You called creators jackasses to justify your usage of a website that steals content and puts it behind a paywall without crediting and then abuses creators who have a problem with it. You also said:



If that is you being civil and friendly then just wow. To me it is beyond rude to namecall. Especially creators of all people. And then mock creators who are upset. Do you know how many tumblr I have gone later and notice them deleting everything because they got sick of the negative comments, theft, trolls etc.? Those are real people behind those blogs that once were happy to share but got burned instead. But yeah, modthesims users is showing it's true colors by being ok by this.

Btw, I have also shared a mod on MTS So Am I a creator now? Can I also now take a holier-than-tho attitude and talk down to other people?

So I refure to use sims3planet because I will not support dodgy people. Can you tell me how many houses can you download from there?
Also, are you going to compare that building lots is on the same level than meshing, uvmapping, texturing, sricpt modding etc? That was one reason I lol'd at your commend.

It is just an agreement. Agreements mean nothing unless they're enforced somehow. EA can put anything in there they want and there will be some people blindly just believing it. That is how excatly businesses get away paying below minimum wage. That is why I brought up that example. 7-eleven had a massive scandal because the workers agreed to a illegal cashback system. You can bet there are many other companies actively still partipicating in wage theft, no matter how illegal it is.

I'd also like to say that if something is legal doesn't mean it is automatically moral. Also, if something isn't illegal it does not mean it is the right thing to do. So even if EA could legally say that CC creators don't own their work, it does not mean it is morally right.

Can you link me one lawsuit EA has won over a sims creator? Because I could find this EA got beaten by a class-action suit despite an EULA that claimed binding arbitration.

"in 2009, EA got taken to court by gamers over a verbal promise at E3 that wasn't delivered upon. Despite the game in question having an EULA with an arbitration clause. EA backed down before they were even beaten. "

If EA's EULA had a legal stand, why they caved? "Agreements mean nothing unless they're enforced somehow."

Also, I really need to see a source for this "it ought to be noted that T$R changed their business model precisely because EA threatened to bring down the hammer" theory. I do not find it believable at all. in 2018 TSR had $7 million in revenue.

"Approximately 60% of revenue is derived from advertising with 40% received from monthly recurring subscribers."
I can 100% believe TSR changed their business model because there was more money in ads than people suscribing. Although they make a cool $2.8 million from subscribers alone. You don't think EA is interested in that money? That is almost $3 million.

Thank you for bringing up that weird 21 patreon day rule. If creators do not own the CC make, why would EA come up with that rule? If EULAs are black and white, then patreon should not be okay at all not even for 21 days.

Would you allow your EULAs to be broken for 21 days? Btw, what game did you make that you have copyrights for?

Btw, Before you mentioned TSR, I never really payed much attention before as I barely used their CC. But I gotta appreciate them being the biggest sims fansite and the World’s Largest Female Video Gaming Website. They do all this while paying their creators real money. And providing TSR Workshop for free to anyone to use. Somehow the workshop is widely used even here on MTS although people really seem to hate on TSR. Hhm, I might subscribe to them. Their artists can create some really nice stuff.

You do realize there is a difference between licensing agreements and employment contracts and the laws regarding them, yes? And that the two are governed by different laws, one being labor law and the other being copyright law? And that those two things are universes apart, legally speaking?

Let me try to put this simply: A licensing agreement is 1) Legally binding, meaning "enforceable in court if needed" and 2) "just" a mutually-agreed-upon statement of what's allowed to be done between two or more parties. Agreements take many forms. When a couple gets divorced, for instance, there's a binding agreement between them over property distribution and child custody and stuff like that. That too is "just" an agreement. With licensing agreements, there's the licensor and there's the licensee. In this case, EA is the licensor (because they own and hold copyright to the property, in this case the Sims games) and all players of the games are licensees. The agreement spells out what each party can and can't do. If one party or another does something that is expressly denied in the agreement, then that leaves them open to legal action from the other party or parties. It works both ways. Licensors can be sued as well as licensees.

One of the stipulations in the agreement we all agreed to is that we are free to create whatever content we want, without interference from EA but that, if shared with other users AT ALL, that content must be shared freely and that the creators have no copyright control over that content. That's it. That is ALL we're talking about. This has nothing to do with what 7-Eleven pays its employees or what EA might or might not have agreed to with a group of players about events at E3. Those are different issues, having nothing to do with licensing. I'm talking specifically about the ethicality of breaking one aspect of the licensing agreement we have all made with EA, and if we're going to continue this discussion, I'm not going to be dragged off on tangents

I'll ask again: Why do you believe it's OK to blow off any part of the licensing agreement with EA but that creator's wishes are somehow sacrosanct?



