As I have been instrumental in starting the fire below some thoughts on what not just Flightsim.to but also other sites ought to have in their terms to avoid such fire storms.
The thoughts I originally shared today on fsdeveloper.com and they were written after Ian Stephens from Flyawaysimulation.com contacted me asking for inputs to their Terms of Conditions. These are thoughts behind principles - not an attempt at a legal text. I hope not just Flightsim.to but also other sites think about their terms. Most are poor copy pastes full of unnecessary elements or even contradicting. I have been contacted by many who would like to host Global AI Ship Traffic but it is also important that those think about their Terms of Service to protect themselves.
And before sharing the thoughts, a comment to some of those users who have tried to downplay this or ridiculize this discussion or the motives behindā¦I have both studied Business Law and worked with IP protection as part of my duties for 27 years for several multinationals, whose products all of you would be very familiar with. However,I am not a lawyer, but I do have sufficient professional experience in the area to conclude that the Terms of Service provided by Flightsim.to was and is extremely single sided and not respecting creators rights. Before I started the fire I did try a dialogue, but while they did try to clarify regards to the Creators Program, they did not want to respond regards to Terms of Service. And then I tried to pull my stuff which they first did not accept, and then did anyway, when the fire was on.
Then to what could be reasonable basic principles :
Creators must be able to remove permanently all or part of their content without having to present any specific reason - a back up can exist at the host for technical purposes, but the content should disappear from the air if the creator wish so
The host should be entitled to remove uploads if they do not live up to site guidelines, but the host should not be allowed to modify a file.
The host has no obligation to keep the file available forever, but similarly the creator only grants a right to host and share until this right is revoked
The host should be able to exclude a creator if guidelines are not respected
Creators should be able to cancel their account and with that all their uploads
Changes to Terms of Service should be communicated well in advance with an option for creators to remove content before a change take force in case the creator doesnāt agree to the new Terms of Service
The host should not take on the risk in case of copyright infringement; that should rest with the creator. In case of breach the host should be able to exclude content and creators with immediate effect.
The agreement should go for one specific site or a clearly defined group of sites
The below three points are my absolutely subjective opinion, but still reflects discussions with several friends in the community
it is fine that there is a Premium subscription for fast download and paying the service of organizing and running a download site
It is fine that there is a donation option
Having a Creators Program like Flightsim.to will introduce is okay, but as freeware creator I donāt need it; we donāt want to run businesses, and if a ācreator programā is bringing the premium price up then it does not make much sense. Leave contributions to the developers to a donation button. Use excess income to broaden bandwith for the free download. We do freeware so it is available also for students or retired people or those who lost their income.
Henrik Nielsen
-terms-discussion | Flightsim.to ā¢ Microsoft Flight Simulator Mods, Add-Ons & Liveries
Good luck with your future hosting options.
