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Flightsim.to terms

WildLynxPilot

WildLynxPilot

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finland
As that site has become a major file distribution site for freeware simulator add-ons I would like some views on their terms. I was reading them when I started to publish my own sceneries and was very surprised when I saw the following part under "User content":

" Moreover, 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. As soon as you decide to delete your User Content(s), we will irrevocably delete it completely from our server(s) within two weeks and will no longer make use of the above-mentioned license in the future."

I was in contact with them and they verified that these are the terms. The mail I got in response had no person name as sender and in the site there is no information on who is behind the site and who is responsible for it.

So in practice, by uploading content the unknown party gets the full rights to use, modify and even sublicense your contributions with no further acceptance from you. I decided to not use that site for distribution which is sad as it technically is working very nicely.

What are your thoughts about it, as developers? Have you been distributing your work through that site? Am I too cautious? 🤔
 
Just because they say this does not make it so. A judge will determine that, but who wants to go through small claims court for this.

If you don't like to post there, (and I would not want to either), why not google drive, onedrive, github or wix(free) (and make your own site to just have download capabilities), wix (pay), godaddy etc.

The Zibo mod (x-plane) does just fine using google drive and sometimes that file is huge. I guess what they give you is widespread presence.
 
WildLynxPilot said:
As soon as you decide to delete your User Content(s), we will irrevocably delete it completely from our server(s) within two weeks and will no longer make use of the above-mentioned license in the future
Click to expand...
So if you decide to no longer use their website for the addon, they will remove the content and the agreement ends. That actually seems quite fair. If you leave content there, they have full distribution rights to it.
 
I have a channel for my files on files.fsnordic.net so that is not a problem - I was just thinking of distributing through more channels. And as this site has become an important channel and as it has some excellent functions for updates etc. I was looking at them specifically. Google drive or other cloud services is no option.

Yes, it is fair that the agreement ends if I remove my files, but until that they take not only distribution rights but also modify and sublicense which mean they could do some small changes and then sell it through some third party site (or on their own site). That bothers me...
 
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Looking at that it doesn't seem right at all that they have full rights to change and redistribute. Like if you were offering payware quality freeware (as many people do sometimes) they could easily resell it under their own name or something. I wouldn't post there personally
I wonder if you made your own licence agreement on your download that says that it is not redistributeable if that would do anything. not sure if one would cancel out the other.
 
In the UK the final contract is the binding contract. In that case, if the distributors failed to notice that you had included a contract update then the updated contract takes precedence. IANAL but that is my understanding of that area of contract law, having been caught in it once.

In the US (and I really wish I could recall with certainty the company involved) one of the big games companies tried that stunt and was told by the courts to go swing their hook. Knowing how convoluted US law is (what applies in one state may not apply in another) that may have only applied to one state. Memory says it was EA trying to secure user mods to release as their DLC, but not sure.
 
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