Morality is subjective. I think it's perfectly fair and moral for EA to protect its legal property that they spent a lot of time and money developing, so long as they do so within the boundaries of the law. Part of that protection involves spelling out that CC creators don't own their work so they cannot profit off of it without sharing that profit with the licensor. Generally speaking, no one owns any derivative works that they make, be it CC for a game, or a piece of fanfiction that someone writes, or a piece of unlicensed fanart that they draw or an unlicensed arrangement of a piece of music that someone makes. The copyright holder automatically owns all that stuff, according to the law, even when then there's no licensing agreement in place. There have been a few court cases where it was judged that a derivative work was indeed the property of the person who created it, but those are few and very far between and have never involved custom content for a game. If you want to challenge this and start a campaign to change copyright law, you go right ahead.



Very much not true. Like I said, agreements are merely statements of each party's rights. They are "enforced" by default by copyright law, in the case of licensing agreements, whether or not any legal action results from them at any time. Why EA "caved" in this case is irrelevant. Companies and individuals can choose to pursue rights or not. It's often a cost vs. benefit decision. And if a company or individual decides it's not at that time worth it to pursue their rights for whatever reason, that doesn't mean that those rights no longer exist. Just like if a person chooses not to press charges when a crime is committed against them, it doesn't mean that the crime didn't happen.



You do realize that T$R changed its business model well before 2018, right? NOW (or at least in 2018), most of its revenue is generated by advertising. BEFORE, most of its revenue was from people buying "subscriptions" so that they could have access to the "Featured" content that you could only get by paying them...unless you went to Pescado's Booty, that is. Since they made such a stink about "pirates" at the time, I'm assuming they made quite a bit of money from their previous kind of "subscription." We can't really know because, AFAIK, they were a private company then, with no public financial disclosures. Perhaps they now make more money from advertising than they made from their previous model. I do not know, nor do I care. The point is, before the change, there was little-to-no third-party advertising on the site. NOW their "subscription" is more about you paying them money so that you can get to the downloads without seeing all that third-party advertising and having to jump through hoops to get to downloads.

In any case, as I said to someone else above, I am an EA stockholder, and according to stockholder reports there was discussion about paysites in general around the time that T$R "went free." T$R was mentioned by name in some stockholder reports (mostly board meeting notes) along with some other sites that I believe had to do with other games. I had not heard of them, in any case. I do not know exactly what was done because it was not disclosed, but given the timing, it's logical to deduce that the change was at least in part brought about because of pressure of some sort from EA. Another factor may be that if that was also the time they went public (I don't really know), then they might have wanted to shed the legal liability of infringing on licensing. Either way, there was pressure from EA, either directly or because T$R knew that what they were doing was illegal.

ETA to note: If I could, I would scan these reports so that you could see them. Unfortunately, they are in a filing cabinet in my office in my house in Colorado, and I am currently in California for the forseeable future, so...I can't.



I believe it was worded such that they would allow it because it would be allowing some people to have early access to stuff but that the stuff then had to be made freely available and the exact same version that could be paid for had to be made available after 21 days. (There are some Patreon people who, for instance, will create mod that has one, more functional, version for Patrons while they publicly release a less-functional or watered-down version.) I don't know why EA made this decision, but they did. Still means that everything that Patreon creators do has to be released after 21 days or else the Patreon creators are in violation of an EA statement. As I said, it is not (yet?) part of the EULA. If it never becomes part of the EULA then, legally speaking, the EULA still takes precedence and the whole Patreon thing is not in compliance with that. That's how a court would see it if such a thing would ever be challenged there, in any case. Binding agreements take precedence over company statements unless and until statements are woven into the agreement.



I absolutely would not! But that's neither here nor there, as I am not EA. I don't create games, though. I'm a musician and a composer. Of classical music specifically, but I also compose or contribute to film and television scores. Or I did, before I mostly retired. Licensing agreements are licensing agreements, though, no matter the property in question.

My suspicion, however, is that EA is always walking a sort of tightrope when it comes to CC. They like the free advertising. They like to remain in the good graces of their customers to the extent possible. Pay creators are customers, too, as are the people who download the stuff and are apparently willing to pay for it. On the other hand, weakening their legal position when it comes to the licensing agreement is a danger. So it's a fine line. I can't say I always agree with their decisions, but...it's their decisions.

Look, I get it, EA is a big, bad meanie of a corporation so they suck and can be ignored. I understand the impulse. To a degree, I share it. But I also understand the law and licensing, and while no system is or probably ever can be perfect, overall it's a GOOD system that protects the rights of even the "little guy." It's why, for instance, if you write a song, no one else can use it for profit without sharing that profit with you. Without copyright and attendant agreements, you would not have that protection.

