Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
CFIJose

You're not getting my MONEY! Buyer Beware!

Recommended Posts

DJ,I am more concerned with the attitude towards the EULA then the actual cloning of the system.And guys, the FSX EULA\and actual in use system is not right as well. As I have posted before: during Beta testing, the testing team asked MS to program in the option for multiple computer installs and MS did this. But then it came time for release and this code was never removed. The folks that write the EULA were not aware of this and they wrote the EULA as they understood it to be. Hence the difference between the FSX EULA and how it actually work in use.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
DJ,I am more concerned with the attitude towards the EULA then the actual cloning of the system.And guys, the FSX EULA\and actual in use system is not right as well. As I have posted before: during Beta testing, the testing team asked MS to program in the option for multiple computer installs and MS did this. But then it came time for release and this code was never removed. The folks that write the EULA were not aware of this and they wrote the EULA as they understood it to be. Hence the difference between the FSX EULA and how it actually work in use.
Jim,That's an interesting insight with regard to the FSX EULA - I wasn't aware of that. Isn't it great how tech, legal, and marketing all work together? :biggrin:As a dev (non-FS) I know that the EULA has roughly the same value as toilet paper unless the stakes are worth the legal fees. If I want the EULA enforced rigorously, it's up to me to write the software so that it will be - it's kind of like preaching to my 15 year old daughter otherwise. The usual response is "Oh, dad!" and the results measure up to that. You must know the story about teaching a pig to sing? It frustrates the teacher and annoys the pig! I believe you're in the school system, so you must know that one.Regards,DJ

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You only get two activations for FSX and it does work, its locked to a hardware id, what they dont tell you though is that you get an activation back after a certain amount of time. Try installing more often than that and you need to ring support to get your activations reset. I dont know this for sure but from my experience it appears to reset after 120 days.


Cheers, Andy.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

:( Good grief…in a thread where users are commenting on the harmful effects of copy protection -And developers are attempting to explain the absolute need for copy protection -A valid user gets rebuked for a system upgrade?If you’re a studio with seven systems you need seven Max licenses…people get that.But door stops with old installs? What’s the point? – I have two. Wolfgang has one.There may be some multi system FS tools where this might apply…but that’s not what the thread has been about.The thrust of the thread is copy protection – its effects good and bad. No? :(

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

dm.,Copy protection and EULAs are designed in an attempt to protect a developers software from unauthorized use, so in many respects the attitude towards one may be the same as towards the other.Wolfgang doesn't feel guilty breaking the EULA because it is for personal use, so any EULA for personal use software should not be followed even if it states for one computer use only. So then what? Copy protection that tracks hardware configurations.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't know that most customers will object, as long as it's put in simple writing.If it's pages long, most will just agree, then find out later that the consequences of not reading the full licensing terms.


A pilot is always learning and I LOVE to learn.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Of course, Jim, it is so much fun to run the same software simultaneously on the older setup when you have a newer and faster PC... Come on :( Wolfgang only says that is possible to clone a disk and move it into a new PC without having to re-activate all the software it contains.
Jean Paul, do not underestimate my multi tasking abilities! :( I usually use both systems simultaneously. Flying long hauls with havies at rig 1 and, because this can get very boring sometimes, I fly low and slow GA on rig 2 at the same time! :Big Grin:Isn’t this the main reason for buying new, better systems? :( Cheers Wolfgang

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Nice to see that my last post caused so much feedback!Let me add another one.Imaging buying a music CD, which you are allowed to play only on your hifi in the living room. For playing it in your car or on the CD player in the kitchen you have to buy a second and third license.Now some might say, that's not the same, because you can't play the CD on different players at the same time. Ok, then let put it this way. You have to activate the CD once for playing it in the lounge room, then activate it twice for playing it in the kitchen and activate it a third time for playing it in your car. The you would like to play it in your office, but oops that's not possible any more, because you have only bought 3 activation keys with this CD, a fourth activation is not possible. Your fault, you should have read the EULA!And am I allowed to lend a book (trivia) to friends or give it them after I have read it? Imagine how much business authors, publishers and book stores will loose yb this common practice?The world is not just black and white.Wolfgang

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Nice to see that my last post caused so much feedback!Let me add another one.Imaging buying a music CD, which you are allowed to play only on your hifi in the living room. For playing it in your car or on the CD player in the kitchen you have to buy a second and third license.Now some might say, that's not the same, because you can't play the CD on different players at the same time. Ok, then let put it this way. You have to activate the CD once for playing it in the lounge room, then activate it twice for playing it in the kitchen and activate it a third time for playing it in your car. The you would like to play it in your office, but oops that's not possible any more, because you have only bought 3 activation keys with this CD, a fourth activation is not possible. Your fault, you should have read the EULA!And am I allowed to lend a book (trivia) to friends or give it them after I have read it? Imagine how much business authors, publishers and book stores will loose yb this common practice?The world is not just black and white.Wolfgang
The world is mostly black. For the most part people have zero qualms about theft, especially when it comes to software. Many years ago a company sold it's software with a EULA that was very much like a book. It allowed you to install on as many systems as you'd like, as long as you only used it on one system at a time. Their "thoughtfullness" cost them millions, literally. People not only put it on multiple systems they personally used, but also gave it to absolutely anyone who wanted it.Copy protection and EULAs are written to protect the rights of the individual(s) who created the software. Your cavalier attitude towards them is an ideal example of just how little regard society has today for what is right versus what is wrong.

