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flightsim.to

All things Military AI that don't fit anywhere else.
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TimC340
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flightsim.to

Post by TimC340 »

This download site has been the go-to download site for all things MSFS freeware for a couple of years. They have now introduced a paid Premium Membership feature (like Fly Away) that promises faster downloads and a Content Creator revenue-sharing scheme. However, at the same time they have introduced new ToS which removes all creators' rights to their own creations. The most egregious paragraph is:
(4.3) 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.

The site has awarded itself the right to distribute creators' content as it sees fit, to modify it as it sees fit, and to prevent creators withdrawing their product from the site. It has done this without notice, and without offering creators the choice to participate or leave the site. This is almost certainly illegal under European law (and probably many others) but how many creators will have the financial clout to challenge it? Reading this paragraph, it's even possible that flightsim.to could upload content from other distribution sites and claim that it is covered by these terms.

There isn't much MAIW-related stuff on flightsim.to as yet, but there is some. I would advise MAIW creators who have contributed, directly or indirectly, to this site think carefully about whether they will do so in future. I would also advise users to exmine their consciences when downloading from this site.

Some creators have managed to substitute empty updates for their content on the site, but flightsim.to have intercepted this tactic in some cases - and they almost certainly retain archive versions of all content.

Should you wish to contribute to the conversation at the site, it can be found here.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by Firebird »

Wow.
So if I read this correctly, they could take some freeware upload and allow somebody else to include in a product and receive monetary gain. Is this correct, or am I getting this wrong?
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by TimC340 »

Their ToS allow them to do pretty much anything, as the creators sign over all rights to the site. The site is registered in Tonga (hence the .to domain), so they may believe they're not liable under EU, UK or US law, but they'd be wrong about that. I don't believe at this point that they intend to effectively pirate the uploads to the site, but they do want total control over it. As you can imagine, it hasn't gone down well over at FSDeveloper.

The strange thing is that they implemented the new ToS back in September, but as they didn't notify any of the creators it's taken till now for it to become public knowledge (thanks to KL791). They have now said they will allow creators to pull their IP from the site, but only up to March 5th. After that they intend to take what they want. And there are no guarantees that they won't keep archive files.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by TimC340 »

And they have tonight modified and explained their policy and ToS. I still think they are taking a mile having been given an inch, but it's good to know that they have acknowledged the community's disquiet. I would be careful about uploading anything to that site until we've seen how ethically they operate in future.

https://flightsim.to/help/uploading-at- ... -your-file
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by John Young »

Thanks Tim for exposing this.

Reading their explanation, "completely hiding" a mod seems a contradiction - what it seems to mean is that the file is still visible, but annotated that is no longer current. It can still be downloaded apparently:

".......you can also completely hide the mod from your profile up to your preference. Users will see a warning message that the file has been discontinued and is no longer supported, so download is at their own risk".

I won't be using the site.

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Re: flightsim.to

Post by Firebird »

Oh boy.
It would seem that MSFS addons need a new home. Whether avsim or flightsim.com can fit the bill I don't know. Maybe it will need a completely new site. After all flightsim.to came out of nowhere to become the de facto repository so a new one could do that.

Now on the subject of keeping what they have it may seem that they are in a strong position, however they are not.
When a creator updates a package but only updates the new location then flightsim.to will become less viable. There are dozens of updates each day it will take less than a year for them to become irrelevant. Only the loads not updated would stay relevant.
I can't see many users going to a site that MIGHT have the latest version.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by hschuit »

I briefly tried MSFS last year and at that time I liked msfsaddons.com better than flightsim.to.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by TimC340 »

Flightsim.to has become a business rather than an enthusiast-run site. It claims that these terms (other than the right to delete content) have been in place since the site started, and are common in the ‘modding’ community. That doesn’t make them ethical or legal, and I suspect a funded challenge would see any site that imposed such conditions finding themselves on the wrong side of IP law.

Under these TOS, if you updated your content on another download site, there would be nothing to stop flightsim.to from downloading it themselves and updating the content in their site. That would require an extraordinary level of monitoring on their part, and thus is unlikely, but it possibly could be automated. Some creators have replaced their files at the site with readmes that both explain their position and achieve a deletion of their files by stealth!

There’s no doubt that this episode will prompt a closer examination of all the regular download sites’ TOS and may well presage a review and revision across the sector. Flightsim.to has something of a monopoly on MSFS freeware downloads so I’m sure they will weather this storm for now, but their chances of longevity have taken a downward turn.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by Firebird »

I hear what you are saying but if they agreed to let any upload be pulled before Mar 5 then they won't have a leg to stand on on that duplicating point.
I do agree though that trying to get any legal decision and, crucially, be enforced in Togo will be difficult. All the developers can do pull all their stuff immediately and upload to a new site in either the EU or US and let them deal with any piracy issues.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by TimC340 »

If you tried to enforce it in Togo, you'd struggle! Togo's domain is .tg. .to is Tonga.

