On November 12th, add-on developer BEAUTIFUL MODEL of the WORLD (BMWorld) in partnership with AmSim released their rendition of Washington Dulles International Airport (KIAD). The release immediately drew comparisons to another popular pay-ware rendition of KIAD by FlightBeam Studios, with users on FlightBeam’s Discord questioning why BMW and AmSim seemed to be targeting the same airports as FlightBeam including KMSP, KSEA, and KSFO.
In response to these questions, FlightBeam developer Mir revealed that he believed that BMW/AmSim were deliberately copying FlightBeam’s development roadmap in retaliation for the developer’s 2020 ban from the add-on store Contrail. The ban was said to have been given after the developer behind BMW allegedly shared FlightBeam’s pay-ware sceneries on a piracy site.
In a November 13th statement, Mir would further state that there was concrete evidence that BMWorld had illegally shared pay-ware scenery that was tied to his unique account identifier, an identifier that allowed FlightBeam to determine that the user was the developer behind BMWorlds.
The statement would also allege that FlightBeam’s scenery was not the only one pirated by BMWorld, adding that scenery by LatinVFR had also been shared by the user, which was confirmed in a post on AVSIM by Lars of Contrail. Developer virtuali of FSDreamTeam, shared similar experiences with BMWorld alleging that their sceneries were also pirated by the developer.
Mir’s statement would also accuse BMWorlds/AMSIM of using sock puppet accounts on AVSIM to promote their own products while disparaging FlightBeam’s offerings. Further investigation by AVSIM users, highlights that the account in question seemingly ties back to the developer behind AMSIM.
A number of other posters in the forum thread would also highlight alleged shady business practices by BMWorld, including an offer of an “unlimited membership” which would provide lifetime access to all airports created by BMWorld. According to users, this membership offer was quietly rescinded by the developer with users not provided any new products or updates as promised.
BMWorld responded to the piracy allegations on November 14th in a post on the AVSIM forum denying that they had shared scenery, stating:
“I GUARANTEE THAT I HAVE NO RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PIRATE COMMUNITY AND HAVE NEVER HAD ANY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PIRATE COMMUNITY!!!
I respect every developer and take copyright protection very seriously. And I never allowed myself to violate these rights!” (sic)
In response to claims that they had intentionally copied FlightBeam’s roadmap, BMWorlds would add
“When choosing an airport for development, I look at whether the project is interesting to create, and whether it is presented to buyers on the sites where I sell. I have no malicious intent, never have been and never will be.” (sic)
BMWorld would further claim that the accusations against them were illegal and constituted slander. They would also claim that FlightBeam had violated the law by sharing their personal information, including full name and email address, online.
In the wake of these accusations, developer iniBuilds released a statement on their Discord denouncing the actions of BMWorlds, and stating that BMWords/AMSIM would be temporarily banned from the iniBuilds Storefront. iniBuilds later clarified that users who had downloaded the scenarios through the storefront would still retain access to them.
As of this writing, Orbx has not released a statement, and BMWorlds/AMSIM products remain available via Orbx Direct.
This is a developing story and will be updated with new information.
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