Originally Posted by Forkbeard

No, we got that. And there'd be no problem going forward if you wanted to craft a mellow TOS provision to prevent your affiliates from using your trademark in this way you've now decided you don't like, and had a quiet word with your affiliates about it, paying them for all past work but requiring them to desist from the practice going forward.

But you posted a bunch of blather here about the "spirit of why you pay affiliates" and you're clearly committed to some mystical woo-woo idea of "organic sales" that somehow belong to you even if your affiliates beat you to them. Most of the thread is about that, and I submit that you have not comprehended the justifiably adverse reaction to it.

There is no such thing as organic sales. There are only sales. And if you have affiliates, they will be getting sales you "might" have gotten without them. If you are going to resent that fact and start thinking about maybe not paying for such sales, you should not have affiliates. And now that you have revealed such thoughts in public, smart affiliates will stay away.

And the only "spirit of why you pay affiliates?" It's because you fucking owe them the money. Because it's their fucking money. When you start waffling publicly about that, it reveals that you're, you know, not exactly committed to paying people what they're owed. Again, smart people will see that and know to stay away.