Flightsim.to new business model and terms of service leaves content creators without rights to their own work

[Bavarello]

I removed all my sceneries from flightsim.to and constructed an own, small site for them. You can find all my sceneries at https://fsaddons.fi from now on.

I'm still undecided.... as far as I'm concerned. However, you should also update your signature here.

"Sceneries published for MSFS2020:
EFMA, EFKG, EFHN, EFTU, EFOP, EFNS, EFNU, EFTO, EFHF, EFHV,
EFPR, EFGE, EFIK, EFLP, EFKK, EFEU, Finnish South Coast Lighthouses
EETU, Segelflugplatz Stillberghof
You can find them on flightsim.to "

 

[VFXSimmer]

It seems like big issue here is theft of intellectual property, potentially, but co opting intellectual property, on the other hand, is perfectly fine. I don't see any significant difference between selling someone's intellectual property and intentionally throttling download speeds, while simultaneously pumping banner and pop up ads, in order to sell intellectual property through subscription. The consensus seems to be that charging people for access to the same content I provide for free, is not the same thing as exploiting that content for one's own commercial use, because a TOS includes a provision that freely shared content may be deleted, or removed from access by me.

Am I mistaken? Are they are cancelling the premium accounts, as well?

Lost in all of this IMHO is that the site deserves to get some compensation for the non-trivial costs of hosting the server. The freeware developers get a lot of benefit FOR FREE themselves in terms of advertisement, gain in reputation etc that they can utilize in the future to sell payware if they so desired.

This is not a one way street.

Ill put aside the discussion of right to delete - that to me is a reasonable debate and one that I think flightsim.to should probably cede in the developers favor at this point. But the option to allow premium accounts is completely justified to me, especially since it is entirely optional to a site user (i.e. you can still download anything you like without need to buy a premium account). I think the site hosts have every right to try to recoup server costs, and actually make it profitable since I'm sure they've had to dedicate a decent amount of time building and developing the site to what it is today.

 

[=rk=]

This is not a one way street.

I'm sorry what? Is this what the DJ's tell Carlos Santana, no free air time man! Flightsim.to is already relieved of the tremendous burden of creating content, all they have to do is host it. Avsim and other site have proven banner ads and in house retail is enough to keep the servers running. The Flightsim.to business model of going big on everything, does not define one lane of a two way street.

As to exposure, you have it all backwards, my friend. Flightsim.to doesn't just materialize out of thin air with a fat reputation. Do you know how they got it? GAIST and a hundred other developers took a chance, shared their goods and gave flightsim.to a reputation and this is how they show thanks for it.

The site host has every right to recoup costs and even turn a profit. When the profit margin overlaps bandwidth and ultimately, actually serving files, theft of intellectual property occurs.

I think the site hosts have every right to try to recoup server costs, and actually make it profitable since I'm sure they've had to dedicate a decent amount of time building and developing the site to what it is today.

And I think you are one of the site owners.

 

[VFXSimmer]

I'm sorry what? Is this what the DJ's tell Carlos Santana, no free air time man! Flightsim.to is already relieved of the tremendous burden of creating content, all they have to do is host it. Avsim and other site have proven banner ads and in house retail is enough to keep the servers running. The Flightsim.to business model of going big on everything, does not define one lane of a two way street.

As to exposure, you have it all backwards, my friend. Flightsim.to doesn't just materialize out of thin air with a fat reputation. Do you know how they got it? GAIST and a hundred other developers took a chance, shared their goods and gave flightsim.to a reputation and this is how they show thanks for it.

The site host has every right to recoup costs and even turn a profit. When the profit margin overlaps bandwidth and ultimately, actually serving files, theft of intellectual property occurs.

And I think you are one of the site owners.

"Site owner" - lol.. far from the truth. I actually created some freeware early on when the site was just being launched. Have no skin in the site's success apart from being a user that found it the most convenient way to access and maintain thousands of addons. Those who chose to move to their own personal sites will probably disappear from my radar the way this is going.

As far as your analogy goes, its wrong. If Santana was a nobody and the DJ started playing his stuff, THAT would be the better metaphor. GAIST had a following with P3D, but his name became so much bigger on account of being hosted by flightsim.to... along with many others.

