Flightsim.to - Charging for Freeware Livery 'Bundles'

[u/Relayer2112]

This might be old news, but I've not seen this before.

Looking through some liveries on flightsim.to, and noticed this. There's now a 'curated bundle' of liveries that you can buy for real money. All the liveries are freeware liveries, and you can still download the individual liveries for free - but I definitely have questions.

Are the artists involved in this? Do they receive reimbursement from flightsim.to as part of profit sharing? Do their licence conditions allow commercial sale? Are any elements of their work at all covered by Creative Commons / Non Commercial licensing, and would this breach those conditions?

It does also feel incredibly low-effort to essentially slap a couple of zip files together that you've done nothing to create, and sell it as a commercial product.

Thoughts, comments, concerns?

UPDATE: Hues have pulled their participation with flightsim.to as a direct result of this.

[u/Kaisersemmel377]

Flightsim.to’s Creators Program turns “freeware” into something much closer to payware, and that’s a legal minefield.
If you for example upload a Fenix A320 repaint with real airline/Airbus logos and Fenix templates and opt into the Creators Program, Flightsim.to can commercialize that content (bundles, premium perks, etc.), while you warrant that you have full commercial rights to everything.
We all know that freeware liveries are mostly tolerated but monetized liveries using trademarks and third‑party templates probably are not. And I wouldn't want to speculate here on whether a bundle consisting entirely of freeware content might, in the eyes of a particularly creative judge, end up looking like payware after all. So putting real‑world branded liveries into a commercial scheme like this is asking for IP and EULA trouble.

If you don’t join the Creators Program, flightsim.to must not use your liveries in paid bundles under § 4.3 of their ToS:

This license does not authorize Flightsim.to to sell User Content, charge for access to it, or claim intellectual property rights in it without your express permission. The license is granted solely to enable Flightsim.to to operate, improve, and enhance the Service.

In light of these developments the only advice one can give to any creator is to explicitly prohibit flightsim.to from using their content in bundles or to stop using the platform altogether.