I read about the copyright with EA and Paysites

[calalily]

First, and most important, is the fact that almost ALL Sims2 sites are in violation of the EULA.

 

Wrong. It specifically states in the EULA

You may include materials created with the Tools & Materials on your personal noncommercial website for the noncommercial benefit of the fan community for EA’s products and provided that if you do so, you must also post the following notice on your site on the same web page(s) where those materials are located:  "This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with Electronic Arts, or its licensors.  Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.  Game content and materials copyright Electronic Arts Inc. and its licensors.  All Rights Reserved."

Whereby, if you put up that notice, you can provide it.

I mean thae part that says you can not "reverse engineer" or "disassemble" the software.  This means that you can not examine the game itself or it's file formats to find out how they are put together.  So, programs such as SimPE and anything made using such programs also violates the EULA.

No, that applies to the tools that you use.

Without limiting the preceding sentence, you may not modify, reverse engineer, disassemble, license, transfer, distribute, create works from, or sell the Tool, or use the Tools & Materials to further any commercial or unlawful purpose.

You cannot reverse engineer Bodyshop, or Homecrafter and sell it, or distribute it without trademarks, or distribute it as your own work.  It says nowhere in any EULA that you may not reverse engineer the files and make more content that may not be used for any purpose - it is referring to the tools.

But all this talk about the EULA is pure BS as far as I am concerned, because you don't really care about it at all.

I only converted to this way of thinking after reading the EULA - I follow the law, and while others might not care, I don't even cross against the little green man because it's against the law.

Here in the US anyway, a pesron under 18 can not legally agree to a "contract" which is what the EULA is.  If I am under 18, I can click the EULA and install the game, but legally the EULA is now void.

No one under 18 can form contracts needed to run a business either, so it is moot.

But this whole EULA nonsense really puts this site in a bad light, and by extension free sites in general, and turns a lot of people away from your campaign.

It's not nonsense, it's a contract that we all agreed to.  It's a legal document.  And this EULA nonsense hasn't turned away anyone who didn't already think that paysites were a good thing - it's just the latest scare tactic used by paysite sympathisers.

[mando]

I'm not sure why this "all CC is illegal!" bit has become the argument du jour. Any reading of the EULA will show that this is not so (both Calalily and kariminger have given very good explanations as to why, please see the Trezillah thread for more).

EA is not a company run by a band of business school drop outs, so they wouldn't write into their EULA a fantastic way to shoot themselves in the foot. The Sims remains popular because of CC, and the EULA is there to protect both EA's commercial interests and to keep CC creation as a way to keep people playing and buying the game.

[Marhis]

There's a fundamental difference. Please forgive me if I make now some generalizations, they're for a brief explaination, not for arguing about EULAs legalities or such.

1) Paysites do something illegal that subsequentely damages EA and community members.
EA is damaged in its copyrights, money, etc.
Community is damaged in its inner unwritten rules of fairness among members, mutual support and - in particular - not trying to mock other fellow members or - worse - con them.

2) Assuming that someone has disassembled the code, this may (perhaps) damage EA, for the same reasons mentioned above, but not community members.

That's the key point, not the uber-legality toward the world.
Do you really think there's a single anti-paysite supporter who cares about EA rights?

Community members that try to cheat on other community members are recognized no more as members: plain and simple.
The fundamental key is awareness: after that, I can choose to buy from paysites or not, that's my personal choice, but I need to know the facts, before, and that's what the community is for, btw: share information among their members.

This stated, we may also argue about disassembling/reverse engineering, as it apparently was not done (nobody - for what I know - ever disassembled the game engine).

And more, as calalily pointed before:

you may not modify, reverse engineer, disassemble (...) to further any commercial or unlawful purpose.

What is forbidden, literally, here, is not the hacking per se, but its use in commercial or unlawful ways.

[Hecubus]

Marhis, your community/members comment reminds me of a situation I once found myself in a mumber of years ago:

A group of us had taken an intensive day-long workshop on tarot...history, philosophy, divination, other uses/meanings. After the workshop, we all gave each other readings. One woman was hesitant. "I plan to charge for readings; I'm not sure I should give them away for free now."

We beat her severely.

(No, not really, but no one 'played' with her after that comment.)


So I think...we all learn how to do this stuff from a collected body of literature - tutes, programs...available to all. We all go to these forums to hone our craft. It seems like, at least ethically, the same thing.

Or maybe I'm full of shit. <gurgle>

[araneldon]

I've been absent from this discussion simply because I lost interest in it, just came to see how it has progressed while I was gone. To be clear,  I don't care much about any of it either way, it was all mostly for the sake of a good debate.

However, I'm not knowledgeable enough about copyright and contract law and will therefore have to throw in the towel at this point. Arguing without a proper foundation of facts is just too frustrating.

...Lorelei covers and answers many stupid arguments people make...

Oh, Lorelei, you needed to post that for the earlier troll. Hopefully he'll come back and troll around some more to see your post.

Are you calling me a troll?

At least I haven't resorted to name calling unlike some other posters here :wink:

[mando]

Are you calling me a troll?

At least I haven't resorted to name calling unlike some other posters here :wink:

Nope, I was not calling you a troll. I was making reference to someone who had posted a few days ago with some very poorly reasoned arguments. I can understand the confusion because I did post this comment in a different thread, but you've been away for a while so you shouldn't assume that everything's about you.  :wink: