Our Stance On Not Using 3rd Party Intellectual Property (IP)
“Creative Life RP is all about doing what’s right”
On October 13th, 2023, the team called cfx.re released a monthly Community Pulse message on their forums. The beginning of a new era on FiveM was starting, where the team would finally start cracking down on multiple forms of IP infringement. That night, we, Creative Life RP, immediately ceased all operations until we could figure out a path to take. In the preceding years, we used lots of 3rd party IP because it wasn’t being frowned upon heavily, which is a thing most servers still do to this day. In order to comply with the TOS, we scrubbed all 3rd party IP content from our server in favor of complying*. We did this because Creative Life RP is all about doing what’s right, and had we known that this is severely damaging to the brands out there, we wouldn’t have done this in the first place- it’s a shame the platform didn’t enforce this harder from day 1, but while it’s easy to point the finger at CFX, we should’ve been pointing it at ourselves the whole time. Most people don’t necessarily think of the impacts that using 3rd party IP can cause, and while we weren’t ruining the reputations of brands, we certainly weren’t paying them royalties. We more or less used them as ethically as possible without licensing, but the wake-up call the CFX team released was something we dearly needed and it allowed us to switch our server over to lore-friendly.
After the server was scrubbed clean, we pushed our V1.5.6 update featuring all of our purging efforts. We followed up our efforts with removing more stuff we missed. As V1.5.8 was just starting to be created, we suffered a hardware failure and we had to redo this process entirely by redoing all changes with a copy of V1.5.5, the last version of the server featuring 3rd party IP.
Rockstar, CFX, 3rd party brands, viewers of my YouTube channel- We sincerely ask that you consider the following:
We are actively removing things that were missed as a mistake. We did remove all real-life cars, they were all in one giant folder, broken up into several smaller resources. We did remove all real-life clothing, including a reset of our main clothing mod, which has always been TOS-friendly. Our community is committed to pointing out things honestly missed by mistake in order to secure our status as a compliant server. We never hesitate should something be brought to our attention & we simply do the right thing by disabling the content as soon as humanly possible until it can be officially removed. Then, we potentially patch it should the content still be TOS compliant after the fact- for example, many map mods feature real car pictures, so why not swap them out for funny pictures of my dog? We do not de-badge any content.
2. A few of us do record the server, whether it’s for live streaming, for YouTube recording, TikTok, whatever the case may be. Please do not use any of the User Generated Media created by any of our former/current/future community members as “proof” that we are using content in violation of the TOS. If anyone has a problem with something in the video, they should bring it to our attention so we can either address it by removing the content in-game, or so we may address it by saying “that video is old, we’ve already handled it, thank you”. No recording will accurately represent our server in its current state. If content is found while live streaming, sure, it’s something “currently in the server”, but only at that moment and we will definitely remove it immediately when time allows. Also, all members are required to report that kind of content being left behind by mistake. It’s not a written rule, it’s just the morally right thing to do and it falls under our “Common Sense” policy…. see something —> tell someone. I’m only capable of removing what’s brought to my attention, so please- bring recently found stuff to my attention!
3. The writer of this post, RacermanXtreme, is the only one capable of removing any content missed during our purge of 3rd party IP. Nobody else is capable of this task. I have a busy schedule sometimes, please do not hesitate to contact me for any complaints. With that said, please allow us to remove content in a timely manner, and please remember- I’m only capable of removing what’s been found. I’m honest when I say I may actually miss things. Sure, we shouldn’t have had it in the first place, but because we did, we are 100% committed to cleaning up after our mistake of ever using the content that goes against the new TOS and enforcements of said TOS.
4. Please go look at the top servers and come back to us. We aren’t so deep in the pool of violations after all :)
Creative Life RP is currently alive and well, and we sincerely ask that, even if we have multiple minor infractions of hard-to-find/easy-to-miss content, we don’t get shut down/terminated due to human error. Compared to what we had before, we have made outstanding progress with complying, and we ask that you continue allowing us to completely purge our server as we find more stuff should “proof” come up.
And lastly, please do not hold us accountable based on content featured in our server on or prior to October 13th, 2023. Beyond a reasonable doubt, we have removed absolutely everything we can possibly think of. It’s an honest effort. Sure, one or two things might exist, but as I’ve stated, we will remove stuff should stuff be found.
Thank you.
-RacermanXtreme
”Kale”, Lead Developer & Founder of CLRP