An old boss of mine (RIP) liked the saying "never let the truth spoil a good story" and it has been well used here. 🙂

4 hours ago, Gazzareth said:

Would probably serve FS.TO to add some form of comment as to how they "became" the author of freeware they have taken on.

I've been downloading stuff on computers since it was hosted on BBS sites with a 9600 modem. A hoster taking ownership of a file to preserve the download is nothing new, and folks just don't get why this needs to happen sometimes. And anybody who raises a stink about it probably doesn't understand how these things come to pass sometimes.

If there is a database update or service update and original information is lost (authorship), the service will often preserve the file and make it available by assigning it to their account. I have been part of numerous online communities where the mods/downloads have been preserved by the site owners taking ownership. Heck, I have seen files reuploaded numerous times as communities shifted and moved from one service to another.

If you take a look at flightsim.com FS2002 panels downloads page (https://www.flightsim.com/files/category/71-fs2002-panels/?sortby=file_downloads&sortdirection=desc). The top panel there with over 29,000 downloads is my file.

That 747 panel is listed as:

FS2002 Boeing 747-400 Advanced Panel
By FlightSim Files

It's my upload, not FlightSim Files. In order to preserve that file download due to their upgrades, they had to claim ownership and make it available through their account.  flightsim.com has had a few forum software updates since I uploaded that in 2002 and enough forum software updates where when I went to log in last week, my account was not even available anymore! (corrected now).

Is this bothersome to me? Do I care that my file is listed as belonging to FlightSim Files? Of course not. I thank them for having preserved my file there for others to be able to enjoy for as long as they have.

 

1 hour ago, Fielder said:

I'm surprised a thread about a fee increase only has 30 pages of messages. 

 

I'm not sure anyone has even mentioned the fee lol.

A voluntary premium membership isn't what bothered anyone in the first place.  It was that, concurrent to this being announced, some changes in their ToS came to light that restrict an author's control of their own freeware content.

The folks who claim this is just standard ToS that has to exist for any hosting site have obviously been proven wrong by the speed with which .to became willing to modify these portions of their ToS once the backlash began. What did it take, about 4 days?  Sure, those ToS were necessary...  😁.

It was surprising to me to see the temper tantrum they threw though, as exhibited by severing their partnership with Got Friends.  I understand that I work in an environment where we pretty much all have to be rational adults and so it's easy for me to forget that this doesn't exist everywhere... But that's still pretty childish and unprofessional for a site that has already seen its image severely tarnished by questionable practices.

I really don't care if people boycott the site or not.  My few small mods and sceneries will remain up there simply because I don't care enough to move them.

But it really is surprising to see the backlash against creators here.  The thing the .to apologists seem not to understand is this:. Your opinion of the reasons a creator may have for moving their content is irrelevant.  You have zero right to that content; you only have access to it from any location due to the generosity of the creator.  Basically, you aren't really even entitled to an opinion of where the creator wants to host it.

It just isn't your stuff in the first place.

On 2/21/2023 at 7:51 PM, DigitalJonx said:

I can tell you right away, with full certainty, that Got Friends including Got Gravel, Mykrode and myself will never be coming back to Flightsim.to.

Flightsim.to's latest decision to terminate our partnership, vendor contract, payware and freeware products have shown us that we can never trust that platform again. We fully believe our public statements on the matter is what has driven Flightsim.to to revise their deletion policy. Unfortunately that has resulted in the irrevocable termination of our account. We are just honored to have stood up for all community developers. "Hopefully" we helped make a difference, so that all Flightsim.to content can be better protected in the future.

That said, we will never come back to Flightsim.to nor wish to do so. You can find our selection of Payware and ever growing Freeware selection on our official website:

https://www.got-friends.com

Bye

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

But it really is surprising to see the backlash against creators here.  The thing the .to apologists seem not to understand is this:. Your opinion of the reasons a creator may have for moving their content is irrelevant.  You have zero right to that content; you only have access to it from any location due to the generosity of the creator.  Basically, you aren't really even entitled to an opinion of where the creator wants to host it.

These creators had no issue uploading to a site that was made available for free to them, without reading a TOS that was likely copied from a boilerplate template. They had no issue with the free publicity their uploads received, and some even profited from this popularity. They took full advantage of the search, comments, changelog, version tracking, and other website features that weren't available anywhere else.