Ed Wilson

Mindstar Aviation
My Playland - I69

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Jean Paul, do not underestimate my multi tasking abilities! :( I usually use both systems simultaneously. Flying long hauls with havies at rig 1 and, because this can get very boring sometimes, I fly low and slow GA on rig 2 at the same time! :Big Grin:Isn’t this the main reason for buying new, better systems? :( Cheers Wolfgang
Well, in that case, I agree with Jim. If you want to use 2, you need to buy 2.

KInd regards

Jean-Paul

I7 8700K / Fractal Design Celsius S24 watercooling / ASRock Z370 Extreme4 motherboard / Corsair 32GB 3200mhz DDR4 / INNO3D iChiLL GeForce GTX 1080 Ti X3 / Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 PCIe NVMe 500GB / Seasonic-SSR-850FX power supply / Fractal Design Define R5 Black case / AOC Q3279VWF 32″ 2560x1440 monitor / Benq GL2450 24″ 1920x1080 monitor / Track-IR 4

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
The world is mostly black. For the most part people have zero qualms about theft, especially when it comes to software. Many years ago a company sold it's software with a EULA that was very much like a book. It allowed you to install on as many systems as you'd like, as long as you only used it on one system at a time. Their "thoughtfullness" cost them millions, literally. People not only put it on multiple systems they personally used, but also gave it to absolutely anyone who wanted it.
Wow, doesn't that enable some very tragic mood now, as seen in most threads where people at least try to discuss the item which may be called "piracy oriented facts and the clichés around them"?'Ah, that poor company, they should have run fancy protections'. Is that the implied/expect "right" thinking after reading this story? Just asking, since my cliché-meter shows some reaction.'The world is mostly black.' therefore is my favourite sentence. It really compliments my statements where I've tried to show that some devs are not only thinking black/white only, but assuming every customer (the guy who pays) to be on the black side if not otherwise "proven" by a fancy checking algorithms they seem to sell to other devs too.So, the world (once again) is very simple on their side. Who really gets surprised about the more or less complicated outcome then when they're approaching things like that, in the too easy way?Nice story with that fictional company though.Isn't it funny that one part of the industry behaves normal and correct, call it user friendly, and the other part still runs against their own walls and mostly fights their attitude based "good bye" customers (means one buy and a abstinence thereafter) while blaming some pirates for it? This other part also believes in forcing people to be honest and thinks that they are happy about this force, starting to like that dev.Most force on people leads to some counteracting one. This may come as the mentioned 'I bought once, I never will again' customer (seen some examples in this very thread) or to a complete loss of attraction. Sales down then? Oh, must be the pirates. Lets put protection up some more. :( Vicious circle symptoms in my eyes. Proof? Look at the "happy" mood of the fellow heavy protection fans. Just sayin'.That chapter about the clear sales numbers was a nice one. Sadly we've abandoned it after Ryan's statement about the MD11 and J41 sales. He was ( in my eyes) assuming that the better sales of the J41 are a clear sign of the 'better protection leads to better sales' thing.I've then tried to show that his assumptions aren't valid, not in a scientific or logical way, since he didn't run a complete testbed with the very same setup and only one altered circumstance.Read the statement from him here. I've answered here and, so far, did not receive an answer, sadly.I'm just posting this as a reminder because of that 'the world is black' (in piracy and/or sales terms, also on user attitudes in the meaning of "bad") statement. If you really compare things in the way they did there, looking at the sales numbers of totally different products and assuming the better ones to be related to the better protection setup, you may end up in this "black" view of the world.I don't think that Ryan from PMDG owns this view, but his fellow devs from HiFi and Eaglesoft seem to be very much on that line. Look at the outcome.Another "funny" (on the first view) thing is that one industry tells you that you "have" to buy nice PC systems, at least two for every person and the other one than sets up EULAs to force you to buy every software product twice. That's the very industry focus of "freedom" I think and I really appreciate the existence of companies which leave this focus as free and as customer friendly as they can, knowing that their fairness will lead to my fairness, buying their stuff and not using it simultaneously.Think that EULAs then bring back motivation and passion towards you, leading to fair behaving customers which accept every strange or not so strange usage limit you've set up there?Believe surely is a strong force, but most EULAs aren't even active (they e. g. get presented after you've already bought that thing) and, if they were, only get respected if you respect the customers too. That's a relationship, two sides are involved. So if you want to get your customers to act fair, treat them fair like, luckily, most flight sim companies do.Speaking about the ones which don't check your 'are you my friend' status periodically. You may have heard of some of those companies since they are the ones people get excited and happy about.I don't treat my favourite companies fair because they've told me to be in their EULA, I treat them fair because I want (=not forced to) to treat them like this as they are fair to me.Aim for that target and you are as happy about sales and customer mood as they are. :(

