Limited ability to delete your file

TL;DR. It is our core belief that mods are made for everyone to benefit from and we have to rely on uploads to stay online to run our business. Therefore, in usual cases, you cannot delete your mod once it has been uploaded, but you may be able to archive it instead. Archiving means it is not being publicly advertised anymore and people will see a warning message that the file is no longer supported, but your file can still be accessed and downloaded. In individual cases, you still may be able to delete your mod, for example if it is broken or violates our terms. If you would like to understand this better, keep on reading.

When you upload your file to Flightsim.to, you grant us a legally binding license as per our terms of service. Our terms read:

By submitting or posting User Content to the Service [...] you grant this Site a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, assignable, unrestricted, worldwide license to use the User Content, [...] to distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, transmit, communicate to the public and modify the User Content [...]. You also grant each other user of the Service a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to access your User Content through the Service, and to use that User Content [...].

We need these licenses to be able to effectively run our business, and we must rely on you to not remove your mod or add-on from the site from one day to the next. Flightsim.to is a mod hosting platform, and we believe that mods are made for everyone to benefit from: We display, distribute and share your mods to the whole world. Our philosophy is to make modding easy, hassle-free and simple for everyone. Once a mod has been uploaded, it is our belief that this mod should be distributed as widely as possible so that the entire gaming community can benefit from it. That's what mods are made for, that's what brought us all together and that's why Flightsim.to was ultimately created for. That is the story behind Flightsim.to, it is our core.

As a rule, we do not allow mods to be deleted once they have been uploaded. There are many reasons for this. Imagine someone creates a library and you use this library for your scenery. Now, overnight, the library uploader has - for whatver reason - decided to delete their library. As soon as this happens, your contribution is essentially worthless too, until you can replace or remove the particular library. Users would no longer be able to download the underlying library, and your efforts are lost. That would be a worst case scenario. In the same way, it would be a worst case scenario if you had created dozens of liveries for a freeware aircraft, but the uploader of the freeware aircraft suddenly decides to delete their freeware aircraft from the site, and it can no longer be downloaded. Flightsim.to was created to exactly remedy this undesired situation and to provide a central platform for all modding needs without cumbersome searches. Not to mention that your work would be - once again - for nothing. A lot of mods are reliant on one another. It can be disaster if a mod is suddenly removed, as there are many mods which require dozens of other mods to run. As much as scenery builders and livery creators have to rely on that libraries or respective aircraft will stay online, we at Flightsim.to have to rely that mods will stay online so that we can effectively keep our business model running. Our business model is to make modding more accessible. The success of our platform - of our community - builds on this foundation.

Flightsim.to is not a mere file hosting service

Unlike common file hosters such as Google Drive or similar sites, Flightsim.to not only allows you to host your mod, but actively promotes your content with the world. Your mod will be publicly promoted and highlighted on the site. Quite often we also promote your mod on our social channels to spread it even further. In doing so, your mod benefits from our global audience, while we literally act as a publisher and make sure your content goes viral. Whereas uploading your file to Google Drive or other file hosting services simply means that you put it there to "rest", and decide for yourself what to do with it, uploading your file to Flightsim.to, however, means that you want your content to become as popular as possible, and that you give us the job of promoting your content and offering it to as many users as possible, while you can sit back. This is our business, and in order for our business to run smoothly, we need to be able to trust that you won't suddenly withdraw the licenses you've granted us - that is, delete your file, even though we've been actively promoting your content on our various channels, maybe even investing money and time into it. Please also refer to our Terms of Service to better understand the licenses you are granting us for this purpose.

Another reason is that search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo scan our sites daily, if not hourly. The more files are deleted, the worse our reputation with search engines will be. Search engines do not like to index and list pages that are no longer accessible a few days later or are only of short duration. These well-known 404 - Page not found errors are every businesses' worst nightmare, and something that search engines hate. The consequence is that the more deletions we make, the more we are being penalized by search engines in such a way that they judge our creditability worse, and no longer list us at the top of search results - something to be avoided at all costs. The same applies to our interfaces (APIs) , which are cached at irregular intervals, and which third-party developers can access to build their services on Flightsim.to data. If we are constantly adding and deleting files, it is simply not efficient from a technical point of view - as the cache needs to be purged with every deletion - and also harms the third-party developers services, who and which - just like our users and ourselves - need to be able to rely on the reliability of our database.

Keep the modding community alive

To the fullest extent we respect the property rights of mod creators and will never claim them for ourselves. You retain all of your ownership rights in your User Content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours. However, we do require you to grant certain rights to be able to fulfill our services. There is a difference between property rights and the legaly binding distribution rights you have granted us when uploading your file. Actually, we attach great importance to rewarding mod creators by generously pointing users to the numerous donation opportunities, from which creators can truly benefit. Unfortunately, it is a misconception to believe that once something is put on the Internet, it can ever be deleted. In most cases, even if you deleted your file on one site, your file would still be distributed in other ways anyway - without you getting appreciation, credits, nor donations for it. Flightsim.to was created to make modding easier and accessible to all, and it was made to allow creators get appreciation and credit for their work. We strongly believe that once mods are shared with the world, they should stay shared with the world forever - and they will anyway. Only by doing so more people can enjoy our joint hobby and take full advantage of what modding has to offer.

Even the Microsoft Game Content Usage Rules state: "We give you this license so that you can make cool Items and share them far and wide."

If we remember why Flightsim.to was founded, it's because modding brought this community together. While our platform has grown steadily, we also face technical challenges as we grow. We allow users to interact with uploaded files, namely comment, rate, respond, save, subscribe, and even create a wishlist for a mod. As a file hosting platform, our database is completely dependent on the stored information. Deleting a file inevitably means that all associated user actions must also be deleted, which at best works without a hitch, but at worst can cause technical errors at the database and infrastructure levels. Not to mention that every file deletion causes various caching purges at different levels that ultimately affect the platform's overall performance. Considering that thousands of user actions related to files take place every day or even every hour, it is of utmost importance that our database remains efficient, and its integrity is very important.

Archive your mods

Instead of permanently deleting your file, you can now archive it. The community will thank you for it. This means that your file will no longer be promoted by the website, but will silently remain online. Our archiving options allow you to disable comments and new notifications, 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. This change ensures that mod creators can control the visibility of their mods to the public, while allowing us to keep the mods online, which is essential for the purposes and technical reasons mentioned above.

In individual cases, Flightsim.to might have a legitimate business interest in keeping your files publicly available and as such cannot delete or archive your file.

Of course, this change does not affect copyright-infringing or otherwise rule-breaking mods, which will be deleted by our team. We understand very well that some creators are not happy about this decision, but we hope that we have been able to explain our basic beliefs and goals and why we think that this change is necessary and essential for our business and our joint interests as a community. If you don't share our beliefs, which we fully understand, we kindly ask you to reconsider whether Flightsim.to is really the right platform to share your mods and whether you might want to resort to other methods of file sharing. Ultimately, it is still your choice whether you want to share your mod with us or not.