Site monetization

[flowerstrample]

They say - I am the only one who broke cooperation with them
And as the author of the scripts demanded to remove them from their resource.

[doordog]

You have grossly misinterpreted a website’s terms as copyright law.

The terms you quoted have almost nothing to do with copyright law at all, aside from it saying the creator doesn’t own the copyright for the video that they created the script for (this is obvious but businesses add it for good reason, to deny liability). You’ve quoted the terms that a website has decided you need to abide by to use and post scripts on their platform.

This is completely different and has no bearing on the law as @VladTheImplier has pointed out.

I’m not dogging on you but I think you shouldn’t attempt to interpret the law when you’re quoting a website’s terms of usage as the argument, especially not one so complicated as copyright.

[SomeoneRandom]

And worth to note. Even if a disclaimer claims something, it doesnt mean its legit. If such claim actualy does something deemed illegal, then the entire thing can be voided. This is why a lot of these things are seperated into sections, so even if 1 section is deemed illegal, the other ones can still be true and valid.

A lot of content based upon other content isnt illegal, and wont even allow the owner of the original content to get copyrights over the other. This would otherwise create a lot of problems in the case of a review, which if you want it to be accurate, must show a clear and exclusive relation to the original. The owner of the original content cannot take any ownership of the review. He cant even protect his own ownership by demanding you to remove the name of his content.

A good review also needs to summarize, and can even use some visual portions of a movie to explain why things are good/bad. The only requirement is making clear it is part of the content, and that you do not own the rights of it. This has as side effect that if anyone wants to comment on your review, that they in turn arent blindly allowed to copy those sections with it (because you can refer to a section of the review instead).

A script in this case is deemed very similar to a summary, in the way that it only describes the video, but isnt in any way showing any of the content. There is no legal way for the owner of the video to claim any ownership of the script. Only if they made a script themselve, they could argue you are competing (as the video/script combo can be sold as package). But as long as your script is standalone, they cannot take ownership or prevent you selling it. After all, you are depending on their sales to be able to sell your addition yourself.

Subtitles here are something else, because text often involves some special cases. Most movies are made based on text (the script), and these texts often involve the spoken lines. Subtitles (even if translated) do generaly copy those lines, and they are actualy copyrighted (with its context only, but for subtitles the context is also identical). But even here, those who do extra effort of translating and sometimes even rewrite entire sentences, often already argued that those changed lines are now their own copyright (which is true its its not a literal or figurative translation - and yes, thats what lawyers are fighting over).

Scripts do not rely on a context the same way a subtitle does, without the movie itself, subtitles often just dont tell a thing of what is going on. And especialy with altered sentences, there is the chance its impossible to even link it to the movie. They lack a lot of information. Scrips also have this effect, and this is why they benefit. They can be fully enjoyed standalone without movie, or even something completely diffirent. The link to the content is only an ‘aid’ for its fun. And on that can in theory be even considered an advertisement for such product.

Copyright while it does often look the same as ownership, actualy isnt. Copyrights arent always permantent. If netflix has a disney movie they can display, while they are displaying it, they have copyrights. And often quite extensive even. But once the deal is over, those rights are now gone.

Forcefully trying to take ownership of someones content is deemed theft. Even if digital. Forcefully trying to take copyrights is called piracy.

[adiasporical]

Saw that the discussion moved to here, so here goes my wall of quotes. Thank you for your patience!

@flowerstrample

If the desire arises, the scriptwriter has the right and should be able to close his scripts at once - but the owners/moderators do not think so and limit the number of edits per day.

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.

@flowerstrample

The answer is self evident - don’t look at the visitors, let’s make an advertising option for scripters for $20 a month? With all the goodies that came before:

• single-axis free + multi-axis through Patreon;
• part of the script free + paid full;
• free script through registration on a third-party resource, etc.

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)

@sentinel

@flowerstrample

Level 2 for $20 publishing promotional posts (like my multi-axis or with part) in the free scripts category.

The reason for why I don’t want this is that it messes up search/filters. If you search/filter the free section it’s for the very reason that you don’t want paid content.

For this to be acceptable it must be possible to see that a post is promotional without visiting the topic, like sponsored links in a Google search.

(posted here since it was a response to a post)

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.

@LostInDetroit

and maybe even create a fund for scripters to even contribute some exclusive scripts to the people who donate/subscribe to the patreon. This would also I think have the added benefit of having paid scripters release more free content over time and purge some of the bad actors that post in that section.

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.

[SomeoneRandom]

@adiasporical

Content creators have the right to decide who, when, how, and in what way can access and use their content.

There are far more rules in this, and some of them do prevent you those rights. Basicly if its released by you into the public domain, without any licence statement, and on an open platform. Its permanent. Note though that most content while its effectively in the public domain, when its not explicitly stated, some restrictions still apply.

For example::

• Companies (or anyone that is trying to make money using your content): they are required to check for licencing, so if you decided to change it, they will have to obey.
  But there can be restrictions here on how much you can ask (it can become FRAND).
• You can revoke publishing rights. Which means DCMA takedowns are legit. But anyone owning a copy of the content is not required to remove it. You cannot remove ownership, you can only remove the right for them to publish it.
• Platforms can demand that you arent changing something from free to paid. After all, when you release it on that platform, you already accepted the agreement here. This obviously excludes illegal uploads since they arent allowed to make the agreement (so these can be removed and then still uploaded in a paid category).
• GDPR while it does allow you to remove your data, does not protect all the content you made, even if it would lead back to you. This highly depends on the content and method of how anonimity gets applied on a platform.
  This can result in your copyrighted content to remain stuck on a platform, even if you lost access. This then means you need to seperately perform a DCMA takedown request (luckily, in this case most platforms do not hinder you as the hassle isnt worth it, so the DCMA requirement gets skipped).

There are probably a lot more exceptions here, and plenty of those will even require lawyers to realy settle it. But just because you are the owner and copyright holder doesnt mean your rights are infinite.

And some agreements are very easy to make that do revoke rights.

@adiasporical

Sounds an awful lot like a “Pay to break the rules” clause to me

Which is standard in life. Speeding in traffic being the most common example of this, except there the costs are dynamic (depends on number of times caught and country laws)

[adiasporical]

Thank you for the legal insight, it vastly expands upon my answer.

My general idea when saying…

@adiasporical

Content creators have the right to decide who, when, how, and in what way can access and use their content.

…was that while they have these rights, they are also responsible for protecting them, and publishing content online usually means they revoke some of them, or license the content to the platform and/or its users.

As Tom Scott said about the topic, “I’m not saying that’s how it should be. I’m saying that’s how it is.”

[Evernessince]

SLR’s terms are constructed in such a way that even in the worst case interpretation of how the law applies to scripts they are still protected. Most companies will do this to minimize risk. One does not set out to base their business model on unsettled law, that’s just asking for trouble.

Until a court actually rules on whether scripts constitute as derivatives, separate works, or something in between it’s a legal grey area.