Alarming news for G1 modding

Hi,

Our group collaborates with FIA and all F1, soon we will send an email for explanations and clarifications, the FOM, and then also race director, when and if we have answers, then it will be posted here, we also try to see if the message you've read, has foundations or not.


With Best Regards.


[gp4international.mastertopforum.eu]
Support Forum and Backup Gp4 International
[grandprix4.mastertopforum.com]

This is a email of FOM


CKai@fomltd.com

the my proposal is write to him, i soon send a email how have write in the last post.


With Best Regards.


[gp4international.mastertopforum.eu]
Support Forum and Backup Gp4 International
[grandprix4.mastertopforum.com]

Let's hope that goes good days of it. I'm little bit worried about it but it should be alright.

I don't think it is a good idea... What do you want to tell them? bringing light on the GP4 community may disserve us, on my opinion, whatever are your arguments...

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

i absolutely agree, it's not a good idea to contact the FIA and tell them about our community. I think it's better to stay quiet



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2016 05:03PM by quickslick.

It's really not a good idea to send email FIA/FOM, if they want gp4 files to be taken down, they will contact these sites. Sending email to them will only make things worse and they will do it sooner. So please do not send them any emails until yo have to.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2016 05:10PM by vesuvius.

Ok no problem, don't sending email me also.

I hope in the FOM someone changes his mind and reflect about what they are doing.





With Best Regards.


[gp4international.mastertopforum.eu]
Support Forum and Backup Gp4 International
[grandprix4.mastertopforum.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2016 05:12PM by Pietro60.

We don't have to worry about GP4 mods as long as we stay quiet.

Grand Prix 4 is not officially sold anymore, even if you can find some legal copies on amazon etc... But the game is not sold on Steam, for example. Infogrames-Atari has been in compulsory liquidation in 2013.
It is more like an abandonware (even if not official, yet) with a community made of fans.
The FOM and his lawyers ordered to take down unlicensed F1 mods due to F1 's commercial rights. It concerns F1 games sales. They don't want concurrency from others Sim racing games and from their enthusiasts who are making F1 mods without the F1 official license because they don't want that these games such as Rfactor, Assetto Corsa, Automobilista etc.. be more attractive than F1 from Codemasters, which would means that it would be less less interesting to buy the F1 license, so less money for them.

As GP4 is not on the market anymore, that the game do not make money anymore and that we have nothing to sell, we are not the ones they are seeking and haunting because GP4 is not in concurrency with actual F1 or Sim racing sales. But better is to preserve us from any arguments which could disserve us...

Just let continue to keep GP4 alive and put aside F1 commercial arguments to live our passion for this game. If the community is threatened, Mal will inform us and we will found others solutions to keep the community alive.

For the moment, keep calm and drink cold!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

cheers

Automobilista has been removed from Steam store due to copyright claims. Guess who's behind it...

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Some mods
F1 1996 | F1 2002 | F1 2007 | F1 2011 | F1 2013 | F1 2015 | F1 2018

Unbelievable. AFAIK, Automobilista only had the Formula V10, a generic F1-like car with community-made skins. Is that enough for them to take it down? I mean, it's based on a 15 years old car, no current-gen codies title has one, and the only one I can recall is F1 2013, which had some old cars.

Fortunately Reiza is responding to the claim, but I'm sure the FV10 car will be gone.



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

They have a bit more, '70s, '90s, V12, V10, V8 ('09-ish), and current. One generic car for each era, with similar to F1 skins. No real names though.

---

Some mods
F1 1996 | F1 2002 | F1 2007 | F1 2011 | F1 2013 | F1 2015 | F1 2018

Carlitox Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Unbelievable. AFAIK, Automobilista only had the
> Formula V10, a generic F1-like car with
> community-made skins. Is that enough for them to
> take it down? I mean, it's based on a 15 years old
> car, no current-gen codies title has one, and the
> only one I can recall is F1 2013, which had some
> old cars.
>
> Fortunately Reiza is responding to the claim, but
> I'm sure the FV10 car will be gone.

Their website used promotional images where cars looked, from a distance, the same as F1 cars; the liveries were such that Automobilista were profiting off the back of F1's "image". Whether or not you agree with FOM's heavy-handedness in dealing with copyright claims, they're within their rights to make them.

---

GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2016 06:52PM by Incident 2k9.

F1 rights owners attitude shows how they are completely out from F1 fans and communication around F1 interests.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I agree with the commentators here suggesting not to write the FIA. Currently the MODs for the games F1 2013 and F1 2014 were affected. We should not bring GP4 to their attention.

