Saw that the discussion moved to here, so here goes my wall of quotes. Thank you for your patience!
I find this to be an example of “both sides have the right to do their thing”:
Content creators have the right to decide who, when, how, and in what way can access and use their content. Since they hold the copyright, unless they explicitly license the content to others under a license that allows for perpetual use*, they’re free to revoke access at any time and either not allow anyone to access it anymore, or only make it paid.
(* — I don’t know whether or not this platform says that you do so in its terms of service when you publish your scripts here, but if not, that’s an avenue of further research that admins can consider. Legalese is boring, but important.)
On the other hand, the platform has the right to decide what content stays up, and what content gets removed. Content creator’s access to the platform is not a right — it’s a privilege. And as such, if they wish for their content to be present on the platform, and receive the benefits of being discovered by hundreds, thousands, millions of people, they ought to follow the rules of the platform.
Content creators are very much welcome to have whatever kind of relationship with their customers as two parties to an exchange, but the platform (in this case, EroScripts) is a third party, and it has a say in the matter as well.
As a user and consumer, I wouldn’t want to lose the access to a massive amount of scripts because a scripter got hacked, or had a fit of rage and mass-deleted their content, or anything else. At the same time, content creators have the rights to their content. Best way to resolve this tension is for the platform to mandate a set of rules and expectations uploaders are ought to adhere to, with the understanding that uploading here means potentially giving up some of the rights to their content, especially in a Free Scripts section.
Sounds an awful lot like a “Pay to break the rules” clause to me.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind the following scenario:
- A post on Free Scripts forum, with a free script, linked either directly or on an easily-accessible source (couple of clicks and you’re done kind of deal); tags applied only to the free script and its features, not paid.
- A paragraph that explains that there’s a better, paid version of that same script, with multiple axis, available at Patreon, with links to the post.
- Possibly, that paragraph (or more) being hidden under a spoiler, with a header saying something like “(Paid) Better, multi-Axis version on Patreon”
This way, the only limitations are a special formating+restrictions on paid portions, and tags can’t be applied to paid content (which can be easily rectified with a second post in the Paid Scripts category)
Personally, I wouldn’t care much if the post has links to paid content, as long as I don’t feel “ragpulled” by the free content that’s available. Free single-axis + paid multi-axis (as long as the post is not tagged with multi-axis tags) sounds perfectly reasonable to me: from the get-go you don’t have an expectation of seeing a multi-axis script, and you happen to be pleasantly surprised in the end. Or, at the very least, don’t feel cheated by the post and its author. “Promotional” or “paid-content” tags, or something similar, sounds fine to me. Perfect for excluding in searches, and an additional incentive for content creators to create two posts in separate categories, simply cross-linking between them.
In other words, an EroScripts bundle subscription that provides access to loads of paid content for a fixed price per month, with revenue sharing that can be based per download: the more subscribers download someone’s script, the bigger share of the pie they can get. That last bit is my personal suggestion, and the exact way the money split works is not worth discussing right now, but I do like the idea.