To reverse your argument: creators only had access to flightsim.to due to the generosity of the fs.to developers. If someone were to pay a web development company to design and implement a site with fs.to's scope, it could easily cost $20k+, and yet all creators had to do was upload a file and write a description and their content was now available to thousands. Not to mention the ongoing bandwidth and storage costs, which fs.to have obviously struggled with given the increased hurdles to download files and finally now, a premium plan.

I had more sympathy for creators before finding that most sites of this natures have the same TOS and restrictions. To me it comes across as creators biting the hand that feeds.

Edited February 24, 20233 yr by Funky D

1 minute ago, Funky D said:

These creators had no issue uploading to a site that was made available for free to them, without reading a TOS that was likely copied from a boilerplate template. They had no issue with the free publicity their uploads received, and some even profited from this popularity. They took full advantage of the search, comments, changelog, version tracking, and other website features that weren't available anywhere else.

To reverse your argument: creators only had access to flightsim.to due to the generosity of the fs.to developers. If someone were to pay a web development company to design and implement a site with fs.to's scope, it could easily cost $20k+, and yet all creators had to do was upload a file and write a description and their content was now available to thousands. Not to mention the ongoing bandwidth and storage costs, which fs.to have obviously been having issues with given the increased hurdles to download files and finally now, a premium plan.

To me it comes across as creators biting the hand that feeds.

But... Creators never materially benefitted from it.  There are a very few devs that release payware as well as freeware, but it's false to claim .to provided them with exposure they couldn't have gotten anywhere else. There was nothing special about .to in this regard.

And the vast majority of freeware devs never had any commercial interest in it.  It matters not a bit to them who uses their work or doesn't, as they get nothing from it either way.  .To was of course profiting from the hosting of all these folks' work.  Which is a fine agreement; free hosting in exchange for the site making some ad or subscription revenue... But when the site claims they have rights to the creators' work, I'd say that's where things break.

But no, there's no biting the hand that feeds, because freeware devs were never getting fed anything.  Why would it matter to them where or if you download their work?

7 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

But... Creators never materially benefitted from it. 

There's more to life than money. 

A lot of the fun comes from interaction, seeing things out in the wild and wondering who's using what you put out. 

If a creator knew 15 people were going to download something from flightsimgraveyard.com I'd bet they'd be a lot less inclined to put in the effort. 

3 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

But no, there's no biting the hand that feeds, because freeware devs were never getting fed anything.  Why would it matter to them where or if you download their work?

They were getting fed free storage and bandwidth, along with a platform to easily find their content. The storage/bandwidth doesn't matter much for a 30MB addon, but when the addon is in the hundreds of megs or even gigs... or if that 30MB addon is downloaded 50,000 times... it adds up.

People are either unaware or underestimate the costs of bandwidth, which is far greater than the static storage costs. If a creator's content becomes extremely popular, I'm guessing they will get fed up paying out-of-pocket for something they're attempting to provide for free.

I take back my earlier comment:
 

On 2/22/2023 at 6:31 PM, F737MAX said:

It's not this thread, but elsewhere there has been pushback against content creators.

Word not allowed me. The sense of entitlement on display from people in the last few pages of this thread is revolting. 'My convenience outweighs content creator's supposed concerns…'
Just remember, it's the creators who have generously provided great content for us all to enjoy, at no cost to us.

And yet there are people who think the platform hosting this content should not only be absolved from any criticism for their practices, it appears that they think flightsim.to deserve all the credit too… 🤦‍♂️

I have to wholeheartedly agree with Funky D.

I absolutely appreciate and am grateful for all of the developers out there who have made amazing content and then shared it to the world for free.  I've donated to them more times with "buy me a coffee" to demonstrate that gratitude then I could count.  At the same time, I am also very grateful to the payware developers who have also put forth tremendous effort to improve the experience of this very niche hobby of mine - I've spent (cough, choke, ehem) quite a bit showing them "gratitude" as well.