So overall, I'm not saying that creators, even pay creators, are bad people or that they "deserve" to have no control over the stuff they make. But the fact of the matter is that, legally speaking...Well, we actually DON'T have any control over what we make. If someone reuploads the content we make, we can complain, sure, but we have no recourse against someone who chooses to do it because we don't have standing. I choose not to stress about it, myself, and I share freely the things that I make and if someone reuploads it...That's what they do. I have no say, so I choose not to be proprietary about the Sims stuff I make. I'm good with people re-sharing the stuff I've made, though I think it's very crappy of them to put it behind something like Ad-fly when I don't do that myself. I believe creators should be treated ethically but, as I said, I do NOT believe that they have any right to break the agreement they made with EA.

Yeah, pretty much no one understands copyright law unless it directly affects them in some way. Not that I blame them. It's...labyrinthine, to say the least. But if I can get it through ONE person's head that they don't own the derivative works they make -- it's not just a CC thing; it's a discussion I often had when active in fanfic-writing, too -- I'll have the discussion again and again again. I guess it's perhaps the one area where I am a masochist. This is not the first time I've had it nor will it likely be the last. Were I smart, I'd type up all this crap, store it on a webpage somewhere, and just link to it and say, "Have at it" when this subject comes up, as it does every time some wants to defend "CC creators' rights," particularly the rights of those who charge money for what they make. But...I guess I'm not very smart.

As an aside: Your example with the Apple employee? That was my husband, pretty much. He didn't work for Apple, but another tech giant, and he had his Sekrit Project and then quit said tech giant and started his own company...which he then sold to another tech giant, eventually. Round and round it goes...Tech Giant #1 was never the wiser, luckily.

Well, T$R is doing nothing illegal anymore. They are no longer charging for access to content, directly. Anyone can access all of the content there even if they pay nothing...if they're willing to put up with a deliberately-clunky site with a deliberately-ridiculous download process. (Sure, there are ways around that, but if a non-paying person uses the site as it's intended, in good faith?) Anyway, they are (now) charging to remove advertising and roadblocks from their site, which a lot of sites do, and there's nothing illegal about it. THAT said, they WERE doing something illegal for a long time and, as I said, I think it was a bad decision on EA's part to buddy up to them rather than sending them C&Ds long, long ago. I don't understand the decision that was made there at all. I have my suspicions about it, as I've detailed, but I wasn't privy to the process that led them to make it, so it's only speculation.

But yeah, I get it. EA Bad(TM). As I said, I agree, to a degree, although moreso when it comes to things like employment practices. When it comes to other things, it seems to me that what they are doing is not significantly different from what most (all? I don't claim to have comprehensive knowledge here) other large game developers do. The details might be different, but most of them do crappy things for crappy reasons in the name of more money. (I personally blame the rise of online/moblie gaming -- like WoW and its ilk -- for the whole mictrotransaction thing, because it seems that's where it started, but I'm not sure if that blame is justified.) Small/independent game developers are generally not as crappy....unless/until they, too, become a large game developer, especially if they go public and then have demands from a bunch of investors to consider rather than just what they, as a company, would like to do. The Catch-22 is that if they DON'T go public, then they have far less access to the cash necessary to do the things they might want to do. Crowdfunding may change that, I dunno. In any case, do I wish that EA would rise up and be a bastion of good that listens to their customer base and all that, instead of cashing in on microtransactions and lamely justifying their doing so? Sure. That's what I advocate with the votes I have. But they didn't do that and my opinion is not the majority one among investors. On the flip side, neither has any other large game developer stepped up to be better. So...yeah. I guess I'm just more of a realist than an idealist when it comes to things like this.

so I suppose you understand, that the mess of this lengthy discussion is buried with constant lack of distinguish between an authorship recognisance (aka: "intellectual property" however it's really not very precise) and material (or in our case "immaterial") object of property, and also that constant corporate misuse of this lead us into - among others - DMCA mess. I'm ofc not a lawyer, especially in regard to the U.S. legal system (which in the Old World is regarded as "barbaric lawless wilderness disguised by law-like nonsense" (aka: US implementation of common law) - of course nobody say this loud, especially if the one wants to take some grant from the Big Daddy).



em... not in the "civilised world" I'd say. Property produced while in work circumstances (by employer means of production, material and immaterial, including time as the one) is by contract usually passed to the company, however not an authorship - because that cannot be waived, it can be inherited only (and not always). In your example when John and Mary invented the wheel during their worktime (preferably by stone and fire provided for them by Mike-the-Chief) by contract they may be (and usually they are) granting the material laws to the employer (our Mike), still they retain theirs intellectual rights (they are inventors, not Mike) and while Mike can sell the said wheel and benefit from this as a company (because he paid M&J for inventing it), he cannot expropriate John nor Mary from theirs authorship. At last anywhere where the some kind of civilisation has came lately. If the John and Mary invent the better stone axe in their own tent outside the work circumstances and without the Mike means of production, the invention as a whole, belongs to them, and them alone. (there're objects of knowledge which cannot really be normally appropriated like mathematical equations etc. - it does not stop ofc. companies from trying, they failed, for now).

