PMBD

I thought I would bounce an idea off of you guys.  It's pretty clear that the payware guys have very little respect for copyright and it goes beyond just EA's copyright.  After looking over the some payware sites I have noticed a lot of images in the form of paintings appear to be either photos of still in copyright real paintings and photography.  Basically what I was thinking is, putting together a group of people to essentially scrutinize payware works and attempt to find the artists and licensing agencies of any work in the payware and tipping them off to the copyright violation that in all likelihood they were unaware of.

It seems that a lot of these payware artists live in some sort of fantasy world where they can take whatever the hell they want from anyone yet they will cry when others do far less to their work.  Time for your medicine.

It depends a lot on the size of the picture, plus how much of the actual picture was used. There is a fair use/ parody and several other  clauses in copyright. Plus as long as the artist copyright is on the image, most won't say anything. Then too you have a lot of images even though they seem pretty recent that are part of public domain. It would be really hard to separate them all. That plus they would have to actually be part of a donation pack, etc....You'd be better off going with clothing designers. They have to use their entire design, or at least 50 percent of it which is not allowed for resale. Going through and seeing which ones are using cad objects and selling them. Downloaded Poser hair, clothing, objects,etc...and is reselling it, but there again you'd have some problems. Some allow for commercial use as long as it's not just the hair or object, some don't care, and some don't allow any commercial use. So it would take a lot of research. If you really want to hit them I think it would be through taxes. Most probably are not claiming the money they make or paying any taxes in their country. Anyway, I already posted about this once I don't want Hec beaming me over the head with her axe. So I'll shut up.

Parody applies only to works that carry commentary and by definition is an imitation (ie a derived work), not a copy of the work.

Fair use however has some very specific tenants to it:

The commercial selling of objects derived or containing artwork satisfies none of those tenants.  In reality it's the equivalent of printing posters of the works and selling them to be bundled with a furniture set.   Being digital does not change that.


I have actually worked awhile in this field while, this may be true for armature artists but it's not the case with professional ones and certainly not ones under distribution contracts.  Their income is typically derived from the sale and use of the artwork and having the image infringed will dilute the value of the work.  Secondly a professional artists are under contract for exclusive distribution of their work to a media company, "letting it go" would breach that contract.


In the US at least only works earlier then 1923 are guaranteed to be free of copyright and anything created after 1977 is automatically copyrighted for life of the artist plus 70 years.  Of course copyright doesn't apply to works done by the federal government but I doubt you would see much of those.



Actually it's really not all that hard when you know your art.  You can date a photograph or painting by style and medium and 1923 is a long time ago a lot has happened in the art world since then.  What I plan on doing certainly doesn't prevent doing the same thing over clothing designs, it's just painting and photography is what I know.  If you know clothing and design and would like to help that is cool too.



No one said this would be easy, but as the saying goes many hands make light work...  Think of the psychological impact of payware artists having to deal with even a few C&D letters, DMCA take down notices and such and being forced to rework their content every time.  I think that is a very powerful tool for the cause.


I am not sure if you are talking about sales or income tax but...

Problem with sales taxes in the USA at least is that under currently law (they want to change this but it's not moving very fast) they are only obliged to collect taxes in states they conduct retail business and being a virtual business they can claim they have no retail location in the US.  In these cases it's on the buyer to pay the sales tax when filing income taxes.

As for them filing their earnings on income tax some may many more probably don't but short of getting their tax filings it would be impossible to tell.

I was using most of those as examples. But if you think your going to get some artist who's images are not being sold. or a company is going to pay some attorney the costs to send out a cease order for a thumbnail image? That's going into a game as a picture to hang on a wall...Please be my guest. I have a feeling your going to be banging your head against a brick wall. Take a look at Imagenetion/ or just do a search on scans and see how far your going to get with a thumbnail. Who is going to pay an attorney 2 to 500 dollars to make up a cease order for a thumbnail? Unless they are selling the image. There are always ways around copyright, been there done this already with this issue and a court of law. So you can quote all day what that law says, unless you've been in a courtroom and seen those laws all go out the window...They look awful pretty on paper, doesn't mean there isn't someone going to get them thrown out, overturned or quote better ones that protect their client.

Which is why if you look at game companies and how they are succeeding it is through contract law, not copyright law. People who say the EULA has never been tested, have never done any real research. It has indeed been tested and by game companies in both Europe and the USA and they have won. Much more than they have lost. In fact one case was recently appealed and they still won. Just look up. Not on copyright, the contract the end user agreed too. As their attorney said when he came out of the appeals court, if it's in the EULA and you agree too it, you better follow it or you will loose and you will pay. Even though the contract your agreeing to rewrites several federal and local laws.

