I think it just comes with the territory of pornography communities. They’re thinking with their Dicks. Best to just shun them and promote and befriend useful people
This is why I only script content from PH and Spankbang. If I ever script for paid media I would just ignore people asking for free links. Better yet I’d delete the requests. I haven’t needed to do that yet so I don’t know if it’s possible.
hi, please continue the convo over here
I won’t close this topic in case there’s stuff that doesn’t directly fit into this linked convo.
Please give feedback on the proposal I linked
I totally agree. So much more rudeness and demanding attitudes. It’s starting to morph from a community into a smash-and-grab storefront for scripts.
In my opinion, scripters are the life-blood of what make this site work. Full stop. No scripters = no site. All improvement suggestions should first answer the question - how do we make this into a better home for scripters?
There are SO many topics that can be brought up, but the one that is top of my mind is…
Do scripters want to maximize reach to EVERYONE?
OR
Do scripters want to share scripts with a constructive, engaged community?
The open-ness of the forum is definitely leaning towards the first, with some negative effects in terms of the types of users and conflicts that have popped up a bit more. However, it may have a positive effect on some scripters that are are monetizing their scripts via Gumroad, etc. I don’t know enough scripters to be able to answer this issue, but I do see it as a potential point of divergence in what kind of “home” ES is for valued scripters.
My apologies. I usually just download and don’t say anything. Thank you for all that you have contributed!!
I may be asking for links a lot here soon. My hard drive crashed and I will be trying to get a lot of the stuff I had back.
maybe there are differences, but this does remind me of a similar discussion a while back. I think a lot of the same ideas are still relevant Hidden script category for higher level users only? - #25 by defucilis
I usually skip scripts if no download is provided, but attempt to find if video is enticing
Thats what I want. But I am not a dreamer and don’t believe, that a 100% positive community is possible. The opening of this community didn’t bring a added value to me. My subjective perception tell me that not expectional more people starts scripting per year then before. Only more scroungers.
I only start to sell my script instead of giving away for free because of this sick community.
Sorry hugecat for starting such a discussion… again. The moment I saw that Husky was treated like that, I was pissed af. No existing topic fitted to my feelings at this moment. Your linked topics are similar but this is more a all over problem.
The existing user level can’t provide a functional hidden script category. The user level must be set manual by mods or some kind of committee, based on the way a user is part of this community. It would be a great wish of mine if something like that were possible. But I’m only a guest here and I know that it’s only the decision of the operator what he wants to do with this forum.
I don’t want to blame the inactive users here as much as it maybe seems. But the statistics here are really sobering. Last month 13k active users in 30 days. Around 30-100 likes per posted free script and 1-3 not free links related comments. Thats an activity of 0.2% - 0.8% on likes and 0.007% - 0.02% on comments.
You need to separate content consumption from content creation.
Those few hundred or so people who write scripts are usually very adequate and socially correct people.
Those who use scripts are, as in any society, different.
You understand the ethical and moral issues of society as a whole, not this forum in particular. The whole world is like that now - consumption, the popularity of social media, instagram and tiktok confirmation. And the topic of the forum is also on the border between posted and forbidden topics.
The issue of the ethics of the scripts we deal with is broader than it seems and more complex. Especially in today’s world, it seems to me, people are degrading even more, and it’s all going back to the Middle Ages.
I have long been accustomed to the fact that few people write comments, and it depends more on the choice of video. but when someone asks for a free link and it is provided, often there is no gratitude even for this, this is already a problem with the basic norms of communication.
You turned my whole worldview upside down with that link.
I will no longer sell scripts. They will all be free from now on. I will only leave a subscription for early access to them.
I will change the terms tonight and thank you so much for that!
It’s too bad if my scripts won’t be seen and tried out by hundreds of people.
Yeah I do feel it’s gotten a tad odd as of late. I’m not on here downloading stuff as much as I used to be, but damn. At least like the post and say thank you once in awhile. I know I can’t speak for some because I’ve only contributed like two scripts, but the people who liked them did make ne feel good about then. Even if you don’t download the script and it interests you, just shoot a thank you. It can make a difference.