In the 2nd example (well - I'm a teacher, so it's kinda thing I'm in) the "course" as an object created for particular employer on his behalf is treated as an contractual work, thus cannot be sold for another possible contractor without of permission from the original one. However, the intellectual property stays with the author, only *particular usage* (this very application of knowledge) is passed for the employer (because he paid for it's creation). If you change the form of the course, for example: actualise it with a new knowledge, change it's structure etc. and not present this as a part of work you're obligated to do (namely: teaching), entitling you for a contracted fee, because you did it in your free time and by your own means of production, said new course (because it's a new object) can be sold, rented or given freely. Another example: if you're a lawyer, no company can forbid you from representing any other client in your free time, assuming you do not have conflict of interests. Etc. Still, even the contractual work with no clear lines between "workplace" and "free time" is not a slavery. Yet. (though I certainly believe, the lines in certain companions may be blurred).

---
uh - in our case EA is the owner (in material sense) of the format (package) and the game assets *not* the creative work created - even if that work uses particular assets from the game (the pencil company has no rights to your sketches). However, by putting the object in appropriated format (package type) the user agree to not demand material compensation for said work (that EULA part is kind of contract, though in fact it would be rather hard to sustain it in court - though EA could throw the truck of money for lawyers to brainwash the usually barely competent in the tricky matter judges, which already happened with Apple and its unholy crusade against right to repair), outside that format - they can say, and do, nothing. In fact, it's more moral obligation than a legal one. Users' created EULA'a are even more tricky, not mention barely (if not at all) enforceable. The authorship is really the one thing which probably could be effectively enforced in the court if someone have a few free bags of bucks to spare, to proceed persecuting his/hers plagiarists.

So - directly charging for the CC (which no one really does nowadays, they hide it in "access fee" or "commercial presence") is a breach of the EULA; the DMCA was (and is) a way to give the companies means to avoid the proper legal claims in the court (which they would in most cases fail) and jump directly on the supposed offender. It's kind of "bully law of bigger stick". Often directly in violation of other laws (including a labyrinth of local ones), particularly: fair use etc.

Anyway: just don't be a jerks, ppl.

Not gonna touch all the stuff about copyright and intellectual property because...Ugh. I didn't become a lawyer for a reason, despite massive pressure from my parents, both of whom are/were lawyers. And don't even get me started on the DMCA.

But the above is the crux of the issue. If you create a piece of Sims CC, you might own the model and textures that you made. Or you might not. As I said, many creators buy models from places like Turbosquid. Or they rip them from other games like other Sims games, Second Life, IMVU, Skyrim, etc. Or they frankenmesh from things made by EA and/or other third-party creators. I would estimate that most creators DON'T build a mesh vertex-by-vertex from scratch, though of course some do. And the same is true for textures. But even for those who DO create every bit of a piece of CC from scratch, you own the mesh or texture or whatever because you made it from scratch. It is entirely your creation. You can sell and distribute those as you see fit because you own them, AND you're within your rights to say something like "You can't tease my mesh out of the package and use it to make something else." That would be entirely justified if pretty much unenforceable in practical terms, especially if the downloader doesn't share what they might make from your stuff. But in terms of actually using those things in a Sims game, they gotta go into some form of .package file first, and the moment you do that, you cede control of the package (not necessarily its content) to EA. Therefore, you absolutely cannot, under any circumstance, sell that .package as a whole in any way, shape, or form. The ONLY way selling Sims CC would be OK is if 1) You absolutely did create every bit of it from scratch, without using anything owned by someone else and 2) You sold its component parts -- the mesh, the textures, whatever -- by themselves and users would then have to create the packages themselves so that the mesh/texture/whatever could be used in their game. (Which is basically Turbosquid's business model, actually. ) No CC creator does it that way, of course, but that would be an entirely legal way to get around EA's EULA.