Both the circuit court and the appeals court both upheld they violated their contract with Vivendi. Even though what they did was clearly protected under fair use laws, just go and read both decisions.

Or do a search on Warcraft, Diablo II and court cases. These guys were protected under federal law and fair usage and still lost. What do we really think the courts would rule when these paysites are not even protected under fair usage? Not only that but EA offers to take back and pay for the shipping if they don't agree. But, I honestly think it will have to come from EA themselves.

Here you go I looked it up for you:
http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/20050901_decision.pdf

This is from the appeals court.

And here you can see they were protected:

3. "Do not reverse-engineer this product."
Some EULA terms harm people who want to customize their technology, as well as inventors who want to create new products that work with the technology they've bought. "Reverse-engineering," which is often forbidden in EULAs, is a term for taking a machine or piece of software apart in order to see how it works. This kind of tinkering is explicitly permitted by federal law – it is considered a "fair use" of a copyrighted item. Courts have held that the fair use provisions of the US Copyright Act allow for reverse-engineering of software when the purpose is to create a non-infringing interoperable program.


So like I said those laws you are quoting look awful pretty on paper. Oh and yes that is exactly what I am talking about with taxes. Not sales taxes. Taxes on income earned from that website. If you think you can't report a website as having earnings even right here in the USA and the IRS can't find out what those earnings are? Any government and say I think you should look into this website the people there are earning a lot of money and I don't believe they are paying taxes on that money. That came to me directly from the Copyright office, if I think someone is earning money on a website and not paying taxes on that money? Especially if it is a foreign company doing business in the USA and not paying taxes on that money it is still earned income. I need to contact the IRS not EA.

A C&D is a template letter, it takes about a minute to complete for a staff attorney.  When someone is profiting off of their work you will be surprised how bulldoggish artists will turn.   If you approach the right people, something will be done.


First of all you don't need to be a lawyer to create a C&D, it's not a legal document, it's a warning.  But licensing agencies have staff attorneys to handle that and often even have sections devoted to infringement.   The difference between a place like Imagenetion and a payware creator is one is doing it for commercial gain and the other as a free service.  That makes all the difference in the world to someone who charges money for their work.


They are.


This is just plain untrue.  Please cite a case.


I have spent about 1/10th of my career in court, apparently you seem unaware that the job of the court is to uphold laws.  But I would love to see the case where a just thew out copyright law.  I don't believe you fully understand the law if that is what you believe is happening.  Again if you have the case in question I would be happy to explain it to you.


There is only so much you can do in a contract and it requires explicit acceptance in order to be enforced.  You cannot just say someone is bound by a contract you need to though action (be it a signature or installing a program on your hard drive).  Secondly you cannot assign putative damages though a contract, which means you are bound to injunctions and actual damages.


Absolutely they have been tested and largely they are a mixed bag.  Legal in concept, however parts (for example bundling of software) of them have been invalidated as they abridged the users rights under the law (in that case the doctrine of first sale).


I don't know how you expect me to look anything up with no information on it.


I believe you are misunderstanding what is going on.  Mis-using software cannot be tried a copyright infringement since they legally own the software (unless .  Had they not owned it they wouldn't have been bound by the EULA.


The attorney would be wrong:
Novell v. Network Trade Center 25 F. Supp. 2d 1218 (C.D. Utah 1997)


Contracts exist within the law and not above it.  


The contract really was on the sidelines, what the majority of, and the most severe parts of the case arise out of the DMCA anti-circumvention features.


They didn't even try to argue the case on fair use grounds.  The case didn't even really go into "traditional copyright" per se but rather a lot of the new protection features of the DMCA (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00001201----000-.html).  While there are some exceptions unfortunately and for some stupid reason fair use really doesn't carry over quite the same when have access controls.


I have no idea what you are trying to say here.  I maintained all along that the paysites using copyrighted work would not fall under fair-use no more then a poster manufacturer would printing posters of copyrighted works.


What they did was allready illegal under DMCA even if they had not agreed to the EULA.  The EULA is the quick fix, it's the copyright claim in the form of DMCA that has the teeth.



The problem with that is unless you know the person is not paying taxes on the site there is not much you can do much.  It's not as if it's impossible or impractical for them to pay taxes on the earnings.  The IRS and government is going to need some solid proof before they would look into it.

