A letter from several Chinese DCS palyers - 19 August 2019

Dear DCS developers, administrators of ED forums and DCS players,

We are several faithful DCS players from China. Out of our passion for DCS, presently, we would like to discuss something with you, regarding the internet audio-visual program called “Crazy Warfare-Show”(“军武次位面” in Chinese) from China.

Initially, that program was made by some military enthusiasts from China, introducing various knowledge concerning military weapons and military history. And they had gradually gotten a lot of fans and subscribers. With the increase of popularity, they started to run a media company concentrating on this program and other related for-profit commercial activities. While mass production of these videos being ensured, the quality starts to suffer and vulgarity appears. In a sense, they have been pushed to the cusp of public opinion. Although some former fans choose to unfollow it and even put it into blacklist, it still has millions of subscribers.

Well, until this point, this company and its program “Crazy Warfare-Show” seemingly don’t have any relationship with the game DCS World, do it?

However, in March 2019, they made a new program in their public WeChat account called War Simulation.

This program uses a lot of AI aircrafts and vehicles in DCS to fight disorderly. And as many people who truly know about AI in DCS can imagine, there is not any simulation in these videos. But that is not the point. And how do they describe about these videos? They just claim that they use the war-simulation-engine to make it, in the form of AI battle. Provokingly, they do not mention that it is from DCS World and deliberately get rid of the name of game, and even define it as CG or animation. In some of their video, they directly use the clips from DCS World official trailer, not citing the source. Meanwhile, they use a lot of mods made by DCS players, but get no authorization from the mod makers. At least one Chinese mod maker knows nothing about the fact that his mods were stolen to make their video of War Simulation.

Undoubtedly, they have violated the End-User License Agreement and broken intellectual property of mod makers. They have evoked great anger among the Chinese DCS players, but it is no use. We cannot take suitable legal actions against such infringement on behalf of Eagle Dynamics and are unable to take effective measures to prevent such behavior of this company. Comparing to the fans of this company, our power is so limited.

So these low-quality videos have been being produced without any punishment, and there is merely some verbal aggression from very few people. Till now, these videos have been being updated every day. Clearly, we have gotten no reliable evidence proving they make profit from it, so we stopped condemning them and tolerated their existence.

However, recently, everything has changed.

On August 14, the official account of this company on social Web site called microblog announced that they have made an anime cooperating with a Chinese video website named AcFun. It would be shown on the next day and the previewed trailer was released. This trailer uses a lot of clips from DCS World and related unauthorized mods. And the main content is still the disordered and insignificant AI combat. Regrettably, there is no mention that the trailer is made by DCS, even no specification that it is from a game. The company uses DCS to make commercial videos without any license from ED or TFC, which not only has broken intellectual property rights of ED, but also tricked the Chinese viewers. In the anime launched on August 15, however, they only note that it is made by DCS in the last two seconds of the video. It is abundantly clear that they are attempting to evade the legal liability.

We hold the view that, for Eagle Dynamics and all the flight simulation enthusiasts, the most important thing is to strive to restore the authenticity of flight simulation without fear of hardship. The company produces many low-quality videos made by DCS illegally, which is a blasphemy to DCS, a game that the developers pay a high price for and the players have deep love for. It's unforgivable to produce these videos for profit. As faithful fans for DCS, we don't want to see our favorite game becomes a tool for the company to grab illegal profits. We know that ED doesn’t have agency company in China, and it is very unrealistic to engage in a transnational lawsuit. Consequently, we have no extravagant expectations about it. We only hope that our dear Eagle Dynamics would like to give out your own sound and condemn related behavior of the company, which will make us feel that we are not fighting alone in safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of ED. If ED do not make any comment on this matter, we will be under unimaginable pressure on the Internet. After all, if ED acquiesces in the behavior of the company, our indignation will be worthless.

We sincerely hope that ED would like to respond to this as soon as possible.

Some faithful DCS players from China

bless you for standing up for what is right

Chinese player support this idea

Now, now, let's not turn this into some sort of witch pursuit thing :p

Wow. I guess DCS is serious business. Good luck tsking legal action in china tho.

Interesting.

Now, now, let's not turn this into some sort of witch pursuit thing :p

Well....if they end up weighing the same as a duck, then all bets are off!!!

goodluck....But...I am not optimistic...

'Scuse me - going to make myself unpopular, I'm sure - but just how many copyrighted works of music have been uploaded to the user files section of the DCS Website for public download?

I'm talking about the Battle of Britain theme tune, The Doors, Kenny Loggins, other '70's music and more.

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones is a phrase that comes to mind. ;)

'Scuse me - going to make myself unpopular, I'm sure - but just how many copyrighted works of music have been uploaded to the user files section of the DCS Website for public download?