I learned about flightsim.to almost at its outset, and it had nothing to do with the reputation of addon creators. It very rapidly became the most convenient place to look for content, over /reddit, MSFSAddons, etc. I can understand the concern about file deletion.. although the policy is that way everwhere you look on addon hosting site.. But to claim that flightsim.to doesnt provide as much value to the community as the content creators themselves is hogwash.

 

[Mick01]

I removed all my sceneries from flightsim.to and constructed an own, small site for them. You can find all my sceneries at https://fsaddons.fi from now on.

...but once it is on the net it stays available in many other places..
My own free Duxford scenery is available on 'FsxChina' and other sites in Russia and Romania within a few days of release, I doubt if I can remove it there, so I'm never bothered to try to remove from flightsim.to

 

[=rk=]

I learned about flightsim.to almost at its outset, and it had nothing to do with the reputation of addon creators. It very rapidly became the most convenient place to look for content, over /reddit, MSFSAddons, etc. I can understand the concern about file deletion.. although the policy is that way everwhere you look on addon hosting site.. But to claim that flightsim.to doesnt provide as much value to the community as the content creators themselves is hogwash

You keep telling us what you think, no skin in the fight, I think you have a personal pronoun fetish and confuse yourself, with the community. No one had claimed that yet, but I will. The fact that fs.to is caving so profoundly, proves the clout of the community, the developer community, which you clearly do not support.

 

[KL791]

I removed all my sceneries from flightsim.to and constructed an own, small site for them. You can find all my sceneries at https://fsaddons.fi from now on.

I will at some point - currently on a 2 months business trip - do the same and I will link - your lighthouse obviously matches well with Global AI Ship Traffic and we plenty of ferries sailing from Finland If I forget remind me...

 

[VFXSimmer]

I think the fact that fs.to is caving shows the opposite. As someone who had downloaded over 1000 files from the site, the "community" is better served by a single place that tracks your mods, shows you what files have been updated etc. Even as someone who has built addons, I would define the "community" as the flight simmers at large - the "community" of users far outnumbering the "community" of freeware developers. I'm assuming by the tone of your posts that you lean more towards the later.

The community is not better served by a disparate host of individual sites. As I said in my first post, I think the debate about copyright, deletion policy etc is worth having, but the zeal about wishing fs.to to fail is ridiculous and definitely not what's "best" for the community.

 

[KL791]

"Site owner" - lol.. far from the truth. I actually created some freeware early on when the site was just being launched. Have no skin in the site's success apart from being a user that found it the most convenient way to access and maintain thousands of addons. Those who chose to move to their own personal sites will probably disappear from my radar the way this is going.

As far as your analogy goes, its wrong. If Santana was a nobody and the DJ started playing his stuff, THAT would be the better metaphor. GAIST had a following with P3D, but his name became so much bigger on account of being hosted by flightsim.to... along with many others.

I learned about flightsim.to almost at its outset, and it had nothing to do with the reputation of addon creators. It very rapidly became the most convenient place to look for content, over /reddit, MSFSAddons, etc. I can understand the concern about file deletion.. although the policy is that way everwhere you look on addon hosting site.. But to claim that flightsim.to doesnt provide as much value to the community as the content creators themselves is hogwash.

Well, well.... Santana made his name before the internet was born and the concept of DJ invented and without going further with any comparison... When I announced across the different GAIST threads - I maintain them in French, Portuguese, Norwegian/Danish, and several in English, that I had uploaded to Flightsim.to for the first time their site crashed within minutes........... There was people counting down for me to upload in diverse threads eg on avsim.com,

You can follow several early threads on Avsim where users tried to convert GAIST to MSFS or waited for it to be done eg check https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/589840-henrik-nielsens-global-ai-ship-traffic-for-msfs/

So I am not so sure that Flightsim.to made GAIST, but obviously without distribution my son and I would have been the only ones having so many ships in the sim Flightsim.to has been good for simming, but I have no intention on going back at this point. Maybe it will cost some downloads, but so what... I am sure those who really wants the next version of GAIST will find it wherever I put it.

The Global AI Ship Traffic have today 24th February been around for exactly 10 years... We have still far more downloads from before MSFS than after... And today GAIST V3.0 returned to Flightsim.com where it was also hosted right at the beginning as you can read in the below screenshot of my very first post about the project from www.pilote-virtuel.com. That discussion by the way is still alive and has more than 3000 posts and 900.000 pageviews...