Ok so now your a copyright attorney, why don't you call EA and tell them what they are doing so wrong? I mean your the expert on it, not me. And obviously not their whole team. They have no idea what they are doing. Why they can't just go in like a gang of gangbusters. I wait breathlessly to see all these cease orders your going to get. Our copyright lawyer, he was an actual copyright lawyer told us there always ways around copyright as long as the image is not being sold. So do your thing, I can't wait to see you bring down the paysites with copyright infringement from artists for using thumbnails of their images. You should even volunteer, contact these artists and tell them your going to send out the cease orders for them free of charge because you are a copyright attorney and someone is using their image as a thumbnail. Contact EA and tell them your willing to do it for them as well! We'll all await your outcome. I personally wish you great success. Honestly I do.

But this part cracks me up from you:
The problem with that is unless you know the person is not paying taxes on the site there is not much you can do much. It's not as if it's impossible or impractical for them to pay taxes on the earnings. The IRS and government is going to need some solid proof before they would look into it.

Is that why my brother in law and sister have to pay over 2 million in penalties on 200 thousand owed? And where did this peeon get his solid proof from? All it took was one phone call, I don't think this man is paying taxes on his business. That's some real solid proof they got there.

i think this thread should be hawk girl and ratfink's thread, since everything after the 2nd post has gone over my head and gives me a headache to try and understand.

I largely got it. And I found it a very interesting and informative debate until HawkGirl's last reply which, I'm sorry to say, just seemed rather sulky and... well, not so interesting. That one was counter-productive, in my opinion.

HawkGirl, if I didn't lose you as a reader of my post yet, I think that ratfink was only alluding to "thumbnails", as you call them, that were being sold on by paysite owners in some way. I do think that the copyright holders would have something against that. We've seen paysites having to pull down copyrighted materials before, because it was being sold, in whatever way. Free stuff on any site they usually could care less about.

Ratfink - I wish you the best of luck with your pet project. I wouldn't know art from Adam, so unfortunately I can't be of any help. I'd love to read your reports if you do succeed in getting them to pull some stuff down, though :)

Yes, I did get very sulky. I'll admit it. When I'm tired, I just go oh well. pfft. It's one of my many character flaws. I also lack severely in patience. I cope very well in serious situations, when other's usually fall apart, I'm usually the calm one that says we can fix this, then get to organizing. However, I don't function well when things are not in order/chaos in my immediate surroundings/my comfort zone. So see I have many. I think Ratfink is very knowledgable. If I had a link I could probably provide the artist name, if I recognize the work. I know a lot of artists, mostly fantasy artists. But, I also will recognize a lot of folk art, comic art like Raglin, etc... since those are the types of artists I learned from. I could help with that part. So apologies and I'll jut go an lurk some more because I'm still in that sulky mood. Three days and no sleep, I could come off very easily as something demonic possessed with my head spinning around. Making no sense. If you send me the link Rat, I'll go and see if I recognize the work.

Sorry from the delay in posting I had a lovely 16 hour work week.


I am not nor have ever claimed to be an attorney, I am however a paralegal (though working to be able to take the bar exam), but even if it does it would be unethical for me to give unsolicited legal advice lacking full knowledge of the situation.

I really don't know why you are going down that track, this specifically has nothing to do with EA.  What it is about is finding other copyright holders that will do what EA won't and demand take down of their work.  EA really has nothing to do with this.


Your copyright lawyer would have reckless, I can only assume you misunderstood the lawyer.  The problem is he isn't here and you are so it's quite hard to ask questions as to see what he truly means.   You got to remember there were some VERY smart and talented lawyers defending both Napster and Kazaa on their copyright claims on far shakier leagal ground (contributory infringement) then direct infringment we are discussing now and they failed.  Regardless images in this case are being sold in these collections.


I don't expect you to stop what you are doing, if you feel that what you are doing now will stop them, by all means go ahead but it sure as hell won't make their lives easier having to deal with artists demanding their work removed.


This is really starting to sound like a pout.  I will let them know of the infringement and point to the offender.  They do the rest.


This has nothing to do with EA.


Seriously if your bother and sister owed $200,000, which is a heck of a lot of in back taxes then I am certain that more then one person knew about it and likely the IRS itself already knew.

Yes you hit the nail on the head.


Thanks I will sure to try to keep everyone up to date.

