Well they just stated rules. Of course there are people who won’t follow, and Episode can’t possibly have a full control over this.
To be honest, the best idea would be to create a system where users could upload backgrounds to the united system, and other users could use them. Maybe have an option to share or not to share, but united custom background system.
it is very saddening to hear that many editors (who were not making profit off of their edits whatsoever) are shutting down their google drives. the countless months they’ve spent on organising their drives, setting up backgrounds, coming up with ideas and pursing them are now all down the drain. not only does this affect the editors themselves, but other authors who’ve used their backgrounds too. i don’t quite understand why you’re just now enforcing these rules (although they’ve been the same for, i suppose ever since episode came out, they’ve never really been enforced) but i’d rather not question it. however, it is truly very heartbreaking to see all of these talented editors close their drives after months, maybe even years of making backgrounds just for “fun” and use of other talented authors , not making any profit off of their work whatsoever. i am deeply disappointed by th this event, many of my favourite and talented authors are leaving the community, and i now see why.
I’m pretty sure they can open their drives, while keeping the link shared only on Forums
they cannot, it violates the terms of service apparently.
I’m afraid all of this has been blown out of proportions and escelated from a small pebble into a mountain, mainly because Episode can’t give any clear directions on what goes and what doesn’t but have left it to interpretation.
I think orginally they just wanted to stop people from making money out of their product, which is understandable, but it’s kind of blown up in their faces(?) It should still be salvageable though if they just adress the issue directly and give us some propper answers to our questions and start treating all members equally - favored authors or not.
I believe people - myself included - are confused about why, even after all this debacle, there’s still stories favored in the app that are using the hidden assets (backgrounds, props etc) and why the hidden backgrounds uploaded are still being approved of!
For instance, I posted/uploaded this before this announcment was given.
It’s one of Episodes hidden backgrounds, provided by Dara.Amarie. (It even has hidden in its title) After all this waving around with the rulebook, I was sure it would get rejected, but I decided to leave it up anyway to see what happened. And yesterday - imagine my amazement - I got a message telling me it had been approved Does this mean I can use it even though it’s a hidden asset by Episode? That’s how I interpret it at least.
when it comes to the hidden props, it actually leaves me feeling a bit cheated that there are any at all. I can understand the backgrounds - at least some of them - as Episode might be paying royalties to use them in the first place, but why denying us those that aren’t like that. And props that clearly belong with animations that we’ve already been given access to.
I think every member/author should have access to these props as they are clearly (most of them) working and being used anyway.
<3
The thing is some of them aren’t really working properly.
I review stories and saw people using hidden props, and a lot of times the command “remove prop” doesn’t work.
I’ve never encounted this myself, so I’ll just take your word for it, but most of them are still usable. Episode use most of them themselves in their own stories, I believe.
For those that doesn’t, maybe Episode should skip a few weeks of posting new clothing assets and instead focusing on making those props work(?)
A good prop used rightly can give so much to a story, that clothing never will be able to.
I deleted all the hidden backgrounds in my story, as was required to avoid possible problems in the future in case get reported. But I will keep all the edited backgrounds in my thread here until notified that I can’t, cause I don’t feel like this was clarified. 
All of this is a bit confusing and upsetting.
It was never clarified, or enforced, for that matter to begin with so it feels like it’s all coming out of left field, if I may be frank. At first it was don’t edit hidden backgrounds or share them - okay, very fair. I get that. Now it’s don’t edit any backgrounds with episode assets AND share them either…okay.
There’s no way you were all in the dark about people sharing backgrounds to begin with (they’ve been doing it for years…), so now instead of punishing the offenders who were making $ off of backgrounds (or whatever else, I can’t keep up), you’re choosing to punish everyone and that’s a bit disappointing.
I know a ton of background editors edited for fun, and/or had experience in editing and saw what Episode had and made it better, cooler, more fun, more imaginative, etc. for a lack of a better word and wanted to share with the community so that everyone’s stories could be colored both imaginatively, and beautifully.
Like @julesscreven said, this is heartbreaking. And I, too, am disappointed and see why tons of people leave this community every day.
Edit: also if I myself got anything wrong, forgive me. Nothing seems very clear anyway so
I thought we cleared up the issue that we were allowed to use Episode assets in backgrounds but now everyone is closing their drives? wth?? I get not having it publicly, because other people who don’t use Episode could use them, but now nobody can use them???
No. Now apparently you cannot share your drives with people regardless of if the assets were hidden or public.
… and when was this “rule” made?
@Liz, please confirm that this is a joke.
Why shouldn’t we create and share public Episode-edited backgrounds and overlays with other Episode users for our Episode stories on the Episode platform now? Have you guys thought this through?
Do you know that people have been creating, sharing and using Episode-edited art for years now, and that tens of thousands of stories still contain these to this day? This includes Episode’s hidden backgrounds, which we now understand are not allowed for us to use.
What I don’t understand is this specific part regarding Episode’s public assets. Please, reconsider. Perhaps you should have implemented these rules in the very beginning to prevent issues and misunderstandings, not years after the community’s bloomed and adapted to user-edited assets, which take hours to make. This whole thing must be a joke.
According to them it’s always been there.
We’re all confused.
I am beyond pissed right now… so we were all right. We can’t use any custom backgrounds from now on?
You can, if they were already saved to begin with. But no editor is allowed to share their links publicly for everyone to use anymore or be like, “hey - I just made a new bg, here you go, guys.”
If I have backgrounds saved, but haven’t uploaded them to the portal yet, would they be approved or denied?
Probably approved unless they have a huge watermark on it bc how would they know where you got it from?
episode just approved a lot of custom backgrounds for me.
two was declined but they been getting approved for me.