Excalibur Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We don't have to worry about GP4 mods as long as
> we stay quiet.
>
> Grand Prix 4 is not officially sold anymore, even
> if you can find some legal copies on amazon etc...
> But the game is not sold on Steam, for example.
> Infogrames-Atari has been in compulsory
> liquidation in 2013.
> It is more like an abandonware (even if not
> official, yet) with a community made of fans.
> The FOM and his lawyers ordered to take down
> unlicensed F1 mods due to F1 's commercial rights.
> It concerns F1 games sales. They don't want
> concurrency from others Sim racing games and from
> their enthusiasts who are making F1 mods without
> the F1 official license because they don't want
> that these games such as Rfactor, Assetto Corsa,
> Automobilista etc.. be more attractive than F1
> from Codemasters, which would means that it would
> be less less interesting to buy the F1 license, so
> less money for them.
>
> As GP4 is not on the market anymore, that the game
> do not make money anymore and that we have nothing
> to sell, we are not the ones they are seeking and
> haunting because GP4 is not in concurrency with
> actual F1 or Sim racing sales. But better is to
> preserve us from any arguments which could
> disserve us...
>
> Just let continue to keep GP4 alive and put aside
> F1 commercial arguments to live our passion for
> this game. If the community is threatened, Mal
> will inform us and we will found others solutions
> to keep the community alive.
>
> For the moment, keep calm and drink cold!

However, if people are playing GP4 it means they're potentially not playing a different F1 game. I used to buy the Codemasters F1 games but I'm not sure if I want to this year because I'm playing my modded GP4 instead. That's £30-40 of my money that Codemasters aren't getting from me, and how many other people are in the same position?

At the end of the day, if Codemasters made a game that is as good as the 15-year old GP4 and that I actually want to play, none of this would be an issue.

Incident 2k9 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Carlitox Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Unbelievable. AFAIK, Automobilista only had the
> > Formula V10, a generic F1-like car with
> > community-made skins. Is that enough for them
> to
> > take it down? I mean, it's based on a 15 years
> old
> > car, no current-gen codies title has one, and
> the
> > only one I can recall is F1 2013, which had
> some
> > old cars.
> >
> > Fortunately Reiza is responding to the claim,
> but
> > I'm sure the FV10 car will be gone.
>
> Their website used promotional images where cars
> looked, from a distance, the same as F1 cars; the
> liveries were such that Automobilista were
> profiting off the back of F1's "image". Whether or
> not you agree with FOM's heavy-handedness in
> dealing with copyright claims, they're within
> their rights to make them.


I haven't followed Automobilista's development very closely, hence why I didn't know about the cars being so similar. I only knew about the FV10 and if the claim was for that, it would be stupid. But those liveries are identical in layout, and you clearly can't do that in a game you are going to sell. It's different from a mod. So they have a good point. Thanks for pointing that out Jake.

Requesting fan-made, non-profit mods for titles other than Codemasters' F1 is still an abuse, IMO.



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

Jake's quite right, as heavy handed as it may be, FOM is only protecting its commercial rights.

You wouldn't like it any more if someone boxed up your creation and sold it without your consent.

---

Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

To be fair, we don't actually know that FOM is behind the game disappearing from the Steam store; Hell, it could be Red Bull Racing themselves taking issue with the obvious rip-off livery.

However, even if it is, I think we can all agree that FOM are in no way overstepping their mark as far as Automobilista is concerned.
Selling a game with obvious rip-off liveries is vastly different to free mods for a paid recent title or, in our case, free mods for a very old title.

The following is pure speculation on my part, but I imagine it'd be somewhere close to FOM's thought process when going after free mods.

1) The license with Codemasters runs out after this season; FOM need to show potential developers that, if they take up the license, their investment isn't going to be undercut by free content.
2) Their concern wouldn't be about 'money not going to Codemasters' (what we do) but rather about 'money going to people other than Codemasters' - people who buy rFactor, Asseto Corsa, Automobilista etc. instead of an official title.

The second point is important, and might need some explaining.

Grand Prix 4 is, for all intents and purposes, free.
Though many of us bought the game off the shelf all those years ago, there is no way for FOM - or anyone else - to know just how many of us did so.
They also would assume - rightly or wrongly - that people coming into the game today aren't paying for it.

They can't assign a monetary value to us here; "How much are they paying for Grand Prix 4 that they would otherwise be spending on F1 2016?"
They don't know.
Hell, I don't know; If were buying Grand Prix 4 for the first time today - even knowing all the mod potential - how much would I pay?

From that, FOM can't say to Codemasters - or any potential future licensees - "The Grand Prix 4 community is resulting in [$XXX] of lost sales for you."
They can, at best, guess.......but a business shelling out millions of dollars for the F1 game license isn't going to care about a guess.

Compare this to a game like Automobilista, rFactor or Asseto Corsa.
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, accurate sales figures would be easy to obtain.
"X amount of people have paid Y for Automobilista, which features obvious rip-offs of F1 cars. There are lots of F1 mods for rFactor; for all we know, people are buying rFactor just to play those mods"
Codemasters, and any future licensees, can look at those numbers and say to FOM "What the hell; we're paying big money for this license, and you're letting people get away with this?"

So, long story short:

1) Automobilista are in the wrong.
2) We're fine as long as we continue to stamp out scumbags selling GP4 mods, and as long as we don't make too much noise.

---

F1 Graphics Swapper --- Lensdump - Renders and Screenshots --- GP4 Performance Generator

I would stop short of saying point blank that Rezia and Automobilista are in the wrong, they're doing something that others have done for years in that they have generic cars with throwback skins.
They've just got so many cars and the skins are pretty much perfect representations.
Tricky I think, strong arguments on either side, whatever is the outcome is bound to shape sim racing for the next decade.