It would help prevent some toxic users collecting and resubmitting characters as their own.

I'm not sure how to feel about this topic. Any restrictions we'd add would eventually be possible to circumvent anyway. So in that sense, having an option to prevent others from modifying a character would only give a false sense of security. I'm not sure I wanna shoulder that responsibility.

Any uploaded derivatives are filtered out by default. You have to actually check the "Include derived" box before they become visible in the feed.

It's my understanding that VRChat has struggled with the issue of stolen avatars for years, and they haven't come close to a permanent solution.

Locking derivatives on uploads would set a precedent and give the author the ability to say "hey, i'd love it if you didn't rip this off" but that's the best you can do.

Once you've uploaded a character and let people preview it, someone determined enough will find a way to rip it off.

@odes said:
Any restrictions we'd add would eventually be possible to circumvent anyway.

Just because it can be circumvented does not mean mitigation shouldn't be attempted. As an analogy, just because software piracy is inevitable, that doesn't mean DRM is a waste of time.

That being said, I understand the feeling of responsibility that comes from implementing something like that. You're effectively making a promise to users that it's infallible, which it's not. Nothing ever is.

I do agree with @SugarRainbowLove in that it at least sets precedent. If a user has to go out of their way to hack mutability back into a file, they must be aware that they're trying to circumvent copyright (or at least intended behaviour/ToS) in some way.

@Lexario

@odes said:
Any restrictions we'd add would eventually be possible to circumvent anyway.

Just because it can be circumvented does not mean mitigation shouldn't be attempted. As an analogy, just because software piracy is inevitable, that doesn't mean DRM is a waste of time.

That being said, I understand the feeling of responsibility that comes from implementing something like that. You're effectively making a promise to users that it's infallible, which it's not. Nothing ever is.

I do agree with @SugarRainbowLove in that it at least sets precedent. If a user has to go out of their way to hack mutability back into a file, they must be aware that they're trying to circumvent copyright (or at least intended behaviour/ToS) in some way.

ngl most DRMs are absolute dogshit and only make games worse, that was a bad analogy. maybe some kind of report function would make more sense

I think implementing content control for stuff that appears in the cloud doesn't make a lot of sense since you're already uploading stuff to be used in a variety of ways. If the character can't be used in derivatives then it could still be used in interactions and etc. and if not, what's the point of having it in the cloud in the first place?
"If you don't want your content to be used/modified, don't upload it to the cloud" makes the most sense as the attitude to take for both moderation and the health of FVNE as a platform. If the agreement for using the cloud is anything but acknowledging that your content can be repurposed by other users then that'll likely have a knock-on effect of just spurring on extra drama when people start deciding they want to be able to dictate how their characters can be used in interactions, and so on.

It's better for everyone, IMO, if the attitude about cloud-uploaded content is just that all cloud content is free to use for anything, and that the functionality of the platform reflects that and just prioritizes giving people proper credit for the stuff they create.