 

[Marc L]

Happy Birthday GAIST !!! Man 10 Years since you started :O thats an Amazing Journey!!!

 

[=rk=]

I think the fact that fs.to is

I'm assuming by the tone of your posts that you lean more towards the later.

What you are is a "consumer" that insists on telling developers what it thinks and when the facts escape, you make them up. I assume you have not the faintest clue, what that implies.

 

[=Hollywood=]

You say that, but that part i quoted was also there in August last year... As far as I can tell they actually have had that part since they changed the ToS to not allow deletions some time early last year

Go back through the earlier posts and you will see it

 

[WildLynxPilot]

I'm still undecided.... as far as I'm concerned. However, you should also update your signature here.

Oops - thanks for pointing it out! Done.

 

[Truelz]

Go back through the earlier posts and you will see it

I can only assume you mean this:

Licenses you are granting us: By submitting or posting User Content to the Service (either directly or through a Third Party Service) you grant this Site a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, assignable, unrestricted, worldwide license to use the User Content, together with all consents or waivers (if any) necessary to distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, transmit, communicate to the public and modify the User Content, by any means and in all media formats and channels now known or hereafter devised in perpetuity, and to advertise and promote such use, without further notice to, or permission from, you or any other person, and without compensation or reference to you or any other person.

?
That is also in the ToS I am talking about it's just section 4.3 the clause I'm talking about is section 4.7... So my point still stands, they have never had the right to outright sell the freeware scenery hosted on their site!

 

[Truelz]

Just found this on reddit. And I can also see the deletion policy has changed now on their website, so deletions are allowed again!

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Again, Flightsim.to is whining about "a very small, but loud minority" and how they are now defaming the modding community. At any rate, regardless of them insulting their most prolific and popular content creators, they do now let contributors delete their own content, thereby reestablishing the creators rightful ownership. The deletion policy seems good. I hope they stick to it. I also hope they quit their sniveling about being forced to do the right thing.

 

[simmershome]

Maybe everyone should think about why he builds freeware addons. For clicks or because it is his hobby to create creative things. For me the latter is true and that's why I host my addons myself. In the end I don't care how many downloads I get with it.
Who wants to find it will find it. Those who don't, just leave it.
In the meantime I have switched to a small but cozy community, because at 73 years I don't have to prove anything to myself anymore. There are other things besides flight simulation

At some point, you should also decide whether you'd rather "be the king among asses or the ass among kings". In the masses, you are usually the latter. My decision has always been clear and I have not regretted it.

 

[KL791]

I keep getting amazed by how bad Flightsim.to is communicating. They might have been capable of building a functional website, but their communication style is absolutely hopeless and do not really make me feel like engaging with them again. Forced by circumstances they have made some improvements to their ToS now, but they behave like ...... And reading through the ToS there are formulations which are extremely dangerous for content providers who, whether it is deliberately or unconsciously, break a copyright. And some of the other old issues with the ToS remain in place eg. the right to modify content.

Below my comments on some of the parts I found problematic seen from a creator point of view:

(4.1) If you choose to upload User Content, you must not submit to the Service any User Content that does not comply with these terms or the law. For example, the User Content you submit must not include third-party intellectual property (such as copyrighted material) unless you have permission from that party or are otherwise legally entitled to do so (including by way of any available exceptions or limitations to copyright or related rights provided for in European Union law). You are legally responsible for the User Content you submit to the Service.

Comment: If any of you should happen to upload a model including the logo or a design from the company I work for you are in breach of the contract with Flightsim.to. If you use any kind of images not made by yourself and to which you do not have copyright, you are in breach of the contract.

(4.1.1) You assure that any contribution you make on this Website follows these standards and will be held accountable by us. Should there be a violation of this assurance, you agree to compensate us for any losses or damages we incur. This holds you responsible for any harm we face as a result of your breach of warranty.

Comment: Now I work for a quite reasonable company; we will not sue you even if you use our logo, and we will normally be happy for a bit of promotion. But if now you or some of the users of your content starts to associate our logo with war or some other disaster - eg use your nice plane to create a scary aircraft accident video to youtube - or some other nasty stuff, we might want to stop it and then, you will now be quite bad off... Flightsim.to is protecting themselves, which is reasonable, but as a content provider you will have to think very seriously about what to upload.