Au contraire! This is exactly what they do on Patreon. Patrons pledge a certain amount of money per...month? I think? In return, they get content that no one else can access. It's the same scheme as people who do "donation" items or "thank you gifts." As in, "'Donate' to me, and in return you get access to this CC that non-'donors' can't have." (Which is entirely different than someone who has a Paypal donate button on their site. That's fine so long as no one gets exclusive content in exchange for their donation.) So, granted, paysites in general have largely died, but the people who see CC-making as some kind of potential "job" they can have instead of or in addition to a legitimate one are still very much out there. They've just found different ways of doing their thing.

At the time? If I had to guess, I'd say it was mostly kids. Via their parents, most likely. And older players who don't understand that it's illegal to sell Sims CC. My guess would be they saw it going on, saw EA sitting on its ass, and went, "Well, it must be legit." My daughter, who was about 9 at the time, gave them lots of her money. Then they accused her of being a "pirate," (because she shared some of what she bought on a little private Yahoo group with her little circle of preteen girlfriends), shared her email and personal info (which were all fake, because she's not stupid about that sort of thing) with other paysites, and cancelled her account which, if the amount of money she paid was prorated, she was owed about $50, which was never refunded. Which is, too, illegal and is called theft and my (now 22-year-old) daughter is still pissed because she's a champion grudge-holder. Then *I* got pissed, gave T$R money, downloaded a crapload of "featured" stuff and donated it to the Booty.

As for the rest...Yeah, I don't understand all the things gaming companies do, nor am I privy to the reasons why EA, specifically, makes the decisions it does. I'm not on the board or anything. I suspect that they simply want to cover all the bases until something is well and truly dead. And also? You might as well squeeze as much as you can out of something. Maybe "PC gaming is dead"...but a lot of people still do it, regardless, enough to support still catering to that market, apparently. If/When that support is truly gone, only then will PC gaming be truly dead. Until then...well, the media likes hyperbole. On all sorts of fronts. And especially on opinion pieces.

well, @iCad, not really. The "direct charging" would be appointing a certain price to the certain object (like: this car skin costs $1.5), that about you've been writing is an "access fee" price tactics, you do not "pay" for particular objects but for the "access to" not always clearly defined objects, usually it's justified by "maintenance cost" (disk storage, internet fee etc.) - a slippery loophole. "Donations" and "gifts" also are not directed as payments - you'd need to actually challenge the practice in the court and proof that this practice is indeed "a sale". It's shady, kinda but not direct charging. Another tactics for selling stuff you have no right to sell is encapsulate them in another object and claiming that you do not sell the object (you have no rights to do so) but something else. You've seen that many times, there was the whole scam industry around modding in the '90.

In general - the creative work is understand not entirely as "creating" per se (well, maybe if someone is not very well educated, there were examples) but as recombining existent elements in a new way. For example: most plagiarism charges are built around attempt to prove that the plagiarist did not "create" anything "new enough" to consider his/hers work as truly "creative one", so, in effect we deal with just simple steal or messing around.
In reality nobody creates anything just from thin air. Even if it's a rare kind of pure invention (we have long debate about this in mathematics and philosophy for example) - the tools and materials are already in place, recombination is a work of creation. At last for anybody who is not a some god-like creature. (or god-size ego)

There's also a consensus - or rather was, because nowadays companies constantly challenges in numerous ways (often illegal), that publishing a work is equivalent with giving permission to recombine - and effectively: creating derivative creative works. The scope and range of that process is defined rather roughly - because it's really hard to define it in a proper way. In practice, the original creator's ego and tolerance (or beliefs) are actual limits, which may be (or not) tested in court as challenges if someone want to. For example Meyers could easily challenge "50 shades of awful writing" and she would probably win, but she did not care. On the other hand Disney will cut your hand if you'd dare to put a little Mickey Mouse on your "Mickey Ice Cream" of your invention without paying them ransom, because they're in general horrible dicks with a shitloads of money always happy to ruin someone's day.

And there's also additional (intentional) mess with a patent laws induced into discourse, just to be sure that nobody really understand what is going on when the one is robbed in the broad daylight.

True, in that sense they're not sticking a selling price on it and selling it in an online store. I was thinking in more general terms, I suppose. Though some paysites DID do exactly that, at least in TS2's heyday. I remember that Wood For Sims did that because at the time I remember thinking "$5 for one plant? It's a very lovely plant but...no. Not even if it was legal." It wasn't the only site that was set up like that, but I don't know if any of them still exist. But then I've also seen someone (I forget who; it was on Tumblr) just recently put a specific price on a TS2 pose box (and it was a ridiculous price, too, like $20). So, I wouldn't say that no one does it. But you're right in that that kind of "storefront" selling is rare, especially now. It's more hidden behind "subscriptions" and "patronage."