I dont think paid scripts are a bad idea in general. But the problem is mostly that its something on top of an already paid video. This gives such low exposure that it might feel like a waste. But in the end, you spent effort, and its fine if you at least want to be rewarded for that.
Early access on that can be a nice method to allow people to still give some sort of donation.
Personaly im not interested into making paid scripts as i do this as a hobby anyway. Just like the plugin i made… i will be adding a few more features (and i do have some ideas for that), and maybe even manage 2 versions (if i can get runtime editing effects to function properly and not cause lag). My scripts are often partialy as experiment, and often because i simply just like a video and want it to work on the handy. Making those public wont harm (and could even in some cases promote the maker of the video).
Ofcourse, if someone would like to pay me to make something, i could be interested, but as its as a hobby, that is just going to be too unreliable.
There is a whole paid scripts area. Which i have on the ignore list. If this could work with paid videos, then maybe there is also a better ground for handling those links in them (as then it can be made clear its simply not desired behaviour).
Sure, you can still search yourself (why not?). just dont share it then, i think that would be a fine enough balance.
I’m one of those people who very rarely replies or comments on any topic. Often, I will even download a script without liking the post unless it’s a scene I am particularly excited about.
However, I’ve also released several scripts for free on this site. So I hope the dozens of hours I’ve spent on those would be enough to show the respect and appreciation I have for others who do the same.
The reason I don’t “engage” much is not because I don’t appreciate the work of all the fine scripters here, but because I don’t feel I have anything tangible to add to the conversation for the post. And that, to me, is what the purpose of the comments are.
I don’t want my topics to be filled with everyone posting their thanks for my script. Just imagine if every person who submitted a like were to post a reply instead, much less those who neglected to even like it. Topics would quickly have 100+ posts saying nothing really, and the few that may have important info in them would be impossible to find easily.
I would want replies on my topics to focus on specific feedback on the quality of my script or ways I might be able to improve. Or if someone feels that one of my scripts was particularly good, it can be nice to hear about that as well.
As for the piracy discussion: regardless of personal views of piracy (and for the record, I very much prefer nobody pirate any content and only post creator links in posts about the scripts I make) someone asking about or posting a free link does actually fit in my definition of what a comment is intended for. It is requesting and posting additional tangible information that is not included in my own post.
For me, the better indicator of community health is not any metrics on engagement of any particular script post. Rather, it is with the posts requesting help, which tend to be engaged with and answered very quickly. It is also with the various tools that people have created and maintained and posted about here to improve scripting. It is also in posts like this one where people do engage and get passionate about when they think they have something to add. So, I think our community is doing okay.
Asking a question has no legality attached to it, no matter what country you are in. Even if totalitarian entities try to imply they can censor your words and thought… they’re the one’s violating human rights.
The unfortunate (for content creators) part of the internet is that the reality is, once you expose your content to the internet you have to expect that it will be pirated. That is simply the nature of a free and open environment (meaning limited censorship and not subject to totalitarian oppression). People will share. As we have learned (especially since 2020), a lot of people will simply steal and walk off. That’s just how some people are.
You have some copyright legality if you created the content, but again, it is not 100% enforceable.
This is, again, just the harsh reality of an open and free (meaning limited censorship and not subject to totalitarian oppression) environment. The internet should remain in limited censorship, just like individual rights in the daily lives of people.
I don’t condone stealing someone’s work they created as paid media, but also, I understand the nature of the harsh reality of the internet… especially a porn related entity. I’m a software developer, I understand.
You are posting in a ‘seedy’ section of the internet. A back-alley, so to speak, and complaining someone runs off with property, or asks you for a hand-out… Did you expect some other outcome? We aren’t in Disneyland here… you can even get mugged at a Disneyland…
If you put your content behind a secure portal that requires payment to access, that is 90% of the option you have to secure it. You have a small percentage left to pursue legal recourse, if you can find the person(s) involved with distributing that content (without your consent or consent of the author) either after they paid for it or having had acquired it from someone who did. IF you can find their true identity.