All that is to start by saying that I dont have ANY lack of appreciation for the effort shown by freeware developers, but I also live in the real world.  Despite anything a ToS implies, or copyright laws allow, for all intents and purposes, you (and by "you" I also include 'me' because I have shared a few sceneries I've made) are making your mod Public Domain the second you upload it to a website for free download.  National copyright laws might imply different things where you are, but the internet is unfortunately a world wide phenomena last I checked, and those copyright laws are definitely NOT enforced equally everywhere you go.  If you truly had some future interest in protecting your copyright, you should NOT have uploaded it and offered it to the world as a free download.

Speaking for myself, I uploaded my contributions with the full intent for them to be shared and enjoyed by whomever wanted to try them out.  I could care less what happens to the files after that.  It might look a little obnoxious were a site to directly sell my specific uploads as a payware content, but that is absolutely NOT what is happening here.  I see a lot of developers leaving in a dramatic fashion all about a hypothetical future scenario where they'ld suddenly want to assert control over the horse they let out of the barn.  Legally you might still hold the IP rights to the content, but be real here - if your content is popular its most likely already on host sites in foreign countries that dont care much for IP protection.  That horse is out to pasture and probably hooking up with other horses by now.

Like Freaky D said, the contributors (bless them all - my harddrive is loaded with your generosity) are not coming away empty handed.  There are payware developers now that started making freeware (on.. /cough flightsim.to) and who gained enough of a following to make a payware business viable.  This is a two-way street of benefit here that is being overlooked.

I like flightsim.to, have been using it since the start of MSFS and will keep using it because its the most convenient place to find a ton of great addons, makes it easy to keep up with updates, search scenery maps etc.  I feel bad to see some good developers go, but if I had to make a bet I would go with the website coming out of this ok and that the developers who choose to go their own way will be the ones who suffer .. loss of revenue of thats what they hoped for, or obscurity if their aim was just to share the fruits of their labor with the world.  Of course, if they really dont want anyone to have their mod, thats their right too, but weird way of showing it after having offered to the world for free in the first place.

I truly hope rational heads will prevail here.  The freeware community for MSFS has been outstanding and it would be a shame to see it recess over such an overblown issue.

 

 

Edited February 24, 20233 yr by VFXSimmer

11 minutes ago, Funky D said:

They were getting fed free storage and bandwidth, along with a platform to easily find their content.

And said platform was making ad revenue off of this, and rolling out a subscription service as well.  Seems fair enough, without needing to take rights to content away from the creators.

The point is, the creators were not getting any material benefit from this.  They don't need their material to be hosted anywhere, because their lives don't changed based on whether anyone downloads it or not.  They aren't being paid, or getting anything else from it.

I have some simple stuff on .to.  I enjoyed creating it and using it - THAT'S the fun.  I put it up for the benefit of anyone else who might enjoy it, but I have no idea whether any of it has gotten 1 download or thousands... and why would I care?  Nothing in my life changes either way?  🤷‍♂️

43 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

Word not allowed me. The sense of entitlement on display from people in the last few pages of this thread is revolting. 'My convenience outweighs content creator's supposed concerns…'
Just remember, it's the creators who have generously provided great content for us all to enjoy, at no cost to us.

And yet there are people who think the platform hosting this content should not only be absolved from any criticism for their practices, it appears that they think flightsim.to deserve all the credit too… 🤦‍♂️

I dont know if its so much entitlement as it is just being honest.  My sim time is a hard fought commodity (somehow my better half always has something else I 'should be doing') - I dont have unlimited time to search a ton of websites to find something.  If a creator chooses to move their stuff to an obscure website for .. reasons.. that's their prerogative but it means I probably wont ever see it again which makes me sad.  I dont claim a "right" to have access to their stuff at all, even in a "convenient" way, but I'm just more likely to find it and use it if it is.  My point is that its a shame to see that happen, especially when listening to the arguments and ... /shrug ... there doesnt really seem to be a lot of "there there".  It'll be sad to see good developers potentially march off to obscurity for a cause that's not all that significant.

Edited February 24, 20233 yr by VFXSimmer

4 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

And said platform was making ad revenue off of this, and rolling out a subscription service as well.  Seems fair enough, without needing to take rights to content away from the creators.

