Airlines using realworld names / logos - Report here

[ekaneti]

PS I see Empire is still flying. Usually Sami is on these things pretty quickly, so it must not be a problem.

Some logic should be used when posting here. This is a nice example of how overzealous citizens become tools of tyranny in totalitarian societies.

[ekaneti]

Three points:

1.  Names would be covered by trademark, not copyright law. 

2.  Trademarks do not pass irrevocably into the public domain, unlike copyright they can be re-registered by a new party if the protection lapses.  Therefore, just because another airline is using the name doesn't mean that it's not under trademark protection.  The rights could have been sold in the bankruptcy of the previous airline, or if it did indeed lapse, could then be trademarked by the new airline.  There is an airline currently operating under the Empire Airlines, and I doubt that they've failed to trademark their name.

3.  The notice when creating your airline does not say "Do not use trademarked names", it says "Name of your airline can not contain names of realworld airlines"

Actually I just found a fourth point.

4.  When Ozark was restarted, they had no problems because they purchased the rights, probably from TWA.

Ive counted no fewer than 10 airlines in Jet Age that would be considered violations under the loosely interpreted rules youre following:

Any state or province with Air in front or behind it would be a violation then: Not just the biggies like Air Cal, Air Florida, QuebecAir, Air Ontario etc, but also Air Vermont, Air Virginia, Air Kentucky. City names like Chicago, New York, LA with Air in front or behind.

Any directional name with Air in front or behind. West, North, East, South all violations according to you.
Names with Express, Commuter, Consolidated. Mountain ranges: Rockies, Ozarks, Alleghenys, Poconos, Alps, Urals.
How about Resort, Regent, Brower, Key? The list goes on.



The point is we need to be rational. Players cannot be aware of every single airline, and I bet neither is Sami, that has existed for any short period of time since 1920, nor should it be a problem. To make someone start over because they came up with the name Air Iowa(real airline in the 1980s using EMB-110s) or Air Kentucky (US Air Express partner in 1988 using BE9s) is absurd.

Names like British Airways, TWA should be prohibited, but naming an airline Empire that operates out of NY, the Empire State, shouldnt be prohibited.


Naming your airline American Airlines could get Sami in trouble, naming it Air South (737 Airline out of CAE in 1997-98) wont


PS it isnt my airline. Im just mad at the excessive busybodies.

[TranceAvia]

@ekaneti

i 100% agreen with this. i couldn't call me airline 'Pan Canadian Airways' because Canadian was an  airline, but yet Pan Canada Airways is ok?

[Sami]

'Pan Canadian Airways'

That is OK.  (or did the automatic filter deny this?)


As said, the system does some automatic checks and filtering on the names. It is not perfect of course. Admin nor the users cannot know if every single name or part of it have been trademarked at some point and that is not needed.

The objective of the rule is just to keep players from using real airline names that would be considered "current" airline names/other trademarks. So basically an airline that ceased 50 years ago would be ok but I would not recommend it as the name is still most likely owned by a company - but there's really no way of checking this.

All in all, better figure out some unique name than copy an airline.

[ucfknightryan]

Whew, obviously I was not sufficently clear in my last, cause you've gone places with it I didn't envision.  So, I'll try this again.

The name Empire isnt a trademark, their logo would be. The name Empire would be a copywrite. "Real world Airline" could be any name. 1000s of airlines have existed since 1920s. Obviously United, American, Air France, Pan Am etc would be not allowed. But how about

The name and logo would both be trademarks.  The logo, but not the name, might also be under copyright.  Coyright protects artistic works.  Trademarks protect names, phrases, symbols, and devices used to distinguish goods and services from others of the same type.  Copyright would actually be worse from this perspective since it doesn't lapse if not used and somebody woul definately own it and be able to sue for any use and not just use in the same category of business, and copyright takes decades to expire.

Here are some links about the differences between copyright and trademarks.
http://www.legalzoom.com/trademarks-faq/trademark-versus-copyright-protection.html
http://www.lawmart.com/forms/difference.htm

Any state or province with Air in front or behind it would be a violation then: Not just the biggies like Air Cal, Air Florida, QuebecAir, Air Ontario etc, but also Air Vermont, Air Virginia, Air Kentucky. City names like Chicago, New York, LA with Air in front or behind.

Any directional name with Air in front or behind. West, North, East, South all violations according to you.
Names with Express, Commuter, Consolidated. Mountain ranges: Rockies, Ozarks, Alleghenys, Poconos, Alps, Urals.
How about Resort, Regent, Brower, Key? The list goes on.

I'm not sure how you got this.  Unless it's a trademark that has been used in avaiton, or maybe transportation in general I'm not sure how trademark categories break down, in the last five years they'd be fine.  The only one there that I know off the top of my head might be bad would be Allegheny, and then only if paired with Airlines and if US Airways has maintained that trademark by using it in some way like they have with Piedmont.

With Empire, if it were just the defunct airlines it probably wouldn't be a problem, but there is a currently operating airline using the name.  They have undoubtedly trademaked it.  I probably should have left off the three links for the defunct ones since they seem to have been confusing.

I'm not going out of my way to dig up airlines to report I just report ones I happen to see while playing.  Empire was the only one that I googled, and the only reason I did so was because I had a hard time believing there wasn't one.  The only surprise was that it was based in Idaho instead of New York.

Are players suppose to be aware of every two bit carrier from 1920???

