A lot of petsites are passion projects that originate from the idea of trying and capturing the nostalgia and success of what Neopets was. Neopets went sideways in terms of owners who care relatively early in, but they had investors to pay people who loved the site well to work in a corporate environment and develop it in their stead. Unfortunately, not everyone:
1. considers the size and scope of what they want their project to end up being for the long-term, nor plans for its success in the long-term 2. has the money to maintain a site like that 3. has the pitch-perfect luck that Donna and Adam of Neopets fame, wherein they get early investors and support that allow them to carry their goals 4. fails to interest an audience who will pay to support the site in the stead of investors (investors are typically seen as a hindrance to petsite development, due to Neopets' past)
This ends up with petsites not properly planning for the success needed to expand properly to keep interest and money flowing. Your typical petsite owner is just some person with extra money at the time to buy some server space, pay for/know a coder to make their site, and an artist to make their vision. They're a handful of people who like an idea so much that they'll moderate for free because they want to see it flourish.
And then, if it exists long enough to get a playerbase, you'll get people who will want to keep it running as long as possible because they love the game and have invested enough time and love to want it to keep going.
I wouldn't even consider Flight Rising's UMA system predatory at all. You're using their base to make custom art that only works for their site. You can still use it to advertise the quality of your art elsewhere, even if the base isn't yours by copyright law. If you want something shadier to hate, Aywas and Furvilla allow you to upload pet art that is 100% custom and NOT created on any of their bases, pay THEM to upload it, and if anyone would want to use THOSE bases YOU created to create their OWN pets, you cannot profit off of them with RLC because you consented to it being site property the moment you upload it.
Derivative work copyright law, baby. You may own the art itself, but you lose the right to profit from that exact artwork the moment you let the site host it, even if they didn't make it in any capacity.
The copyright thing isn't true for furvilla at least. Their ToS says you retain ownership, and they explicitly allow you to still sell any uploaded art for RLC. The game villagers wearing the art can't be sold for RLC, but the art can.
"Upon submitting your user-generated content to Furvilla, for the sole purpose of making your content available to other Furvilla players on Furvilla, you grant Furvilla a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, modify, change, transmit, alter, redistribute, re-format, store, create derivative works from, publicly display and perform your content in any media known or hereafter created." - right from the ToS.
As I said, you own the artwork and concept itself, but they get a license to use that art however they see fit without compensation to you. This is essentially the same as what FR does with their UMAs.
Now, I don't see anything in the ToS about whether they allow RLC trading for Painties or other content you upload, but that was DEFINITELY a major point of contention early in that whatever you upload, it becomes part of the site, and you can no longer trade RLC for whatever was uploaded to the site without the site's consent explicitly given. If that's since changed, that's rad! But it was DEFINITELY an issue at the start of the site because it was the same clause that Aywas had and currently still has.
DA the sentence you quote is standard to most (all?) sites that allow you to upload images as resizing your image from, for example, 350x350 dragon image to 50x50 lair view, falls under that sentence; there should be a separate point about who owns the intellectual property, ie who and where and how someone is allowed to sell the image. example: tumblr tos https://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/terms-of-service
AYRT "Players retain full ownership to the content they submit." -the sentence literally right before the one you quoted.
As the other anon said, what you quoted is the standard legalese for 'you give us permission to host this image.' It doesn't give them the right to use it however they want, because the granted rights are only "for the sole purpose of making your content available to other Furvilla players on Furvilla"
I also don't remember it being an issue before, and I'd been there since beta. I do remember people similarly misunderstanding the hosting clause though, and them clarifying multiple times that you retain all rights. I've also seen this exact conversation happen with regards to Tumblr, Twitter, and DeviantArt's ToS
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Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-14 05:00 am (UTC)(link)A lot of petsites are passion projects that originate from the idea of trying and capturing the nostalgia and success of what Neopets was. Neopets went sideways in terms of owners who care relatively early in, but they had investors to pay people who loved the site well to work in a corporate environment and develop it in their stead. Unfortunately, not everyone:
1. considers the size and scope of what they want their project to end up being for the long-term, nor plans for its success in the long-term
2. has the money to maintain a site like that
3. has the pitch-perfect luck that Donna and Adam of Neopets fame, wherein they get early investors and support that allow them to carry their goals
4. fails to interest an audience who will pay to support the site in the stead of investors (investors are typically seen as a hindrance to petsite development, due to Neopets' past)
This ends up with petsites not properly planning for the success needed to expand properly to keep interest and money flowing. Your typical petsite owner is just some person with extra money at the time to buy some server space, pay for/know a coder to make their site, and an artist to make their vision. They're a handful of people who like an idea so much that they'll moderate for free because they want to see it flourish.
And then, if it exists long enough to get a playerbase, you'll get people who will want to keep it running as long as possible because they love the game and have invested enough time and love to want it to keep going.
I wouldn't even consider Flight Rising's UMA system predatory at all. You're using their base to make custom art that only works for their site. You can still use it to advertise the quality of your art elsewhere, even if the base isn't yours by copyright law. If you want something shadier to hate, Aywas and Furvilla allow you to upload pet art that is 100% custom and NOT created on any of their bases, pay THEM to upload it, and if anyone would want to use THOSE bases YOU created to create their OWN pets, you cannot profit off of them with RLC because you consented to it being site property the moment you upload it.
Derivative work copyright law, baby. You may own the art itself, but you lose the right to profit from that exact artwork the moment you let the site host it, even if they didn't make it in any capacity.
Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-14 05:06 am (UTC)(link)Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-14 05:27 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-14 07:19 pm (UTC)(link)As I said, you own the artwork and concept itself, but they get a license to use that art however they see fit without compensation to you. This is essentially the same as what FR does with their UMAs.
Now, I don't see anything in the ToS about whether they allow RLC trading for Painties or other content you upload, but that was DEFINITELY a major point of contention early in that whatever you upload, it becomes part of the site, and you can no longer trade RLC for whatever was uploaded to the site without the site's consent explicitly given. If that's since changed, that's rad! But it was DEFINITELY an issue at the start of the site because it was the same clause that Aywas had and currently still has.
Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-14 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)the sentence you quote is standard to most (all?) sites that allow you to upload images as resizing your image from, for example, 350x350 dragon image to 50x50 lair view, falls under that sentence; there should be a separate point about who owns the intellectual property, ie who and where and how someone is allowed to sell the image. example: tumblr tos https://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/terms-of-service
Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-14 08:33 pm (UTC)(link)"Players retain full ownership to the content they submit." -the sentence literally right before the one you quoted.
As the other anon said, what you quoted is the standard legalese for 'you give us permission to host this image.' It doesn't give them the right to use it however they want, because the granted rights are only "for the sole purpose of making your content available to other Furvilla players on Furvilla"
I also don't remember it being an issue before, and I'd been there since beta. I do remember people similarly misunderstanding the hosting clause though, and them clarifying multiple times that you retain all rights. I've also seen this exact conversation happen with regards to Tumblr, Twitter, and DeviantArt's ToS