New site - "Downloads for a good Purpose"

[Ry]

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, because I would like to think this whole idea is on the up and up.
BUT it is not, as you say, a good idea.
Donating to charities is wonderful. More people should do so. But if you read your EULA from the Sims, you'll find that you are not allowed to charge for sims items no matter what.
Having these downloads on your site for free, along with a few buttons to various charities and the suggestion that if you like my stuff, donate to a charity, would have been the better route to follow.
The past can't be put into the past and ignored when it rears it's ugly head over and over in the form of these kinds of scams. *not that you are perpetrating one, but many have in the past*
It would have been wiser to use your head and see that this wouldn't go over well and found a different way to urge people to donate to your favorite charities or their own.
I'm sorry to say, but I seriously doubt you will find much support for this other than your own personal clique of pals...the simmer of the world are just damn tired of paysites. And that site IS a paysite, no matter where the money goes in the end.

[Lorelei]

Yes, you are right. I know about the discussion. And maybe it is a bad time for a "paysite". But this is not a "paysite", it´s for charity, and it´s a good idea anyway.
And I am honest - we WILL give away the money.
If you don´t believe us, ok, then do not donate.
But it is not ok to upload the files and destroy the whole project.

These files are not your property to sell, regardless of who or what gets the money.

You can't burn music CDs or game DVDs or steal your neighbor's petunias and sell them, even if the proceeds go to the most worthy cause on the planet.

You are illegally disregarding the EULA, which states clearly that commercial use of Sims-related files is forbidden.

If you wish to help charities, try going free, and posting links to charity sites and / or add this HTML to your site:

Code:

<center><b>Make A Difference With A Single Click...or Six!</b><br><br>Click a button to support a cause you care about!<br>
Each of your mouse-clicks generates funding, which is paid by <br>participating sponsor companies and businesses, and so<br>your generous gesture costs <i>you</i> nothing!<br>Bookmark these sites, and click once a day!<br><br><a href="http://www.thehungersite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98fe353841265b10c0a80a36.gif"></a>  <a href="http://www.thebreastcancersite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98fc353841265a7bc0a80a36.gif"></a>  <a href="http://www.thechildhealthsite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98fd353841265ab9c0a80a36.gif"></a><br><br><a href="http://www.theliteracysite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0xa21925cf419a16cbc0a80a36.gif"></a>  <a href="http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98fb353841265a3ec0a80a36.gif"></a>   <a href="http://www.therainforestsite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98ff353841265b45c0a80a36.gif"></a><br><br></center>

Those charities are sponsored by corporate donors, so visitors to your site can help various charities without coughing up any money for Sims 2 content that can not be legally sold.

Accepting money for EA's property is wrong. No amount of good intentions will change that.

Attempting to sell Linda Berkvist's art ("Enayla" made those skins) is also pretty reprehensible, and you would have defied her artistic intellectual property and ignored her Terms Of Use a lot longer if someone hadn't caught you in the act and made it public knowledge.

No excuses.

[Paleoanth]

 But this is not a "paysite", it´s for charity, and it´s a good idea anyway.

No, it really isn't a good idea anyway.  I don't really understand the point of what you are doing.  It is almost like you are trying to force people to donate to your chosen charities.  I would never "buy" your creations just because of that.  Have a fund raiser or drive if you want to raise funds for charity.  Do like Hecubus said.  Write a long blog or post about why you support Unicef of WWF.   Go out and bake cookies and sell them on a street corner.  Whatever.

[keirra]

I am not going to discuss the way we are collecting money. I am not going to discuss EAs EULA with you.
You can have your own opinion so as I have mine. All I want to do is to convince you, that we are honest people.
If you don´t like the project, do not support it. But it is not ok to destroy other ones engagement.

You said earlier that you want to discuss your options.  Obviously, you don't want to discuss anything. You just want your files taken out of the booty.  

The only way that will happen is if you share them for FREE.

[calalily]

And how many people would do so? You can see it at the fact, that even the handful persons, who donated until today, did not even donate the 3,00 Euros we asked for.

You know why? Because you held content hostage.  In a community where 100's of files are held for money, it's not a great idea to sell stuff for charity.

In a perfect world, I would upload the files for free download, and everybody would donate immediately to a charity organziation of his own choice.

I donate to charities all the time - for nothing - no motivation other than altruism.  I shouldn't have to donate to where you want me to get content you're not supposed to sell.

I am asking you for your trust, just only one or two weeks, to give us the possibilty to donate our first amount and put everything on the homepage, before you decide to call us criminals.

Trust left this community a long time ago - with the death of the "bandwidth" lie.  Customers and ordinary simmers gave that trust to people who used it wrongly - there's nothing left anymore.

Get involved. Don´t be destructive. Talk to us.

What exactly is the point?  You will just plead that you made mistakes, or the letters were lies, or the paperwork was misplaced, you weren't really selling free stuff, or something.  You didn't bother to take community soundings for this, and have had money for over a fortnight, and still implore us to wait.  Wait for what? You to do a bunk with the money collected, and post a tiny letter in German saying you've donated it? Don't think so.

If charity is so important to you, sell the games and PC you create content on, and give that money to them - and when you think about buying new games, then give that money to them too.

[keirra]

snip...
If charity is so important to you, sell the games and PC you create content on, and give that money to them - and when you think about buying new games, then give that money to them too.

Calalily FTW once again!  You totally rock.  