No.  Just ones that are still flying/or in the aviation or transport buisness or were in the last five years.  Come on, how hard is it to type a name into google before you pick it?  I did that and scrapped some of my ideas because they were being used in real life and I didn't want to have to changey name or get my airline closed, or worse get Sami sued by some asshat lawyer with nothing better to do than waste his clients money going after trivial cases of infringment.

The rule is more restrictive than it has to be, but that's because it would be a momumtal pain on the neck to inforce a rule against using trademarked names.

I appologize if this post is a bit rambeling or unclear.  It's hard to type a post this big on a phone.

I see another post came in while I was typing this post.  Pan Canadian Airways is very different from simply Canadian.   I don't think I ever impied that it would be but if I did I apologize.    

[ekaneti]

@ekaneti

i 100% agreen with this. i couldn't call me airline 'Pan Canadian Airways' because Canadian was an  airline, but yet Pan Canada Airways is ok?

Canadian is something from Canada. So as Sami said it should be ok. CP now AC doesnt own the word Canadian unless Airlines follows it.

[swiftus27]

Canadian is something from Canada. So as Sami said it should be ok. CP now AC doesnt own the word Canadian unless Airlines follows it.

With that theory,  I should be allowed to have US Air.

Um, no.

[ekaneti]

""No.  Just ones that are still flying/or in the aviation or transport buisness or were in the last five years.""


The rule on here is more restrictive than that. Then Braniff would be allowed

[ekaneti]

With that theory,  I should be allowed to have US Air.

Um, no.

Youre missing the point. No wonder there are so many questionable complaints about airline names.

You could have Canadian Jet, Canadian Wings, Canadian West. US Air was a real carrier that still exists with a slight name change. Any combination of Canadian did not exist except for Airlines after Canadian. Do you think Canadian Tire and Canadian Airlines went to court over the name Canadian?

I do think that American and Canadian and British would be prohibited even without the Airlines (Airways) at the end but British Wings, American East??? Those should be fine.

[ICEcoldair881]

heya, sorry to interrupt the intense conversation here but I think there's an airline in the Jet Age that is against the rules. Swiss International Airlines. hello? that's a real airline, everyone should know that one. I don't know if this has been brought up already, but still.

[ucfknightryan]

PS I see Empire is still flying. Usually Sami is on these things pretty quickly, so it must not be a problem.

Some logic should be used when posting here. This is a nice example of how overzealous citizens become tools of tyranny in totalitarian societies.

I didn't see this one before.

Dude don't you think you're laying it on a bit thick here?  I'm a tool of tyranny in a totalatarian society?  I didn't realize a simple forum post could turn me into an agent of evil or that airwaysim was a totalatarian society.    I (maybe, since I have no idea if Sami felt any of those were violations, and don't really care cause it's his call) caused someone to have to rename a simulated airline.  I did not cause someone to be ostracized, fined, arrested, shipped off to a reeducation camp, put in a concentration camp, or killed.  Tone down the hyperbole a bit.

Insert Quote
""No.  Just ones that are still flying/or in the aviation or transport buisness or were in the last five years.""


The rule on here is more restrictive than that. Then Braniff would be allowed

sorry. I was talking about trademark law there not airwaysim rules.  Should have made it clearer.  The airwaysim rule is more restrictive because determining if a trademark is still in force is a pain.

[ucfknightryan]

heya, sorry to interrupt the intense conversation here but I think there's an airline in the Jet Age that is against the rules. Swiss International Airlines. hello? that's a real airline, everyone should know that one. I don't know if this has been brought up already, but still.

I think that was one I mentioned in the post that started this. 

[Sami]

Gee all.. Please read what I wrote 30mins ago:

https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,4214.msg86658.html#msg86658

(That is the "final decision" on this matter.)

[ucfknightryan]

Gee all.. Please read what I wrote 30mins ago:

https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,4214.msg86658.html#msg86658

(That is the "final decision" on this matter.)

We did kinda drag this thread away from it's intended purpose didn't we?   
ok, I'll shut up now.   

[SirGrant]

Jet Age Game

EastWest.  Well known old commercial airline in Australia   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East-West_Airlines_%28Australia%29

[TranceAvia]

@Sami

the Pan Canadian was thrown out automatically, but it allowed Pan Canada. which seems odd as its got the same ties to a canadian airline 'Canadian Airlines' or 'Air Canada' both use a word in my airline name but, one is kicked and one is ok. maybe a small tweek to the filter?

[swiftus27]

Jet Age Game

EastWest.  Well known old commercial airline in Australia   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East-West_Airlines_%28Australia%29

His livery picture looked a tad too amazing....

[ekaneti]

Jet Age Game

EastWest.  Well known old commercial airline in Australia   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East-West_Airlines_%28Australia%29

Perfect example of overzelousness that Ive been talking about. An Australian airline from the 1970s with directional name East/West. This is an issue??? Qantas would be a problem, even Ansett. But I cant see this being a problem.

[SirGrant]

Perfect example of overzelousness that Ive been talking about. An Australian airline from the 1970s with directional name East/West. This is an issue??? Qantas would be a problem, even Ansett. But I cant see this being a problem.

Is there something about Sami's opening post you don't understand.. looks very simple to me.  Heres a quote from it to help you out.

AWS does not allow real world airline names or logos to be used

Honestly, how hard is it to 'make up' an original name and image picture  

[Dookz]

Random airline name generator that spits out fictional airlines names.