Flightsim.to and 3rd Party Developers Dispute

No sympathy from my side for developers who want to force a hosting service to remove their freeware stuff, sorry. I‘m heavily into retro gaming and modding and one of the worst things that can happen is old files becoming unavailable because someone decided he no longer wants to share it with the public. I regard websites that make backups of such things as a public service and an important part in preserving the history of gaming and the internet as a whole.

Payware is of course a different beast, but once you decide to put something for free online you lose control over the distribution, that‘s just how the internet works.

I applaud flightsim.to for providing a valuable service and hope that most devs and modders continue to use it.

10 Likes

It appears theres some confusion between freeware and open source. Two very different things.

Here someone produces a library or code etc that is used by other addons, and that gets pulled, it won’t stop anyone who already has it installed.

Yes, those that have used that library or code may need to rework their addons, but thats the great thing about some of the incredibly talented people in this community.

Where an addon has a dependency, the dependency could be link, in such a way that if the dependancy gets pulled, the download is temporarily disabled and the addon creator notified so that he or she can amend their product. Its not difficult, just requires a bit of thought.

Because someone created something and shared it, it still remains their work and their right to do with as they please. If its something that a user deems precious, they can keep a backup of it.

6 Likes

Yes, people should make backups of it and make it available wherever they can. I don‘t care for the feelings of developers who want to hold their creations ransom, taking things away from the community on a whim.

Of course they are free to not use flightsim.to and upload their stuff somewhere else. I hope most will continue to use the service.

But is not a transfer of IP rights at all. What this means is that they can still make your files available to public using their own account in case you close or deactivate yours or they can simply archive the file and keep it. They are telling you that the files won´t be lost.

Cheers

1 Like

I think its s good website, with great features. But content creators must always have control of their content. Can you imagine what would happen on youtube or instagram if Google or Meta turned to all of their creators and said, by the way, this is ours and you cant delete it.

4 Likes

Effectively the same as losing your IP rights on the site. Control of the files transfers to the host.

If a content creator wants/needs the files removed, the host should not have permission to override this desire and have files appear as their own upload on their site.

Here’s an example

4 Likes

That argument is weak, because anyway a simple update can break mods depending on the object being updated. Personally also only allow referencing my files with written permision.

That is fine but it is seen differently in copyright law.

4 Likes

I think the ability for a creator to retain all rights to their own work, including whether they want it distributed or not, is paramount. And I understand why people are upset at this sudden change of the TOS.

And for those saying “you should have read the TOS first”, people did. And fs.to quietly and unilaterally changed them to the new terms and new terms apply to all new and old content. So basically, you’re now bound to a set of conditions you never agreed to in the first place. That isn’t cool.

From an end user perspective, fs.to is still an awesome service. But doing this to the creators that essentially brought them to the position of dominance they now occupy is a low blow. And I can understand why folks are upset.

EDIT: And to add to that - if they’ve now changed the TOS like this once, who’s to say they won’t change it again down the road to something far worse for the creators on the platform. Saying “We never will…” really means nothing when they already changed the TOS to something they originally never intended on doing. That doesn’t really inspire confidence with creators using the service.

22 Likes

I don’t claim to have a full picture of the scenario developing here but would like to just throw a point out there.

Before I do, I would just like to express my gratitude to all the freeware creators that pour untold amounts of time and their love and care into creating these things that we all enjoy the benefit from in our hobby. I know my experiences and fun in the game would be nowhere near as enjoyable without having discovered some of the best mods I’ve got (I have about 3,000 things downloaded!) many of which stay permanently active in my Addons Linker profile.

I have also spent a ridiculous amount on Payware this-and-that, but no regrets!

Anyway. To my point — and as I say, it’s not really my viewpoint but playing devils advocate a bit: the way I see it is that as soon as you publish or upload anything on the internet, be it intended to be free, or a paid item that gets pirated, you HAVE lost ownership. The difference here is that fs.to are putting it into a contract but at any point, anyone could rehost ANY of your content anywhere. It comes down to if you would find out and then if you could “afford” the lawyers fees to chase and crush it. But then it could quickly pop up somewhere else and it’s just an endless chase that would quickly outweigh any “profitable income” generated to yourself by your creations?

It is impossible to delete something from the Internet!

On the flip-side, and I think I have read everything on this topic but not seen this mentioned. I think it’s outrageous that fs.to by taking this stance are basically FORCING you to support a product that you may no longer want to support in some future time (I mean literally in terms of customer questions / problems / emerging bugs when the “old version” is no longer working correctly etc) that would take a drain on your time. And short of ignoring any queries or issues you get messaged about from that source, which could damage your reputation, you are forced to at least reply in some way to say it’s an old version there and not supported or you are not working on it any more or whatever — but that still takes time out of your life. It’s unfair that they put you in that potential commitment / position.

3 Likes

Considering the written permission - that would be rather ironic for a MSFS content creator, given that their own work can only function within the framework of a commercially available software made by someone else. I‘ glad Microsoft doesn‘t demand written permission for 3rd party devs to create mods an add-ons for their software, despite being in their rights to do so.

95% of the time the motivation for making something unavailable that was available for free before is spite or greed.

If people want to insist on IP law to take away things they created from the community and hamper development of interesting content by requiring permission of others to use it, fine. I won‘t argue that they don‘t habe the right to do so legally. At the same time, I will continue to cheerlead flightsim.to for their effort to preserve as much content as possible.

1 Like

Decided to add this to the screenshots of some of my uploads and updated them.

Will continue updating a few of them each day until March 4th. Maybe it’ll create some awareness.
In case someone likes it and wishes to use it: feel free.

I’m pretty sad about the whole thing to be honest :frowning:

19 Likes

AAAAANNNNNDDDD,

They blocked my account …

4 Likes

Sheesh!! That took them what, 5 mins to notice?!

OMG what a massive mess this is turning into :sob:

9 Likes

Instead of entering a constructive dialogue they are busy cutting the branch they sit on. Any serious company would by now have realized that. They might be good a creating a nice website, but not at mastering a crisis.

13 Likes

Jep and they didn’t even send me a warning …

That’s a problem many successful people have. They don’t realise that despite their successes they are still human and can make mistakes.

4 Likes

For info: flightsim.to response

Flightsim.to » Knowledge Base » Limited ability to delete your file

Well they said everyone who wanted could delete their files till March 5th. I’m holding them to that.

1 Like

It seems that the amount of new uploads has decreased.

I hope that they get this sorted out. They are the only good addon website out there.

Just out of interest though is this all about a matter of principle for content creators? I’ve created maybe 20 or so free scenery ad ons available at FS.to and I can’t say I particularly care what happens to them. If people want to enjoy them then great and if I need to update them at any point I can try and do that.

None of them contain any original content. All the models are from other free to use libraries. From my point of view I really can’t see a big deal about whether or not I’m handing control over their use to FS.to. I was always under the impression I was doing that anyway.

I know its different for payware stuff but thats a whole other issue. If I’ve made something for free, for my own amusement as much as anything else, then people can just do what they like with it. As BabaZu7442 alludes to, if anyone ‘owns’ it its probably Microsoft.

7 Likes