That’s about it.
There will always be a small percentage where you can not recover your property.
That is also true for real world crime.
I agree it is in bad taste to beg for free links, but do you go around punching beggars on the street when they ask you for a dollar as you pass by them? Or do you ignore them and continue about your day?
On here, at least, their comments can be muted or removed. But you will always have people wanting to get for free what other’s have paid/worked for.
At the end of the day, the site will be different things to different people. For a lot of the older members, this site is a community of peers, in which mutual trust and respect are important. That’s delightful and all, but that’s not how everyone uses the site, and we need to keep that in mind.
As toys that use funscripts become more popular and common, more and more people will treat this site as a source of content. As I said in my post about trust levels, as the site grows, the ratio of “community members” to “lurkers” will skew more and more towards lurkers. The endgame is something like YouTube - how many YouTube creators are there compared to YouTube users who never create videos or even write comments?
I’m sure that for a lot of these new users it’s inconvenient and frustrating that the main location to get funscripts on the internet is a forum! They want funscripts, they don’t want a community - and that’s totally OK in my book - that’s just how the internet works.
Obviously, if people are acting rude or entitled in threads with scripts of paid content, expecting links from script creators and such, then that’s a different issue entirely - if users are being rude, report their posts and the mod team will bring them to swift justice by politely asking them to be nicer
They dont censor your words at all, you can post it. But freedom of speech is still limited, while that law says you are allowed to do such things, it doesnt mean it has no consequences. Things can backfire eventualy.
For piracy, and most crimes. If you are asking someone to do something illegal (internet or personaly has no diffirence), then you are doing an illegal thing. Now sure, the way its asked on the internet has a few things going with it that might weaken punishment (or avoid it entirely), since its harder to prove whether you aware of its illegal state. This is the difficult part, but at the same time also easy to prove when doing this several times (only 1 person has to point to you its illegal, and from that point on asking it again means you should be aware of it).
Your argument of expecting it to be pirated does not mean you should participate in it. It doesnt weaken the illegal state at all.
The biggest issue is proving it happens, and especialy with forums like these, its going to be far too much hassle, with potentialy no gain. And that last part is what defends most of the users. Even just trying to obtain the user info for the relatively few users that ask for a free link, its something that is most likely not going to result in anything usefull. Anti piracy companies are well aware of this. Hence they usualy want the site to enforce more strict rules instead (shifts the tasks away from them). And if the site owner doesnt do this, he might become responsible instead. This is where the users are at risk (as when the site owner obeys, those users now face bans)! Anti piracy companies are still active at this.
Also, piracy is not theft, so on that it already falls under a diffirent scale. And even the types of piracy can be very diffirent (downloads and uploads are in most countries generaly not worth it to go after as you are not going to make profits. not all countries have punitive damages applied - a good thing!).
And as this site is relatively niche… it most likely wont be at risk. But as its not 0 either…
Note that even a VPN isnt fully anonymous. VPN companies might say they dont log anything, but in many countries that would instantly also be the self destruct button. Quite a lot of logging is required (who is buying the vpn, and usualy which ips were tied to users during certin times). VPN companies only provide anonimity since without those official requests, that information isnt going to be released. And its short lived information as well (but generaly still several weeks).
VPN companies that do not obey this are often listed and can be blocked. Not to mention that your payment info reveals an instant red flag (they dont even need to know what you did to already flag you as potential criminal).
But in the end, most users can be expected to be safe because most of the time the takedown requests do go to the sites on which the content was hosted anyway. And as those sites generaly have very good procedures, why bother with a niche site? As you stated, piracy is expected to happen anyway. As long as you can get all the big companies to work with you, you generaly can filter out most of the content effectively. It makes the search for the content hard enough (and that proves it is effective).