But yeah, copyright law is complex and gets more complex every day, it seems. There's lots of squabbling over what is and what isn't intellectual property and, if something is intellectual property, whose it is. Some derivative works get a copyright if a judge believes that there's enough transformation. And on and on. We could sit here for a year and talk about it. That being said, it's pretty darn straightforward when it comes to, very specifically, Sims CC when in some sort of .package format. EA owns those file formats, and EA's EULA is specific. So far as I know this kind of issue with end-user created content hasn't been brought up in court, but I think if it was, EA's EULA and its language about free distribution would win, as it's pretty clear-cut.

I should probably invent a special local 'irony tag' otherwise we'll end with some baseball-bat friendly exchange.



and the problem is, that the US law and political decisions (the actual law does not lands from the Heavens, its a political construct obviously) are not necessarily valid in different legal landscape; what, for example Google can do with the data of it's clients is not necessarily legal (often not at all) in the UE, while by the US law it may be "just fine". The Corporations ofc try to impose such "regulations", which they see fit for theirs interests, worldwide; if they find an easy prey, like most much weaker countries, particularly: troublesome ones, they can do this with impunity.

Also - that is a little stone in the direction of "us proud oldworlders", most people does not realise how fragmented is the US legal system and how much sovereignty actually the particular states have in that matter - I was seriously both amused and confused when I stood on that the 1st time. They see the particular outcomes (especially ridiculous ones) and judge by anecdote (therefore: " lawless wilderness" idiom). Not mentioning the tendency of the common law to create and sustain certain level of contradictions and, shortly: mess, at last in the eyes of non-lawyers specialised in the particular field.



this is another set of matters - if the simple consequence of being employed would means entirely wavering intellectual rights (which you stated) they could be easily sued for part of said property (and they would loose), which was created while they've been still employees of the Company. In such condition any legal contract barely touching intellectual property (which is minefield anyway) would have the same exact effect: it would be complete employee's expropriation. I realise that employees rights and protection are not particularly well regarded in the US (because freedom and stuff) but I hope it is not really the case. It s definitely not the case in the EU, even taking into account EU legal fragmentation and current employees' rights decline.

My Academy is entitled to demand intellectual property (excluding authorship obviously) because of contractual obligation - which is literally: creating said intellectual property if it is an article, a book or a syllabus and an actual teaching - however, it has no rights to my private work done outside my job (if it is a paper, a book or course or teaching or whatever) as long as it's not open conflict of interests (like doing the same work for concurrent school at the same time). The same was when I worked for the European developer company - work was work, private projects were private.
There are states in the US in which certain level of wavering own personal freedom is contractually enforceable, for example in case of surrogation (as I was informed), in another state it may be not legal (and in EU is in general regarded as just outrageous). So, no, if something is legal and acceptable in US it is not necessarily the same outside, and even if particular Corp. try to impose, bribe or threaten its best ways, it still may be painfully beaten under other legal system if the contester (for example: another legal system) is strong enough.

The "intellectual property" is seriously contested ground for like 40 years now because of the enormous amount of the money which could be made here. Therefore there are many shortcuts created for the corporative benefits like DMCA aka "unlimited right to ransom", or convulsions of the outdated patent system. There will be many battles ahead, personally I'd not be very happy if we silently comply with the worst possible solutions.

And in regard of modding community. There was a serious generational change. Back in the days of modding games (like Fallout and earlier, and still in NWN era) we shared and cared not. In the old NWN community there were hundred lines of my code, which I've never bothered to sign, because what for? Now it's a way of making money, too. Kids changed.
Time to crawl into coffin and hibernate. In the next century we crawl out and suck aaaaallll their blooooood (';.;')

I wouldn't be bothered to use sims3planet and sims3ru type of archive sites IF the CREATORS didn't abandon and RAGE QUIT their tumblrs. Like one active CC creator just literally did. It's like oh "I'm going on a hiatus" and that's understandable everyone goes through things but why did you nuke your Tumblr page/s too? Or when CC creators nuke their pages because someone broke their TOU. It's just seems so unprofessional as a CC creator and careless to make such a "emotional" decision. I'm not saying that I feel entitled to the CC but if you never wanted people to download it then you shouldn't have uploaded the content in the first place. Disagree if you like. It's still my opinion.

^^ This? Is why reuploading is good.