This has been brought up by a lot of people, but we have no way of knowing if fs.to was even pulling in enough ad revenue to break even with hosting costs. I have seen plenty of freeware unrelated to flightsimming that goes down a similar path as flightsim.to: first the developer asks for "buy me a coffee" donations... then they incorporate ads... then further download restrictions... and eventually they need to implement a subscription model. I doubt all of these folks are greedy... they just want to cover their hosting costs and maybe make a little extra to cover the constant support they need to throw into their creations. People need to remember that the developers of flightsim.to are freeware developers in their own right, the "freeware" being free access to a hosting platform they created.

Also, as VFXSimmer eloquently stated above, I have a great appreciation for the work and dedication creators put into their freeware, and I don't want my somewhat harsh remarks to come across as a lack of respect for freeware developers. But I look at sites like nexusmods.com, and creations that are not only larger in scale but also vastly more popular than anything in the MSFS community, and I wonder why those creators are not as up in arms as many seem to be in the MSFS community? I wouldn't doubt if fs.to used nexusmods as a model for their site. The seemingly restrictive TOS at nexusmods didn't get in the way of modders getting paid for their work (The Witcher 3 incorporated many 3rd party mods and the creators were reimbursed for their work).

It's as if people are viewing fs.to as some large corporation with a team of lawyers waiting to steal their creations. Even large corporations usually aren't out to get people, their contracts just limit liability. I regularly have to send vendor contracts to our legal department for review... they make a bunch of changes, which are all rejected by the vendor. We sign anyway, because there is no alternative. And the clauses we wanted stricken never become an issue. Just like I honestly think these TOSes would never become an issue. But creators are free to think of them as they wish.

1 hour ago, F737MAX said:

And yet there are people who think the platform hosting this content should not only be absolved from any criticism for their practices, it appears that they think flightsim.to deserve all the credit too… 🤦‍♂️

Please don't try to make false implications of others' comments.

No one here is advocating for the site to obtain rights to content posted there. I personally have not yet found any evidence the site is in any way undermining the intellectual rights of content creators’s work and seeking to transfer it through shady means to them. And no, the fact that they make it difficult or impossible to delete content on their site is not indicative of that.

I understand the concerns of certain devs with the intellectual right over their content. If they feel the site's deletion policy in any way infringes their intellectual rights iver its content, it's their right to think that and post their content elsewhere. However, my opinion is that it doesn't and that is why I think it is an overreaction.

5 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

I really wouldn't say unfounded, at all.  It's good that the author gave .to permission to re-uoload it... But listing themselves as the author is straight plagiarism, no?

Then of course there's the all the issues with creators needing to "request" removal of a mod, vs having direct control of it etc.  

There really still seems to be more focus here on "but what about me and all the mods I want for free?!". Instead of "wow, these folks who create stuff I really enjoy and generously share it aren't being treated great here."

Guys, you have no "right" to freeware access.  If you have to look across multiple sites for it instead of one place... You're going to complain about that, really?  About folks still sharing their work for you to use, for free?  You're just mad because it might take an extra 10 seconds to track down this free work?

Yikes.

I am not sure who is complaining about waiting for 10 seconds for freeware. We've been doing that for quite a while without any complaints.

The ATR is a poor example. Payware was not of good quality and ported over with permission. If the author really cared (which they didn't) then it still is one of the tiny....tiny examples of Flightsim.to "stealing" freeware from being deleted. It happen months ago, too. The ATR issue was way overblown, hence my numerous comments about this situation. Nobody really provided other examples of being directly wronged by flightsim.to.

As for those complaining about "what about me arguments?" They are selfish. But so am I. This is why we are here. I want freeware and love donating and rating mods. I love the encouragement. I will download and fly to-and-from freeware destinations to rate them.

There are no "rights" here and now you're starting a different rabbit hole of semantics which so many have done already.

Speaking of wronged. GotFriends etc seemed to have gotten the shaft but nobody really heard from Flightsim.to's argument? I only heard (from one of their developers) that Flightsim.to TERMINATED them out of the picture, after they requested deletion. But I didn't realize they wanted off of their site before this all went down. What were in those emails, etc before all this went down?

There has to be more to this story. Anyone from Flightsim.to care to share what happened?

I work in healthcare, so I ask questions.