Sketchup TOS Question

[=Hollywood=]

3D Warehouse TOS Research

Hey guys, I was just looking over the Google Warehouse Terms of Service and noticed the following:

8.2 You should be aware that Content presented to you as part of the Services, including but not limited to advertisements in the Services and sponsored Content within the Services may be protected by intellectual property rights which are owned by the sponsors or advertisers who provide that Content to Google (or by other persons or companies on their behalf). With the exception of Content generated by you, you may not modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute or create derivative works based on this Content (either in whole or in part) unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google or by the owners of that Content, in a separate agreement. For the avoidance of doubt, you may modify, distribute, and create derivative works of Content uploaded by other users in 3D Warehouse.

Does this line mean that we are free to convert models for FSX as derivative models according to this? It seems a little ambiguous...

First they say you may not modify sell or create derivative works then they say you may modify, distribute and create derivative works of Content uploaded by other users in 3D Warehouse...

If that last line supersedes the previous lines then it appears we are free to create derivative works from the 3D Warehouse?

Anyone have any ideas?

Reading over it again it appears to mean that advertising and sponsored content is not permitted to be used, redistributed etc but it appears that this is saying all 3D Warehouse Models are free to create derivatives of... If that's the case then it seems we are free to 'have at it'...

Edit:

Further to the above the following does give further clarity...

(c) By publicly posting or displaying the content you give other end users of the Services a perpetual, sublicensable, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute (subject to the restrictions set forth in Sections 11.4 and 20.3 of these Terms) any Content or derivative works thereof which you publicly post or display on or through the Services.

 

[arno]

Hi Dean,

Those are interesting questions I have myself as well.

The TOS indeed seems to indicate that you can use it. But then on the other hand some people mention in their information with the model that you can't. Which one is valid in that case?

Another doubt I have is that many models use the Google Earth or Google Streetview imagery as textures. We all know that we can't use these for FS. But can we then still use such a model?

 

[=Hollywood=]

As far as i read in the TOS the imagery has to remain with the 3d model but can be used, i.e. the texture isn't allowed to be used separate from the model. In another section of the TOS.

I think we all really need a lawyer to decipher it but it does appear to have quite flexible terms

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

oh, well , at least there is some light in the bottom line, anyway I guess that if you are going to use the model at least should warning to the author what your are going to do, as gentelman, but according with the lines above, could the author prevent me from the use of the model ?, and always must to be present the difference of a product to sell and to share as a free scenery

 

[tgibson]

Note the original restrictions on "rent, lease and sell", and note that those words are NOT present in the blue text. Thus I think commercial use may not be specifically allowed, but it is not clear that they are specifically prohibited either...

 

[=Hollywood=]

Tom those lines specifically apply to sponsored advertisements etc:

including but not limited to advertisements in the Services and sponsored Content within the Services may be protected by intellectual property rights which are owned by the sponsors or advertisers who provide that Content to Google

So if it's not paid for by a company to be in the 3D Warehouse it is fair game, i.e. user generated data in the 3D warehouse would not fall under that category. At first it seemed ambiguous but then I realized it was talking about paid content that appears in the Google Warehouse. Most buildings in the Warehouse would not fall under that category, but it would be best to consult a lawyer concerning that as I am not a lawyer I can't give legal advice.

In terms of the imagery included in the Warehouse models this is the requirement as per the TOS:

20.3 Models created in Building Maker include proprietary imagery. You may not disassociate or separate the imagery from any Building Maker model and use or make it available outside of Google Services.

So this one is a bit of a gray area, as Arno says it appears the textures from "building maker" models can't be used outside of Google Services, however if the author used their own photos or the model was not created with building maker but sketchup or some other 3d modeling tool then there is no problem using the textures as they fall under the other rules listed in the TOS allowing their use as a derivative work.

The alternative for that is to buy pictomery imagery for the area needed and convert those textures for use with the model.

Again it's wiser to consult a lawyer first

 

[arno]

Hi Dean,

To me that seems that you can't use those Building Maker objects in FS in that case. And even on SketchUp objects Google Earth imagery is sometimes used. So that would be something to be careful with.

But like you said, to have the real answer, I think we would need a lawyer .

 

[=Hollywood=]

Found a new tool today which might make that whole thing redundant...

 

[lordofwings]

And that tool being? please share

As for the TOS it is questionable. I believe that if Google's TOS indicates you can make royalty free derivative works then the user can't override that (unless Google allows) because they -by uploading- are BOUND to Google's TOS. These people fool themselves by ignoring (haven't read?) the TOS.

Now, the contradiction is, you can make royalty free derivative works. So far so good for the model. But then the attached ground imagery has to remain? putting such model with background img in FSX looks ugly, but if you can't remove it then it HAS Google imagery and it means you can't use it. That sounds contradictory to me.

The world would be a better place without lawyers. If somebody figures it out let us know

 

[n4gix]

The world would be a better place without lawyers. If somebody figures it out let us know

The problem is both politician and lawyers. Shoot all the lawyers and you've solved both problems (mostly)...

 

[=Hollywood=]

I guess the bottom line is the geometry can be used, but would need to be retextured ;-) Unless of course the building imagery was done with a modelers camera etc...

There's quite a few sketchup models (i.e. unplaced) with generic textures that can be used...

Anyhoo I'll just be happy to figure out the FS2004 resample tool and .inf files again, ngeks it's driving me nuts...

 

[Sidney Schwartz]

We now have a test case. I've uploaded to the Avsim and Flightsim libraries four collections of airplanes that I downloaded from the Warehouse and converted for use in FS9. This is clearly stated. I referenced the TOS and also included a list of the authors of the objects I downloaded. Both Avsim and Flightsim have accepted and posted the uploaded files. My personal prediction is that no one is going to give a crap one way or the other.

Thank goodness for MCX. I can't model an airplane to save my life.