[Micavaga]

(snipped)
If you wish to help charities, try going free, and posting links to charity sites and / or add this HTML to your site:

Code:

<center><b>Make A Difference With A Single Click...or Six!</b><br><br>Click a button to support a cause you care about!<br>
Each of your mouse-clicks generates funding, which is paid by <br>participating sponsor companies and businesses, and so<br>your generous gesture costs <i>you</i> nothing!<br>Bookmark these sites, and click once a day!<br><br><a href="http://www.thehungersite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98fe353841265b10c0a80a36.gif"></a>  <a href="http://www.thebreastcancersite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98fc353841265a7bc0a80a36.gif"></a>  <a href="http://www.thechildhealthsite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98fd353841265ab9c0a80a36.gif"></a><br><br><a href="http://www.theliteracysite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0xa21925cf419a16cbc0a80a36.gif"></a>  <a href="http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98fb353841265a3ec0a80a36.gif"></a>   <a href="http://www.therainforestsite.com"><img src="http://imageserv01.yss4.com/images/cache/0x98ff353841265b45c0a80a36.gif"></a><br><br></center>

Those charities are sponsored by corporate donors, so visitors to your site can help various charities without coughing up any money for Sims 2 content that can not be legally sold.

That is a great idea, Lorelei.  A decent enough programmer could also code it so that when they click, it goes to a frame with the charity's website in the mainframe and then a box at the top, thanking them for their click and a link to take them to the download page.  Then, like you said, no money changes hands, but the site's purpose is still intact.

[alia]

Julsfels, I want to believe that you are sincere about donating the money to charities. However, there have been so many scams in the sims community that people just do not trust anyone claiming that the money from purchasing sims files goes to charities.

The most recent scam I have heard of was Sasilia from Puresims, who claimed that all the donated money went to SOS Children´s Villages (SOS-Kinderdorf International) I believe. When people asked for proof that she had indeed donated the money to the charity, Sasilia first ignored them, and then finally posted a scanned image of a letter in German. She claimed that the letter was a receipt of the donation, but when German speaking members here read it, it turned out that Sasilia had not donated any money at all.  I find that despicable.  :x

I hope you now understand why people distrust sims sites that claim to donate money to a good cause.

[JFederated]

Julsfels:  this is the result of introducing money into the TS2 user-made content equation - no one's going to take your word for where that money goes.  Ever.  Especially when people don't have to donate to you in order to donate to any real charity organization.

The files from your site were obtained by someone handing over money to YOU and/or those running that site.  You cannot now dictate where those files end up.  They are here, but they could just as easily wind up on the official Exchange too.  Or anywhere.

You asked for money for them and you got it.  Your control over them is now done.

If your intentions are as you claim, you will need to rethink this entire idea or accept the fact that there is only distrust for any site asking for money in return for TS2 content files.  Take the money for content aspect out of it completely, and people will be more likely to take your intentions seriously.

[Quinctia]

What do you mean with that? I do not understand this. The money goes to charity organizations.

It's wrong to charge money for something that belongs to EA via copyright.  It's not your content to charge money for, period.

How hard is that to understand?  It's a derivative work--no one, as far as I can tell, can make a completely original piece of custom content for the game.  At the very least, it has to contain some of EA's code.  If EA didn't explicitly allow us to make and distribute custom content, its very existence would be in murky waters, legally.  Like fanfic.

It doesn't matter where the money goes, taking it in the first place is wrong.

[Jojoba]

Hello everybody,

I am one of the creators of the set for "Downloads for a good purpose", and I am very sad and a angry at the same time on how you discuss this here.

So, let me tell you a few words and try to explain the whole thing to you (an please, be kind to me - english is not my first language, so there may be faults).

First of all: This project is not a fake!!!

Awesome!

In which case..

Putting aside all the arguments about pay items, I understand why you are doing this. Is there any way that more info could be put up onto the site? Like how much money you make, and how much the charities individually get?...and what projects they are currently doing.

The thing is, with charities they need a constant sustainable supply of money to fund their projects - and a sims site may not be able to do this. So it is very limited. Personally I'd do it all a different way..

But as other members have said, you should not be charging for sim content...

[Lorelei]

You want to get snarky about how your first language isn't English? Here's the gist of the matter rephrased for you.

YOU CAN NOT SELL SIMS 2 CONTENT.

IF A FILE NEEDS THE SIMS 2 GAME TO WORK, IT CAN NOT BE SOLD.

THE EULA PROHIBITS ANYONE WHO IS NOT EA GAMES FROM MAKING A COMMERCIAL PROFIT.

ONLY EA GAMES CAN CHARGE MONEY FOR SIMS 2 ITEMS. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS.

IT IS ILLEGAL TO HAVE PAYFILES.

IT IS ILLEGAL TO RUN A PAYSITE.

IT IS ILLEGAL TO REQUIRE PEOPLE TO PAY FOR SIMS 2 STUFF.

YOU CAN NOT TAKE WHAT DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU AND SELL IT, NO MATTER WHERE THE MONEY ENDS UP.

YOU MAY NOT ASK THE SIMS 2 COMMUNITY FOR MONEY FOR ANY REASON IF YOU THEN GIVE THE PEOPLE WHO PAY SPECIAL SIMS 2 FILES.

STOP SELLING SIMS 2 FILES, HAVE THEM AVAILABLE FOR FREE, AND THAT WILL GET YOUR ITEMS OUT OF THE BOOTY.

Clear enough for you? Does it need to flash and marquee across the screen and set off embedded MIDI files to get through to you?

[Captain Feathersword]

I imagine you'll be getting some worship for that.

[blackmars]

High praise to the Goddess Lorelei because you hit it right on the head.

I'm sorry Julsfel, but if I'm going to donate to charity I'll do it through a channel other than your own. I don't want the incredibly horrible downloads you're offering in exchange for donating to Unicef or the WWF. No thank you. If I want to support those charities I know other ways than selling Sims 2 content (which as Lorelei pointed out in nice big shiny red letters is illegal anyhow).

[Paden]

You may not sell custom content for any cause what so ever, dumbass.
Oh, and my balls still itch.