It seems that there is an increasing amount of legality and "illegality" in the virtual airline and flightsim hobbies. It's all over the hobby if you think about it, really! From people that do not possess more than half a brain opening airlines named after, designed after, and based on real world carriers, while making it painfully obvious that they stole graphics from their web sites, to the "I'm going To sue you! No I'm going to sue you first!" wars of words going on the virtual aviation media. Why has the entire hobby resorted to legal threats, and acting like squabbling first graders at recess time? As opposed to talking it out. I mean, come on people; real world airlines don't decide "I don't like you I'm going to sue you"...or in most cases at least. They act like mature adults and talk it out.
Anyway I figured I'd just get this little part out of the way, even though no one told me to I think I'll say this just because everyone else does :-). I am not speaking for: Gary Kulash, Jonathan Witherspoon, VirtualAirlines.Com, PlanetAviation.Com, Microsoft, The Pope, The President Of The United States, God, Limp Bizkit, Buddy the White House dog, Yassir Arafat, or my pet goldfish.
The most publicized example of real world airlines coming down on the virtual aviation hobby for copyright infringement would be a AMR Corp, the owners of American Airlines and American Eagle (notice the title of this editorial). I am taking the liberty of assuming that most of you remember this, but for those who don't I'll give a quick refresher. A little over a year ago AMR Corp. came out and wrote a letter to the staff of a certain well-known FlightSim (hint hint) web site. They stated that they wanted all material containing their logo, livery, or any other copyrighted material to be removed. The staff of this web site immediately complied with the request fearing legal action (and rightfully so). Many participants in the hobby became irate with this measure. But what these people did not understand is the fact that AMR Corp, or any real world publicly traded company, has an obligation to its stockholders to protect its trademarks. If they do not enforce these trademarks then they forfeit the right to damages. The eventual result being that anyone can steal the images and use them for whatever use they happen to see fit. Whether it is for their copycat virtual airline or for use as toilet paper.
Most of you that read the VANF should be able to reach back a few weeks in your memory (if you can remember that far back) and remember that several virtual airlines including Sabena, and British Airways, came down on their virtual counterparts and ordered them to close under threat of legal action. These are just a few examples of this.
I can't remember any particular instances of people threatening legal action against each other, with the exception of the recent Clipper Airways debacle. But this does not mean that they haven't occurred. On message boards, in chat rooms, and in the virtual aviation media it seems to have become commonplace for these threats to occur. Why? Why can't people just live with it? In the words of a very untalented singer "If someone steps on your foot in the movie theater, let it slide, why spend the next 20 years in jail because somebody smudged your Puma?" If we can all follow this little piece of advice it would help promote a lot more "peace time" in virtual airlines. Another fact that comes to mind is that any legal threat made in the United States of America or towards a United States citizen must be honored. In other words: you can't threaten to sue the neighbor if he doesn't paint his house blue and not sue him if he paints it red, you will be fined a significant amount of money.
Anyway this is just my thoughts!
Peace.
Jeremy Morrison
boxster926@yahoo.com
