font

Here we go again, the free-content-in-payware-route argument. Does the chicken or the egg come first?

The egg came first, because the 'chicken' evolved from an earlier species that laid eggs.

gd5150 said:

Thanks thats kind of what I was getting at. I'm amazed at the amount of time people put into building assets and routes for Trainz because they love doing it. I certainly wouldn't want someone profiting from something I made and distributed for free.

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You could try selling but if no-one buys, then it is worth nothing. Like many artistic endeavours only the really good work is worth anything. If you can make a living out of a hobby then you are a very lucky person indeed.

In the case of a route costing a few bucks with thousands of dependencies, how much do you think each one is worth?