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[Paden]

After reading all of this shit and trying to make sense out of it, my fucking hangover headache is starting to come back. Thanks a lot, nohead, thanks a fucking lot. (and I'm serious about the headache, I no longer recover from shit like I ought to)

[nohead]

The hangover is your body's way of telling you that you need to get started on the drinks again .

[Paden]

I have the perfect hangover cure, stay drunk! But damn, 151 kicks ass like nothing I've had before, unless you want to count tequila and Long Island Iced Teas...

[mando]

So what if the creator of the digital art says in the legal text that the end user is allowed to use the creation in the game for personal use only, does that all of a sudden mean that it is free to share?

In my opinion, I'm afraid so. Unless this digital artist has an outside licensing agreement with EA that limits the redistribution of their product, according to EA it's free to share. Any artist who was (or is) allowing their work to be used in game should be well aware of the limits that in game use puts over their work. They can ask people not to redistribute it without their knowledge, but there isn't much they can actually do about it. As an example of a party that does have outside agreements for usage and distribution with EA you can think of H&M (who certainly didn't sign the same agreement that you or I or Peggy or whoever did).

As I said before, this is where I see one of the major flaws in the system you suggested. Currently, digital artists are still free to sell their work outside of the Sims, and if their work is pulled out of a package file and resold by some unscrupulous person they have much more steady legal ground to stand on. The work that was freely distributed as a Sims file falls under EA's distribution interests, however outside of a Sims file the artist retains all right to sell and redistribute that work as they see fit.

What you suggest sounds like it would mean that the artist's unaltered work would be sent out into the community at large and controlling usage of that work would take large amounts of paper work, dilligence, and cash from the controlling paysite. Talk to some Poser artists to see how they feel seeing their own work stolen to be used as pay Sims product (plus, making meshes out of Poser product actually takes some effort, whereas your idea is as easy as opening up the file). Any artist who thinks that it would be a good idea to send out straight textures and meshes to large groups of people that they have no real contact or agreement with would have to be seriously naive (sob! I don't know how to create an umelaut).

[nohead]

Thanks Mando for explaining your take on this, i think that i get your point of view now.

I'm not so sure that the copyrighted materials becomes free to share as soon as it's put into a .package though.
It is being put in that format by the end user with the explicit permission from the original creator to do so for personal use only.
I do think that the normal copyright laws will protect the creator in this case (i have very limited knowledge in this field though so i might be wrong here).

[Feverish]

I have the perfect hangover cure, stay drunk! But damn, 151 kicks ass like nothing I've had before, unless you want to count tequila and Long Island Iced Teas...

The first time I drank tequila shots, I got really drunk. The next morning, I was so sick that I was vomiting about every 15 minutes from early morning to the early evening. I swear I'll never drink tequila again.

[Bigtruckgirl]

I have the perfect hangover cure, stay drunk! But damn, 151 kicks ass like nothing I've had before, unless you want to count tequila and Long Island Iced Teas...

The first time I drank tequila shots, I got really drunk. The next morning, I was so sick that I was vomiting about every 15 minutes from early morning to the early evening. I swear I'll never drink tequila again.

TO-KILL-YA! LOL

[Feverish]

At one point I thought I was gonna die or something. I was vomiting something black. I didn't remember eating anything black. I still don't think I ate anything black. I learned my lessson. It was kinda my friend's fault though. I told him I wanted to try tequila and he mixed it in my sprite. I'm not sure how much tequila he put in my sprite.

[mando]

Thanks Mando for explaining your take on this, i think that i get your point of view now.

I'm not so sure that the copyrighted materials becomes free to share as soon as it's put into a .package though.
It is being put in that format by the end user with the explicit permission from the original creator to do so for personal use only.
I do think that the normal copyright laws will protect the creator in this case (i have very limited knowledge in this field though so i might be wrong here).

I think that it depends on the copyright, depends on the material, and depends on any previous agreements whether it does or not. Anyone who creates work expressly for use in the Sims 2 should be aware of what that agreement would mean for free distribution of their work. The examples I gave before were reused as Sims files without the permission of the creators which means that in those cases redistribution actually is a broken copyright. Redistributing a pay clothing or hair mesh and texture (one made by the creator for use only in the Sims, mind you) is not.