(4.3) When you submit or post User Content to the Service, either directly or through a Third Party Service, you are granting this Site a worldwide, non-exclusive, assignable, unrestricted, sublicensable, perpetual, irrevocable, and royalty-free license to use the User Content. This license includes all consents or waivers necessary to distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, modify the User Content for the purposes of Site moderation, optimization and operation, transmit, host, share, keep available, communicate to the public, and advertise, feature, or promote the User Content in connection with the service provided by the Website and across different media now known or developed in the future without further notice or permission from you or any other person, and without compensation to you or any other person, (if applicable) only to the extent that such license grant is not limited or restricted by any third-party EULA of content that is included in your User Content. Modification of User Content may include, but is not limited to, comment moderation, modification of uploaded images (such as adding watermarks, applying auto-optimization filters, converting them into other file formats, changing filenames), modifying the description, categorization, tags, posted text contents and other characteristics of your User Content, or modifying your user-generated account information or similar. Each license grant does not affect any intellectual property rights or applicable copyright law.

Comment: In short Flightsim.to continue to grant themselves an irrevocable perpetual license to the content you submit. They continue granting themselves the right to modify your content and while they give some examples, of which some might be reasonable, they grant themselves an almost unrestricted right to do so far beyond the examples. And they can share your content where ever they want to. This clause is in stark contrast to the newly introduced right to delete content. In one they claim a perpetual right to distribute in the other they allow you to delete. For the sake of clarity they should have changed 4.3, so that it was lasting only as long as the creator has not revoked the license, that is asked them to delete. And regards to the right to modify, that continues to be a very far reaching right they claim, which I will personally not accept. Also in 4.3 they use the expression sublicensable, and that means again that it is not them but also whomever they sublicense to, who can eg distribute or modify your content. This is not very clear taking into consideration 4.3.1 where they claim "solely in connection with Flightsim.to services"

(4.3.1) You are granting us this license for the purpose of enabling us to fulfill the spirit, legitimate interest and purpose of our Website and to offer, operate, improve and enhance our services. The Site is not allowed to sell, bill, charge a fee to access, claim ownership or intellectual property, to your User Content without your express permission. The Site may use your User Content solely in connection with the Flightsim.to services and only to the extent required therefore.

Comment: They are not allowed to sell or charge a fee to access, without your express permission. This sound a bit strange all the way that they are launching a premium subscription which charges a fee to access, well at high speed, while you suppose it will be available also for free at a reasonable speed. But as per 4.4 below you allow them the right to monetize -- that is earn a revenue - from your content, so in principle they can slow down the download speed for users to close to zero and charge for high speed access and it will be perfectly fine according the to ToS you accepted. From a legal point it is not selling, because what I pay for is download speed and not a specific file, but if I am a consumer whether I pay 5 USD to get access to download only my favorite file on one site or buy it for 5 USD on another site where download is then free it doesn't make a lot of difference...

(4.4) You grant to the Platform the right to monetize your User Content on the Service, which may include displaying ads on or within User Content. For the sake of clarity, these terms do not entitle you to any payments.

Comment: You grant the Platform the right to monetize your User Content. That is earn money with your content Full stop. The examples are just examples. But again it is very wide permission you grant.

(4.11) You represent and warrant the following as to your User Content: Your User Content does not infringe, violate, or misappropriate any third-party intellectual property rights, including copyrights or trademarks. Your User Content, as used in connection with the Site, will not violate any applicable laws or regulations or infringe or violate any rights of a third party. You will indemnify Flightsim.to on first demand against all claims that your User Content is unlawful and you will be fully liable for all costs and damages incurred by Flightsim.to as a result of your unlawful content.

Comment: Be prepared to get to the pocket, as you will have to indemnify Flightsim.to even before they or you have lost in court - the paragraph is nice for them but creator be aware

I thank Flightsim.to for having distributed Global AI Ship Traffic for a period, but it will no longer be made available on Flightsim.to.

 

[Truelz]

I keep getting amazed by how bad Flightsim.to is communicating. They might have been capable of building a functional website, but their communication style is absolutely hopeless and do not really make me feel like engaging with them again. Forced by circumstances they have made some improvements to their ToS now, but they behave like ...... And reading through the ToS there are formulations which are extremely dangerous for content providers who, whether it is deliberately or unconsciously, break a copyright. And some of the other old issues with the ToS remain in place eg. the right to modify content.