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Who reads EULA agreements anyway? I don't.Just install and run. As long as you have paid for it, don't give it away to others or try to hack into the code then who cares what the EULA states?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Good point, somehow (since it sounds a little "rough").The European countries mostly declare every EULA which is presented after you've bought that thing as null and void. Same as you would buy a car and, after paying and loading up your family, a guy jumps in and states 'if you turn that key, you're accepting to only drive some left turns, not at night and only when the temps are above 20C'.With reading this sentence you acknowledge the complete following paragraph.What!, you've just read this sentence!? Now I'm free to write every little thing down I ever dreamed of since you already are legally bound to my words. Big%20Grin.gifRemember, that's the aimed and 'dreamed of' industry view on customer freedom. It, luckily, hasn't much to do with the real thing and it doesn't get more valid if more companies do it wrong and form up a common law rule then.I've said this at the beginning of the thread. If a large group does things the wrong way, forming up a common law view, people often get distracted and think that this very common law is real law.But real laws are set up by your government while all the EULA stuff is done by companies and, at the bigger ones, by payed lawyers. Real laws are controlled and verified before they get set to "active". EULAs get controlled and verified when some party is using them in a lawsuit, not before. So nobody really cares about their legal presence until some party says that this or that was "a law" coming from the EULA. A huge and vital difference when compared to real laws.As I really doubt that the small flight sim companies (in that business, only small companies are there) care much about the legal verification of their EULAs (any lawsuit running there? Got a reference then?), we can mainly drive the whole EULA thing down to a wish or advise from your (hopefully) friendly dev which you either can or can not respect. The "must" of this respect has, once again, to be verified by other people as the payed lawyer or the guy in the company, making the EULA sound very professional. For good reason.You may check some fancy EULA sentences and regulations for how valid they were in a lawsuit where company A complained about customer B doing this or that.Piracy doesn't get sentenced because of a EULA since piracy is covered by laws, real ones.And, as said, all European costumers mainly can click through EULAs as if they we nothing when they are presented after already having payed the thing. As this is a common thing to happen (you install the soft and then the EULA pops up), I wanted it to be mentioned. A very common misconception on the customer side, seeing these serious and professional sounding sentences as some kind of law to follow.The simultaneous usage of a software you only bought once doesn't need an EULA to be forbidden. Buy one, use one. But the simultaneous installation of "just" an end user flight sim product and her "forbidden status" by some EULA will have a more than hard time in the verification process (which can only take place in the mentioned lawsuits, not before).As said, the funny industry reality nowadays is that they tell you that you need that other PC, that laptop or whatever but get upset when you want to run the software you've payed for on every of those "needed" things without installing/uninstalling it all the time. Some companies would even limit these install attempts and may call you a bad guy when you ask them for clearance. 'A guy that switches hardware that often? Must be a pirate!' Referring to this very negative 'black world' statement of at least one individual.Once again, speaking of simultaneous installations, not the simultaneous usage. Only stressing this because some guys from the "black world" already showed some need for repeated tenors.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

'CoolP', your very attitude in this thread is a perfect example of 'a mostly black world' to me. In my years I've seen people fail, consistently, when it comes to choosing right versus wrong. I've seen justifications that would cause one's eyes to bulge in disbelief. I've seen far, far too much negative attitude towards fellow mankind with a personal sense of self-entitlement in the world to even begin to consider trusting people to do the right thing. People rarely do if given the choice to do what's right or get away with doing something wrong without consequence.You repeatedly 'campaign' in this thread to make the developers out to be 'evil' simply because they choose to protect what is rightfully theirs to protect in whatever manner they find to be most effective for them. You also repeatedly imply that the true source of piracy is the fact that developers protect their software and thus force people to violate the law to obtain that which they desire.


Ed Wilson

Mindstar Aviation
My Playland - I69

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Nice story with that fictional company though.
You are beginning to sound remarkably like Donald Trump et ailia..."Nice try Mr. President with that fictional birth certificate..." :( What an oh so polite way to call someone a liar. :( Your continued claims that Google searches lead to gold are also unsupportable. It simply means that you haven't followed the actual so-called returns to find a viable link to that pot of gold. You simply have assumed that Mr. Google is reliable and factual. "I saw it using Google so it must be true! Talk about being naive...Flight1 does have a limit to the number of times any given download.exe and key may be verified. However, it takes less than three minutes for a legitimate customer to self-reset their limit. No "customer support person" required at all. It's fully automated. How draconian!This is a true anecdote - which I have no doubt you'll label as fictional - about a young teen who once wrote a blistering complaint that he couldn't activate his legitimate purchase because he'd "exceeded the activation limit" and he handn't even installed it yet!After a bit of back and forth email, he finally admitted that he'd shared his key with a few friends, who'd used up all of his activations...Being a typical teen, he'd never once considered that what he'd done was wrong. :(

Fr. Bill    

AOPA Member: 07141481 AARP Member: 3209010556


     Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...