Echo's interpretation of the EULA

[Silver Arrows]

I don't think this has been posted here already (apologies if it has - i certainly can't find it)

What does everyone reckon to Echos interpretation of EAs EULA? I dont know where she's getting her information from.

http://sims.eternal-echo.net/other/copyright.php

she wouldnt approve of the booty, methinks:

If someone has broken the EULA, can I redistribute their work without their permission?

Only if you can legally and conclusively prove that the EULA has been broken. If you plan to use this as a defence for distributing other people's works, then you must be able to prove, legally and conclusively, that the work was not approved by EA. That means that you need to have at least one of:

    * Financial records proving that money earned by the site is consistently greater than money outlaid (ie - that a profit has been made). Your belief that they are making a profit is insufficient.
    * Proof that, in EA's estimation, the site is not beneficial to EA (ie - a statement from EA saying as much, again your gut feeling is insufficient), or
    * Evidence that the necessary declaration is not present on the pages which are used to distribute the content.

In addition to at least one of the above, you would need to provide proof that no other agreement exists between the creator/site owner and EA (ie - a statement from one of these parties stating that no such agreement exists). In all of these cases, if you want to claim a legal grounding, you will need evidence sufficient to constitute proof.

There is a side note to this issue. EA links to many sites which function purely as pay sites, and this could be seen as tacit approval of these sites and their content. This would not stand on its own as legally binding proof of authorization, however it would certainly be strong contributing evidence in favour of pay sites.

I think someone needs to correct her. I would personally do a very crappy job of it myself. What she's saying directly contradicts EA's own statement that

legally, Electronic Arts owns the rights to all material created from our engine, and that the sharing of said material for free on community sites is completely legal, even if it is material that some players are attempting to sell.

[mando]

That is an incorrect understanding of the way that this site and other sites of this type function. The work is not being redistributed because it is against the EULA (and frankly it is  :roll: , and while on some sites it might be difficult to prove on most it would not be), but it is being redistributed because the EULA says nothing about sharing CC created with their "tools and materials" as being wrong.

Frankly, even if EA "tacitly" approves of paysites, file sharing sites have equal "tacit" approval. There is nothing written here that proves the file sharing sites are in the wrong.

Edit: Sorry, this really bugged me as it is so nonsensical as to be meaningless to the argument.

* Financial records proving that money earned by the site is consistently greater than money outlaid (ie - that a profit has been made). Your belief that they are making a profit is insufficient.

Not making a profit off of your business is not proof of not selling a product that you shouldn't be selling. All it is proof of is being a poor business person.

[chemistrycourtney]

here here!  If you're in the hole with a sims2 custom content paysite, either your content sucks, your buisness sense sucks, or perhaps, a bit of both....  Erm.. Things that cost you nothing to make by default make you money if you sell them.

[Pescado]

The Echoloian interpretation of the EULA is not really relevant to the matter: It does not matter whether paysites are "right" or "wrong". What MATTERS is that the EULA states that *WE* may include materials created with said tools and materials on our website regardless of whether the site creating it is "pay" or "free", as copyright to the game content is held by EA, and we are simply following through with our option to "include materials created with the Tools & Materials on your personal noncommercial website". Therefore, it is irrelevant whether paysites are "right" or "wrong". Anyone may redistribute ANY such content on their personal website, and the redistribution policies imposed by content creators have absolutely no force whatsoever. The only reason we don't distribute free content is because we choose not to. Technically, if I wanted to create a flat out repository-of-everything, I could. But that's been done already: It's called THE EXCHANGE.

[Silver Arrows]

Has anyone e-mailed her to correct her interpretation (as I said i would do it but im crap at this kind of thing).

Her addy:
echo_eternity84[at]yahoo.com

EA links to many sites which function purely as pay sites, and this could be seen as tacit approval of these sites and their content.

she does actually have a point here. EA need to remove paysites from their official links page: they are giving out the wrong message by keeping sites like tsr on their links page and contradicting their own statements.

[harlequingirls]

Not making a profit off of your business is not proof of not selling a product that you shouldn't be selling. All it is proof of is being a poor business person.

That point keeps bothering me... do you think that really all Paysite owners are legally registered as business-owners, at least in those places where it is required? Do they pay taxes? Do they do all the things a RL business owner has to do?

[Frank]

*Prints off a copy of Echoe's response and blows nose in it*


Ahh, nice tissue from Echo. OHHHH, there were senseless ramblings on that paper? Oh well..........LOL

[mando]

That point keeps bothering me... do you think that really all Paysite owners are legally registered as business-owners, at least in those places where it is required? Do they pay taxes? Do they do all the things a RL business owner has to do?

I was using the term business a bit facetiously, as I doubt very many paysites have declared themselves a business, and I would think that even less are paying taxes related to their "business" in the countries where they are based. I was working off of the example that Echo provided which seemed to imply that a paysite could not be seen as breaking the EULA (and in a sense, functioning as a provider of goods or a "business") unless it was making a profit.

[Ensign EO]

And on the list of links from the official site there are a few dead links, so this is tacit approval of dead sites.

(Unless they've removed them since I've last been there, but I really doubt it.)

ETA: The whole "tacit approval" thing is baffling to me.

If the EULA and/or EAxis doesn't say anything about making all of my Sims have the same skin tone, is that tacit approval or disapproval for racism?  If the EULA and/or EAxis doesn't say anything about making all of my Sims exactly the same, is that tacit approval or disapproval of clones?  If the EULA and/or EAxis doesn't say anything about masturbating to the Sims, is that tacit approval or disapproval to using the game as pornography?

My father hasn't said anything to me about my dating habits.  Is that tacit approval or disapproval?  Does he expect that I'll make the right choices or does he not care?