Below my comments on some of the parts I found problematic seen from a creator point of view:


I thank Flightsim.to for having distributed Global AI Ship Traffic for a period, but it will no longer be made available on Flightsim.to.

How can you find 4.1 problematic? That basically just says you aren't allowed to upload stuff you do not have the permission to upload and it's your ass on the line if you upload stuff that you do not have the right to, that seems perfectly reasonable no? Without that third parties could for example upload GAIST to flightsim.to and it would be a bit harder for flightsim.to to have it removed on your behalf.

4.1.1 elaborates on 4.1; if you upload something you don't have the right to and the sites get sued or otherwise asked for compensation because of that upload they are allowed to send the bill on to the uploader... Also perfectly reasonable no? Why should they be held accountable for stuff you've uploaded that you didn't have the rights to?

4.3 Is pretty standard on content hosting websites, Sketchfab for example has something very, very similar as pointed out earlier in this thread. Even this forum has the same kind of clause:

We may remove or modify any Content submitted at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice. Requests for Content to be removed or modified will be undertaken only at our discretion. We may terminate your access to all or any part of the Service at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice.

You are granting us with a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, unlimited license to use, publish, or re-publish your Content in connection with the Service. You retain copyright over the Content.

They also need the right to share your file, otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to make it available to download for other users, making the whole idea of the site pretty useless

4.3.1 - 4.4

This sound a bit strange all the way that they are launching a premium subscription which charges a fee to access, well at high speed, while you suppose it will be available also for free at a reasonable speed. But as per 4.4 below you allow them the right to monetize -- that is earn a revenue - from your content, so in principle they can slow down the download speed for users to close to zero and charge for high speed access and it will be perfectly fine according the to ToS you accepted

Sorry but that is just thinking that they have bad intentions and would slow down the speed of users who aren't premium subscribers, the likelihood of them doing that is near zero as that would be the death of the platform. And again not a unusual clause, Youtube have something similar well worse actually, they explicitly state that they keep the right to put your videos behind a paywall without compensation i.e it wouldn't even be available to users at all without paying.

You grant to YouTube the right to monetize your Content on the Service (and such monetization may include displaying ads on or within Content or charging users a fee for access). This Agreement does not entitle you to any payments.

4.11 That is also just them saying if you upload stuff you do not have the right to then you'll be responsible for any cost flightsim.to might incur because of it. Perfectly reasonable and normal (and I dare say you'll be hard pressed to find serious content hosting websites without this clause) avsim.com have something similar:

You Indemnify AVSIM: If, by your actions or words, AVSIM is litigated against in any form, or otherwise faces legal measures, you agree to fully indemnify and protect AVSIM. You agree that you will be responsible for all fees associated with AVSIM defending itself as a result of your actions or words.

With all that said, I completely agree that the way they communicate about all this is very, very lacking and unprofessional. But I do not think that the ToS is so bad or different from other big content hosting sites out there, and with the new deletion policy in place I personally don't have any problems with them. But each to their own

 

[=rk=]

Sorry but that is just thinking that they have bad intentions and would slow down the speed of users who aren't premium subscribers, the likelihood of them doing that is near zero as that would be the death of the platform. And again not a unusual clause, Youtube have something similar well worse actually, they explicitly state that they keep the right to put your videos behind a paywall without compensation i.e it wouldn't even be available to users at all without paying.

Sorry? First off, let me observe that you are micro dissecting Henriks conversation with people who are not here to represent themselves and I in turn, am dissecting your dissection, we should all be careful to avoid such things and now I apologize.

Throttling bandwidth is a technique used by a large number of flight simulator freeware/subscription sites. In fact, the practice is so ubiquitous and so removed from the dial up associated costs that inspired it, the presumption of doing so, except by you, is taken for granted. When you mix profit with free content, invariably the content will become less free, it is an axiom of capitalism.

Also, flightsim.to is not YouTube. To make the comparison slightly more relevant, fs.to would have to not only serve files, it would have to run them in your web browser for you. Flightsim.to is a file server, it is not a content platform like YouTube and fs.to is most assuredly not nearly so prominent, mainstream, or eyed by Congress, as is YouTube and to compare them only serves to confuse.