And yes, your search info can be used against you! Just to mark how far they can go. And most big search engines will reveal the information on official requests. But to repeat. Its most of the time not worth it. Sharing some already spreaded videos, vs taking down massive content leakers is a big diffirence. Those bigger uploaders are the ones they want as that is 1000x more effective (and can actualy generate profit).
You can ask for torrents or leaked content (I’m referring to legality).
Actually in all cases (excluding obtaining child pornography) you are not committing a crime by downloading shared content.
It is only the person sharing the content that has legal ramifications for sharing copyrighted content.
I won a battle with Veoh back in 2007 where they deleted star trek series episodes I had downloaded to watch on my hard drive from their service that someone had shared. That was illegal on their part. They reached outside of their app’s directory and deleted content off my hard drive in a personal folder. Yes it was shared copyright content, but it was illegal for them to delete it from a folder outside their app directory regardless. It is also generally illegal to delete content from someone’s hard drive period.
They had to change their app.
So no, there is no legal ramification for asking a question concerning obtaining copyright content in a means that is not directly through the paid portal.
I want to restate that I don’t condone or support piracy. I don’t share copyright material without the author’s consent. In the case of the star trek episodes, they were on the Veoh playlist and I watched them. They discovered they were on their site and removed the content from the channel that shared it, but went too far in deleting the files from my hard drive, which were there after I had watched them.
You can ask for a torrent, but if that torrent refers to illegal content, then that is still considered filesharing (as that includes asking someone else to share it to you). And the laws state that sharing is only fine if one of the parties was permitted to share by the owner. In all other cases its illegal. A very big advantage here: if you ask someone else, and the other one shared a link to a public source, he doesnt have to ask if you were permitted (makes verification of legality difficult).
A link might not be the file itself, but its still distributing the file. And this falls under filesharing rules. This however only affects the poster! (and if using a VPN and dump account, becomes almost impossible to trace).
If the distributor themselve however released the file for free at any point in time, then regardless of sharing method, as the file was at some point public, spreading those sources (the links and torrents) isnt illegal. What can still be illegal is uploading of the file itself (as that is still copyrighted material, the public links and references are not).
If someone clicks on the link, and it goes to a streaming site, then he is allowed to watch the stream, since the hoster is then responsible for removal. Downloading and saving the file however is something that varies on a per country basis (in many countries its legal).
If its however a site like mega or any file storage, then its illegal to download from there (unless the site offers a way to watch it as a stream instead).
But again, as it varies per country and the internet is international. Its simply not worth it to target individuals (except in the US which have horrible laws on that).
And it can backfire, since while this site now is relatively unknown, if such case would be made, it could be massive marketing to this site. And even if the old content was deemed illegal. As the site owner isnt forced to remove it at once, or even block it at once (there is a timeframe that considers what is reasonable to ask), it can cause a lot of people to suddenly visit the site. And that amplifies the issue.
If in your country they are flexible (i luckily know that in my country they are), then yes, you can fight back. But in plenty of countries you are required to proof that sharing that link, or downloading that file was legal for you (in my country, no matter how software is shared, if you downloaded it illegal, its still illegal without any exceptions. even if you downloaded it legaly, but lack a licence, usage can still be illegal).
Copyright laws are a mess (which is a major luck for this site as it does protect its users as especialy on sites like these you can expect people to protect their identity. and the site owner on that is generaly also required to handle their users in such way, making it difficult for companies to obtain info).
In nearly all cases, they should check for the situation that caused the infringement to happen. As without such information, there is not enough proof. And this is why most of those cases end up being lost. They often just sue a lot of people, and upon the first bit of resistance already stop, in the hope that 1 person catches their bait and pays them to avoid further actions (an activity i actualy wish would be illegal, but sadly isnt).
I think all this discussion around the legality of links, torrents, etc., is missing the point that @mADsCRIPTS put so well.- this is not a piracy forum. If finding videos/scripts in a easy packed place is important, go get a SLR subscription.
There are so many other resources and forums dedicated to piracy that are just a simple google search away. Perhaps we just should replace file requests with link to https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/