I was furiously searching for a way around this... but it's absolutely true. Just a quick search on there throws up all sorts of copyrighted music, particularly F-14 walkman stuff, it seems.

So yeah.. it isn't going to make you popular, but you're right - that kind of stuff should, technically, be removed if there were to be consistency.

deleted

Wait what? .. Chinese trespassing on copyrights? .. that's unheard of ... </sarcasm> ..

If Car companies, etc. can't do something against it, I fear ED won't be able either.

But yeah: Thanks for showing that it's not all who condone this!

"Crackle crackle, burn burn!" :D

I wouldn't sweat it too much at this point guys. It looks like they have only gotten a hold of the main package and some planes. They may have even bought them outright but are making videos in the meantime. They are clearly trying to claim it as their own but the integrity checks should account for all of this. There may be a hole somewhere that they hacked through but I have faith ED and FC can close it if needed.

With this in mind, be careful as you pursue this and don't get hooked in a phishing scheme. That could be what is motivating this aside from real fan frenzy over there.

"What else floats on water?" :D

some of you guys have serious comprehension issues

Hi my fellow Chinese and Chinese DCS fans,

I reckon what they did, as you described, by the spirit of copyright, is not proper. Especially it seems that they use DCS as their primary video production tool. And for that reason and to contribute to the potential improvement for both IPR practice in China and ED's self-protection, I personally support your advocacy.

In this case however, I guess it might be quite hard for ED to win this battle, despite that I hope ED would.

The highlighted Licence Clause is probably poorly written: "Video production by you using DCS products is allowed for Youtube advertisement revenue generation." This doesn't explicitly exclude other use of video production using DCS products.

The non-commercial-use clause is imposed on the DCS products, not its video production.

I trust ED would take whatever action they see fit, and I hope ED would win.

In the meantime, it might also be beneficial for ED to amend the licence agreement, on ED's discretion of course...

One question though, what are the top popular Chinese DCS communities?

This is why I said not to sweat it. It will likely be very difficult to get a "cease and desist" order over there.

Call me defensive, but as far as "comprehension" goes, broken English and Chinese "Twitterati" is not exactly my idea of scholarly writing, but what would I know?, I'm only a librarian. Yes the main complaint may be about video production and publication, but is not the same concern as the code itself and true "copyright" license. It's not entirely clear from the sandwiched screenshots and misuse of the term "copyright" what act they were referring to? [(P) is used for production] Especially the one shot from a YouTube video with DCS and HeatBlur in the title.

The line in the license agreement could be improved. Sorry to ruin your day with any distractions or apparent "comprehension" issues. I stopped worrying about that after I took the GRE and then postgraduate classes after my masters. Some people can't write their way out of a paper bag. We all deal with language issues on this international forum and don't call out "comprehension." No offense to ESL members.

I do care about the license agreement and hope this can be dealt with. I am not denying the value of that at all. I just have my suspicions and think it's not as serious as all out piracy of the sim code and installation.

Rant off, it's too hot in New England right now ;)

@squiffy

A duck!

:D "Churches!, Lead!, Very small rocks!" :D Thanks, I needed that. And sorry for the rant. Yeah copyright gets a bit confusing, especially dealing with fair use and production and I wasn't clear about that in my first post. And it really is too hot up here. 95F at Norwood airport and my reading room at work under the skylight is 82F Built in 1898. :(

"Das Böse lernt sich leicht, das Gute schwer."

"從善如登，從惡是崩"

"Cóng shàn rú dēng, cóng ě wù shì bēng."

(right?)

"What else floats on water?" :D

Uhh....

[awkward shuffling]

...wood?

I hope you guys don't hate me for stating the reality:

But different countries have no obligation respecting foreign things, they can see it as finders-keepers, that's what militaries and intelligence agencies do every day, countries steal each other's military-strategic information every milisecond and they don't care how they got it or what "copyright" does it have, there is no law of any kind regulating any of that and they don't want that to be limited obviously, we however simply live right now in a heavily globalized world on the corporate side that's why is realtively easy to enforce copyright in most countries.

A different country is the same as if it was extraterrestrials from another galaxy, they don't have to respect your laws, their nearby geographic location is merely a coincidence, however geographic location does come into play as being on the same planet means that one country doing something that affects others such as requiring resources and producing waste, because the resources on this planet are spread out unevenly it's impossible for all countries to be 100% self sufficient, which is yet another thing that adds to the circumstances which lead to conflict.

A highly advanced civilization would learn to respect other's copyright, unfortunately Red China doesn't.

The sad thing is this would probably have potential if it was done right as a partnership

"Das Böse lernt sich leicht, das Gute schwer."

 

"從善如登，從惡是崩"

"Cóng shàn rú dēng, cóng ě wù shì bēng."

 

(right?)

"Ja, der geist spricht..." :D

or on another tack

饮用水时考虑来源