I do not understand the impulse of creators to storm off and remove their content from access when their fee-fees are hurt. Well, OK, I do kinda understand because I'm pretty sure most such people are young and likely pretty self-absorbed (because most young people are; I was), rather than jaded, thick-skinned, cantankerous 50+ers like me who are veterans of raising toddlers and teenagers and who have better things to worry about. But still? I don't get it. Nitromon called them jackasses; I tend to call them drama-queen crybabies. Especially when they reappear three days (or three hours) after their dramatic exit. (I mean, if you're gonna do a good, screaming, foot-stomping, throwing-yourself-on-the-floor tantrum because someone reuploaded your stuff, then for the love of Baphomet, own your childishness and do proper follow-through. Don't come back three hours later, at least not without a huge apology for your sudden possession by a three-year-old.)

*ahem* Anyway, yeah. Reupload. Reupload a lot. Just don't put the stuff behind things like Ad-Fly because that's just all kinds of ethically crappy and NO ONE should do it.

Frankly, if I could be arsed to do it, I'd start a "Crybaby Archive" blog or website or something (No, I wouldn't actually call it that...probably...but that would be what it was, along with with just reuploading stuff made by people who just don't make stuff anymore and didn't leave in huff but their links have died since they left) and with other peoples' help collect and reupload everything that the crybabies don't want people to have anymore because Muh Feels! in a central location, WITHOUT profiting off their work. That's what the TS2 folks do, create "packrat" archives. In that case it's not so much people have stormed off in a tantrum so much as sites closing and people moving on to other games or just, y'know, growing up and stuff....but the principle is the same. I wouldn't shame the crybabies or anything at least not publicly, but I'd definitely get their stuff out there to be had. Because, as advertised, I'm an old, mean jerk. But...Yeah, I don't have the energy to devote to such a project. Maybe someone already has...preferably someone who doesn't feel a need to try to profit off of it.

They might want it to be "viral," but they also want to retain complete control. Which is paradoxical, of course.

Really, it's the "I'm going home and I'm taking my toys with me! And I'm gonna tell my mom on you, too!" response. (The latter half of that is represented by the lengthy post they'll make on their Tumblr that's equal parts teary-eyed regret and completely unhinged ranting about the terrible people who did such terrible things to them, so now they're leaving for three hours forever.) It's kindergarten-level attention-seeking except it's usually 16- to 25-year-olds or so who are doing it. It's annoying when you actually want something that some overgrown toddler has run off with, but...otherwise seriously hilarious. I point and laugh.

To me, the more annoying thing is this pervasive attitude that starry-eyed downloaders have that we must all walk on eggshells around the Almighty Creators, because they're so awesome and selfless and awesome and generous and amazing and awesome and they might take offense and stop making/sharing stuff if someone says boo to them or maybe looks at them cross-eyed. It's ridiculous. And really, if they're that sensitive and they truly do stop sharing stuff? It's probably better for them. Because otherwise they're heading straight for a stroke and/or a psychotic break or at least constantly elevated blood pressure along with the inevitable carpal tunnel syndrome, and CC just isn't worth that. Well, maybe it's worth the carpal tunnel syndrome, but the rest?

I love TSR and use the website all the time. And recommend it to others. I do not subscribe to it and I use Adblocker. It doesn't bother me a bit to do so.
I also love the Russian websites that host creations that you can hardly find anymore. I use it and recommend it to others, here and elsewhere. I use Adblocker and don't have a problem with it.



Agreed 100%.

Some try - I saw this kind of sentiment - to imitate a corporational behaviour maybe. Including appropriation of commons.
[grumpy] Bad manners are spreading rather quickly. [/grumpy]

I understand that someone who created a piece of work and give it freely to use and enjoy, may be seriously pissed of when someone else is trying to make money on it. Especially (which happens) if the original creator and download source became hidden, sometimes lost. There's also a question of "creation integrity", on which ground some of the TOU sentences are probably (?) written, though most of such have little or no sense at all in said context.

Anyway - I suppose most of us would agree (with all disagreements taken into account) - that at last respecting TOUs is a kind of courtesy. That should not be so hard.

While I personally think that putting TOUs on CC is, with a few exceptions, extremely silly, and I wouldn't do it myself, I'm not so much of an ass that I don't realize that they are important to some people for whatever reason. So, I do respect them if the creator has been active within the past three years or so. (Exception: If I know they've stormed off in a toddler-huff at any point in time, all bets are off. I don't cater to toddlers.) Whether or not someone's been active in that timeframe is not always easy to determine, but I do my best. I will also feel free to ignore demands that are utterly ridiculous. Like, I will not obey edicts that I can't change anything about the CC even just for personal use. (Granted, it's mostly people who share Sims who do this, and I don't download Sims often. But really? If your pixel is so important to you that you can't tolerate the thought of it looking different in someone else's game...then maybe you shouldn't share it.) And no, if I use something a creator made and it ends up in a screenshot I post, I'm not going to tag/credit the creator. I'd be there for three days crediting/tagging people for every single screenshot I post if I were to do that, because ain't no way I'm going to remember that one person who demanded tags/credits out of the thousands of pieces of CC I have, so I'd have to do it for everyone. I mean, I get why they ask for this. I like seeing stuff I made in people's screenshots as much as the next person, but that doesn't give me leave to request that everyone tag/credit me if something I made is in one of their pictures. That's ridiculous.