I think that the origin of the domain suffix is irrelevant in any legal proceedings. If it wasn't, any arguments over the content on .com domains would have to be held in the US, wherever the businesses were registered or operated. I think the relevant information is where the business is registered (if it is a business), and where its operating offices or personnel are. I understand that the domain registrar is in California. The site offers no definitive information, but the three major protagonists are apparently in the timezone UTC+2, which is likely to be the eastern half of Europe.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by TimC340 »

It would appear that flightsim.to is now running to catch the horses that have bolted, let alone shut the stable door! They've updated the site several times over the last 24 hours. KL791, whose Global Shipping project is among their most popular downloads, has left the site along with several other prominent developers. flightsim.to is bleating that their ToS are the same as several other 'modding' sites, but all that says is that they didn't care enough to scrutinise or legally test what they copied and pasted from other sites. They've lost the community's trust, and they will struggle to attract new big-ticket freeware creators (payware creators have different ToS).
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by SeanG »

When I jumped onto flightsim.to this morning (in stealth mode on a VPN from the States) it came up with Romanian as the default language... which would tie in with the GMT+2 right?

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Re: flightsim.to

Post by Firebird »

TimC340 wrote: 19 Feb 2023, 15:29 If you tried to enforce it in Togo, you'd struggle! Togo's domain is .tg. .to is Tonga.

Really must reboot my brain, said Togo, meant to say Tonga - as you stated in the first place.

On the subject of uploads it seems that there has been no new ones as of 02:04 a.m. Feb 19.
Whilst only two of the uploads on the latest page have actually been pulled word would appear to have gotten around and it would seem that a lot of people are at least holding fire on uploading.

Not good for business.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by Firebird »

Thanks, Tim.
Keep us updated, especially if you here where specific developers are moving their stuff to. I would hate to lose updates from people, like nickb007 for example.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by TimC340 »

The larger ones are withdrawing to their own sites (such as Rainer at simmershome.de), others going back to Avsim and flightsim.com, Simviation or FlyAway.

flightsim.to are starting to throw their teddies out of the cot and blocking users, closing forums on Discord and kicking developers off their site (though we have yet to learn if they've deleted their content or not). This is all a bit of a storm in a teacup - after all, the wider world cares not a jot about flight simming - but it may focus the wider games world on its copy'n'paste TOS which have never been tested in law. It could have all been avoided by a bit of communication before changing anything.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by Kulbit »

The ToS does indeed seem to state that flightsim.to does not claim ownership of uploads, and full ownership remains with the developer. Nor do the Terms of Service allow for flightsim.to to start charging money for access to these freeware add-ons. As such, it is not entirely clear what specific changes developers would like to see to the flightsim.to Terms of Service, or if developers are expressing their general unhappiness with the Creators Program as a whole.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by TimC340 »

The changes have already been made. Indeed, flightsim.to's TOS have changed several times over the last few days as they firefight the situation.

I have no doubt that they had no intentions of acting in bad faith, but because the copy'n'pasted their TOS from modding sites for much larger AAA games than MSFS, they thought it would all be ok. As developers started to actually read these TOS, they realised that there was little or no protection for the creators and a great deal for the website, and the balance was wrong. FSTO procrastinated and blustered and lost a lot of trust in the process, but have gradually inched towards a position that most developers can live with. Interestingly, some of the other download sites have had similar TOS and are now quietly revising them!

Fly Away, Avsim and Simviation have benefited from the fallout.Fly Away in particular has been very proactive in recruiting the disaffected developers, and have made it very clear what their TOS mean for those who jump ship from FSTO. Qute a few developers have set up their own download sites, but I suspect the added effort and cost of maintaining them will see those developers drift back to the big sites in time.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by Firebird »

I tend to agree with you, Tim.

I feel that the TOS in its final state will be altered enough that the overwhelming majority of producers will be happy with it.
Once that happens I do see that a very slow return by the developers but it will take time for two reasons. One, once you move something you are less likely to go through the process again. Two, trust. Trust is not earned by what is written it is earned by actions over time.

I feel that Flightsim.to will regain the vast majority in the end. There is nothing wrong with the other fine sites you mentioned, just that it is the only one dedicated to MSFS.

The beauty of FS.to is that if you want MSFS stuff you go there. If the consumers are there then the producers will also go there. I just hope that it is sorted out as quickly as possible to everyones satisfaction.
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Re: flightsim.to

Post by TimC340 »

FSto insist that the TOS everyone objected to were dictated by their 'legal advisors'. However, the wording was exactly the same as several other sites, so I doubt that! I also doubt that they could afford bespoke corporate legal advice, and suspect that they asked a local legal practise to cast their eyes over it to make sure there were no obvious liabilities introduced and off they jolly well went. I'm sure that exactly the same process was followed by all the other big download sites and that very few have individually sourced or stress-tested their TOS with proper corporate legal experts. It will all have been 'if it's OK for Skyrim (or whoever) it'll be OK for us'. Of course, Bethesda (who make Skyrim) can afford the full corporate legal support, and will have written their TOS to protect themselves as a commercial operator allowing modders to alter their in-house product, so the read-across to a flight simulator file-sharing space is, at best, limited.
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