I think your system would be probematic simply because there could be no indication given along with the product that it was intended for use in the Sims (meaning there should be no info included on how to set it up). If there was, the ground that the paysite and the creator would stand on would be shaky at best if someone did redistribute the work. If they tried to go after someone who redistributed the work, that person could say, "They included materials and instructions for the files to be used as a Sims product! I've done nothing illegal!". EA's own rules would have to be considered at least equal to the creator's and paysite's rules in a case like this.

With no indication that it was intended for the Sims 2 the creator or the paysite could say, "Someone bought my/our files and illegally redistributed them as a Sims 2 product! That is against our terms which say that it is solely for personal use!". This, I think, would be a more protected position but hard to maintain and maybe slightly pointless as many people won't be willing to chase down the information to get the work to function properly and might not buy it in that case (especially if there are ready made, complete, free files up for download). I also think that basically giving away your own base work (original meshes, textures, etc.) out to whoever is not a great idea for all the reasons I'd stated before. I just feel that as a method what you suggested would be too onerous and difficult to really work well.



Edit:...and here's something about Tequila for the rest of you. Something about Tequila. There you go, enjoy. :lol:

[nohead]

I think your system would be probematic simply because there could be no indication given along with the product that it was intended for use in the Sims (meaning there should be no info included on how to set it up). If there was, the ground that the paysite and the creator would stand on would be shaky at best if someone did redistribute the work. If they tried to go after someone who redistributed the work, that person could say, "They included materials and instructions for the files to be used as a Sims product! I've done nothing illegal!". EA's own rules would have to be considered at least equal to the creator's and paysite's rules in a case like this.

See this is where i think our views differ. I'm only speculating of course, i'm not a law person nor a copyright expert.
It would be somewhat shaky ground and is probably not recommended, but it might work... :twisted:

In theory, would it end up in the booty?

[Anouk]

I think your system would be probematic simply because there could be no indication given along with the product that it was intended for use in the Sims (meaning there should be no info included on how to set it up). If there was, the ground that the paysite and the creator would stand on would be shaky at best if someone did redistribute the work. If they tried to go after someone who redistributed the work, that person could say, "They included materials and instructions for the files to be used as a Sims product! I've done nothing illegal!". EA's own rules would have to be considered at least equal to the creator's and paysite's rules in a case like this.

See this is where i think our views differ. I'm only speculating of course, i'm not a law person nor a copyright expert.
It would be somewhat shaky ground and is probably not recommended, but it might work... :twisted:

In theory, would it end up in the booty?

Maybe the endproduct would, since it falls under the same rules as all other sims 2 content. Don't know though.

[yamikuronue]

nohead, the issue is that by putting a copy of photoshop in a package file and uploading to the exchange, the uploader is (by using EA materials to create "custom content") agreeing to waive rights which s/he did not have in the first place, namely exclusive rights to redistribute photoshop. Now, if ADOBE did this, then yes, they'd have agreed to the same terms and conditions and therefore that'd be perfectly legal. But you or I can't sign away Adobe's rights. It's the same as putting Disney copyrighted images in a package file- we can't sign away Disney's rights to exclusive distribution. More accurately, it's like making a sims 2 TV channel (for use on the in-game TV) made of music videos: we can't legally sign away the rights of the bands and their labels to charge for their videos, and so we're agreeing implicitly (having agreed to the EULA) that these videos which are not ours may be shared freely, which is illegal.

[mando]

See this is where i think our views differ. I'm only speculating of course, i'm not a law person nor a copyright expert.
It would be somewhat shaky ground and is probably not recommended, but it might work... :twisted:

In theory, would it end up in the booty?

Maybe the endproduct would, since it falls under the same rules as all other sims 2 content. Don't know though.

I think that even if it could work (and in this we definitely disagree  :lol: )that it would be a pretty dodgy position to be in, and really hard to defend if you were trying to claim exclusive rights to distribution. I think they could end up in the booty depending on how the files are sent and what they contain. The end product (as a .package file) would fall under EA's distribution rules, so it would depend on what the intended end result was. See yamikuronue's post above for a much less longwinded   explanation of what I was trying to say before relating to intent and permission.

[Yaardarm Monkey]

you know, nohead, you keep going on about images & package files but you never responded to the 2 examples I gave previously

[RedLove]

We should all get together and take these
peoples forum down and report the one to mod the sims2 as she is a
member there plus she does tutorials. on that fourm. I will contact
them and let them know about what is going on .

Ohhhh HP you in trouble now!  :lol:

Nohead, dude, seriously are you with us or against us? You have confused me through this whole thing. I can't tell if you are pro paysite, anti-paysite, or a pain in my ass.