It's like looking for images in clouds, or listening for demonic messages in songs played backwards.  If someone tells you it's there, you'll more than likely see/hear it, whether your mind is forcing you see/hear it or not.  But if no one tells you it's there, you might not see/hear it.  You might see/hear something entirely different, or you might see/hear the same thing.

---

(Sorry for being too lazy to go to another thread about the following silly comments.)  I'm also seeing some tunnel vision--when I logged onto dA to clear out my messages, there was a message concerning their TOS.  People were focussing on clause 16:

16. Copyright in Your Content

deviantART does not claim ownership rights in Your Content. For the sole purpose of enabling us to make your Content available through the Service, you grant to deviantART a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, distribute, re-format, store, prepare derivative works based on, and publicly display and perform Your Content. Please note that when you upload Content, you allow third parties to copy, distribute and display your Content.

Apparently it sent them into a tizzy about it, screaming about people stealing from artists and whatnot.  I see the same thing with the people going on about how EAxis is going to take away CC from us forever because we started screaming.  (Not that other people weren't already screaming in their ear already.)

Anyway, then we have clause 19 of the dA TOS, pointed out in the announcement about the controversy:

19. Conduct

You are responsible for all of Your Content you upload, download, and otherwise copy, distribute and display using the Service. You must have the legal right to copy, distribute and display all parts of any content that you upload, download and otherwise copy, distribute and display. Content provided to you by others, or made available through websites, magazines, books and other sources, are protected by copyright and should not be uploaded, downloaded, or otherwise copied, distributed or displayed without the consent of the copyright owner or as otherwise permitted by law.

And finally:

"you would need to provide proof that no other agreement exists between the creator/site owner and EA (ie - a statement from one of these parties stating that no such agreement exists)"

That statement bothers me.  Of course the paysite owner would say that they never agreed to anything that said they couldn't run a paysite...

[Godess_Satinka]

EA links to many sites which function purely as pay sites, and this could be seen as tacit approval of these sites and their content.

:lol:  they also allow a     -load of paysite objects on the exchange as well, what about that?

[mando]

"you would need to provide proof that no other agreement exists between the creator/site owner and EA (ie - a statement from one of these parties stating that no such agreement exists)"

That statement bothers me.  Of course the paysite owner would say that they never agreed to anything that said they couldn't run a paysite...

I thought that was weird too. Frankly, I should think that the onus would be on the paysite in this case, i.e. the paysite would have to provide information or an agreement from EA stating that they are allowed to sell their CC. They could say that they had never seen or agreed to anything that forbid it (and, please  :roll: ), but I would hope that their site isn't running that bit of text that the EULA says they must post.

[Echo]

*looks at the calendar*
Yep, that'd be about three months since the last time someone on this forum "discovered" that particular document. This is hardly the first time I've had this discussion here.

If you want to disagree with my interpretation of the EULA, I welcome it. I love a good debate. I'm always delighted to have a proper argument with people about the issues and legalities involved, although I'd prefer to do it via PM or email because whenever I engage in these discussions via forums I tend to get swamped with irrelevant trivia which makes it prohibitively difficult to argue a single point cohesively.

I did do a fair amount of my own research in writing that, and I haven't yet been convinced by any arguments otherwise. There is definitely room for interpretation in several of the clauses you focus on in the EULA.

It's also generally good form if, rather than simply accusing me of "pointless ramblings" in a forum you think I don't frequent, you would confront me personally with your differing opinion, just as the original poster suggested. My email address has never been kept a secret, and my PM box on MTS2 (almost) always has space for more messages.

Take care all,
Echo

(ps - Is it just me or does that smiley face look unusually sinister?)

[Hecubus]

Echo, gotta love necromancy, eh?

And of course the smilies look evil..it's a Pescado forum, after all!

But on topic: There is yet another huge debate going on, this time at S2C....and the truth of the matter is, all the reasoned debating in the world won't solve anything; it's only action by EA that will make any difference.

Meanwhile, I hope good creators keep creating, and that the items are free for all who want to use them in their game.

OH yeah, and TSR must die.  :twisted:

[mando]

Echo, gotta love necromancy, eh?

And of course the smilies look evil..it's a Pescado forum, after all!

But on topic: There is yet another huge debate going on, this time at S2C....and the truth of the matter is, all the reasoned debating in the world won't solve anything; it's only action by EA that will make any difference.

Meanwhile, I hope good creators keep creating, and that the items are free for all who want to use them in their game.

OH yeah, and TSR must die.  :twisted:

Eh, haven't you seen Hecubus? On this forum apparently everything old is new again (I knew I should've asked if this had been discussed before...bad, mando, bad!). I still don't agree with your (Echo's) interpretation of several things in the document, but I wrote out my thoughts not because I didn't think you would see them, or that I thought that what you wrote was pointless (although I will admit to having used the term "nonsensical"  :lol: ). I think debate is valuable, and much more useful up front where people can see it rather then just hidden in PMs and emails. In the future, I will be sure to send an email to let concerned parties know that something they wrote is being discussed.

I've been following the recent S2C debate as well, and while interesting, Hecubus is right that it will hardly solve anything. However, I do think that it's good that people can discuss and debate their problems and concerns about the current situation (from either side) out in the open.


Edit: Fixed up a sentence that I thought sounded weird, and added a little more.

[Echo]

I think debate is valuable, and much more useful up front where people can see it rather then just hidden in PMs and emails.

In that I agree, and I have no objection to such conversations being posted or shared in public. But I'm a debater at heart, and I prefer to debate with individuals who can also hold together a cohesive argument.   Trying to argue in a forum is not really a debate with an individual, but rather open slather, with anyone and everyone throwing in their two cents. I'd rather not try to argue with 25 people all at once, each with subtly different opinions. That's all.