Generally, I'll tag/credit if I make and share something using any part of someone else's work, be it EA or a third-party. That's it. I think that's respectful enough.

So one minute you're defending EULAs but now you're telling us how your husband dodged copyright laws and how he luckily got away with it. Hhhm ok.

Just like in this thread people are pretty much going screw EULAS (because they could get a free mod that possibly can make ts3 run better.) But in this thread, the majority seems to be pro EULAs (gee, wonder why, could it be because it justifies getting cc for free?).

Interesting how the attitudes change towards EULAs depending if a person is getting something for free.

Nah, what he "dodged" was a company's potential assumption of intellectual property rights to something he made that had nothing to do with what the company he worked for did or made and that he wasn't in any way directed to create, something that was entirely his own idea and that was created on his own time, in his own house, on equipment built and owned by him. In other words, something to which he clearly held copyright but that, primarily because of the ill-defined nature of "intellectual property," especially at the time, some other entity might feel they had rights to. This kind of situation is a clash between copyright and intellectual property rights, a clash that even now has not yet been completely settled, and frequent court cases result. In my husband's case, had the company tried to pursue such "rights" in court, they probably would have lost for various reasons, but the amounts of money involved and the desirability of the product were such that they might have tried, regardless. Even so, even though he probably would've won, it still would have been a giant pain in the butt to go through the court proceedings because such things cost money and are tiresome, time-consuming, and not-fun in general, so luckily he didn't have to do that.

Surprise! Sometimes, corporations inappropriately believe that they are entitled to profit from things they don't actually own! Since the late 90s, they've been emboldened in this attitude by the passage of things like the DMCA in the US, which is very pro-corporation and very anti-consumer and anti-artist and arguably the stupidest thing that Bill Clinton ever signed. It's actually a lot like how CC creators sometimes inappropriately believe that THEY are entitled to profit from something that they don't actually own! How 'bout that? (Except in this case, CC creators have AGREED in a legally-binding way that they don't own what they make, so their case is much, much weaker.)

I'll ask for the third time the direct question that you still haven't answered: Why do you think it's OK to blow off the (legally binding) agreement we all made with EA, but it's absolutely not OK to blow off the (non-legally-binding) wishes of creators?



Do people want CC for free? Of course they do! Who doesn't? Does anyone say, "You know, I'd really like to have this, but since I don't have to pay for it, I'm not going to download it?" We all want free CC. The fun bit is that, according to the licensing agreement that we all signed by installing the game and agreeing to the EULA's terms, we ARE all actually entitled to free CC IF the creator of it decides to share it at all. (I use "entitled" in the legal sense here, not in the current common sense of whiny "entitlement" that's often discussed.) The part of the thread you linked to seems to be about irritation with EA for not fixing bugs and relying on modders to do so (which is a very legitimate irritation), and being able to do whatever you want with something you own. Which you are perfectly entitled to do. There is no language in the EULA about making stuff for your own personal use, aside from stating that you are allowed to do so, without restriction. Practically speaking, no company can control what you do for your own personal use, but they CAN potentially control sharing content, and they are certainly within their rights to dictate the terms of doing so. And EA did. And pay creators are violating that language. It doesn't matter whether or not EA "cares," or whether or not EA fixes bugs, or even whether or not they ever pursue their rights. What matters is what is agreed to in legally-binding agreements, and what we all agreed to in the EULA about making and sharing CC is clear and specific: You don't own what you make, you have no legal rights regarding it, and therefore if you share you must do so freely. This isn't hard.

In the end...I'm a believer in the law and the fair, equal, and unbiased exercise of it. THAT is what I defend. I will "defend EA" if (and ONLY if) they are following the law in a fair, equal, and unbiased way in regards to the specific issue being discussed. I take issue with some aspects of EA's business practices, certainly, but the specific language in the EULA regarding the creation and distribution of CC is both legally-justified and fair, so I will "defend" it. I'm not a person who'll say, "I don't like EA, so screw 'em," which is usually the attitude of people who want to do EULA-breaking things or who want to defend those who do. I understand that impulse, but I simply don't share it.