Ratfink, you are a paralegal not a lawyer.  For you to defame a lawyer you have no idea who it is or what they said is not wise.  If you are going to play with the big dogs it's best to not piss on your friends.  Both you and HawkGirl have a point, and it would be very hard to track down all of the images and the artists but I do wish you luck on that.  In the meantime I'll give you an example. Nene Thomas, is a decent and pretty well known fantasy artist.  Tsr has several of her paintings up for download.  Some are free some are not, if you go to her site however www.nenethomas.com she expressly forbids the use of her work for commercial gain without express written consent.  That is copyright infringement in true form.

Here I come to the site, expecting to have a fine time, posting and debating, and find legal discussions. Blarg!

http://www.charmedsims.org/design_paintings.html
I know who's artwork this is and the contact information.

http://www.simultaneousdesign.com/TS2/FrontPage.htm
Selling artwork from several different artists.
I also know who all these artists are and how to contact them. She has a mix of artists here. Some found in public domain, some from Dover which means she can use a certain amount of the images. Some are folk artists. Some fantasy artists.

I didn't check out TSR because I don't go to TSR. Someone else will have to check out that site for you.

Below is a list of the sites I checked all their donation packs. I know which are using stock and have altered the images. Which are using various sources like Dover. I also know which have used a certain website to get limited licensing agreements to make their images into paintings.

There you go I helped you out.

The list of sites I checked:

http://www.2-f0r-u.de/startsims2.htm
11 Dots
37 Sims
4eversimfantasy
A bit Modern
Artistic Habitats
Asamo
A sim Catwalk
Birgit 43
Blue Sims
Camilla Nimue
Caravan Shop
Carla Niven
Charmed Sims
DMA Sims
Eclectic Sims
Exnem Sims
Glamorous Lounge
Glamour Sim
Glam Sim
Helga Sims
Holy Simoly
Komo Sims
Liana Sims
Lliella
Loving Touch Designs
Mdlein Design
Open House for Sims
Pandora Sims
Peggy Sims
Pure Sims
Raon Sims
Reflex Sims
Retail Sims
Savage Sims
Sim Ages
Sim Placement
Sim Chic
Sim Credible Designs
Sim Freaks
Sim Gedoehns
Sims HZ
Simplan X
The Sims Republic
Sims 2 Fashion
Sims 2 Luxe
Sims2 Orient
Sims 2 Studio
Sims 4 Life
Sims Connection
Sim Secrets
Sim Slice
Sim Snobs
Sim Squirts
Simultaneous Design
Spicy Sims
Stylist Sims
Sublisims
Tribecca Sims2
Vita Sims2
Wall Sims
Well Dressed Sim
XXX Sims2
Distant Eyes Sims
Sims 2 Heaven
Around the Sims 2

While I didn't understand the legal information going back and forth I still enjoyed reading it.

I think you have a great idea here, and I hope you do pursue this, because there are so many of them out there who just take what they see without thinking about who really owns the material. It's really sad.

Not only that but they never mention anything about the original artists or where they got the inspiration from.

Now maybe I'm not remembering right here, but if my memory is good didn't Sim Freaks and Sim Skins (back in Sims1) have to change they're whole website around after it was found out that they were selling things (poser etc.) that they shouldn't have been? And I know I personally lost a lot of respect for them as artists after that... Know that they're great creations were frauds.

Anyway thought I'd just give a random post since I mostly lurk here. But I think you have great ideas.

*Steals some Rum*

(edit to fix one typo.. but not the rest, they can stay :P)

I think you misunderstood what I said.  I am not claiming anything negative about the lawyer, what I am saying is that you may have misunderstood what he was saying since if he did say it as you claimed it would be extremely irresponsible.  It would be the equivalent of a doctor saying they can cure a specific form of cancer or major disease in every situation.  You don't need to have a medical degree to know that if that is said it would be pretty irresponsible.


Big dogs?


That would be a good example of the kind of people whom would probably want to know that people are using the work in a commercial manner.  If you have any links to her work on TSR I would a love to put together a email for her showing her the infringement and offer any help I can provide (in my capacity as a non lawyer) to protect her work from abuse.

Thanks for the great help.  I do appreciate your work.  For the first if you want to let the artist know about the infringement please let me know so I can mark them as contacted.  If you would prefer me to contact them please pm me the contact info so I can get a hold of them.

The pay section at the bottom of paintings seems to be all Salvidor Dali's work witch almost all of it still under copyright and will be for some time.  I will get a hold of Artists Rights Society that manages his estate's copyrights.

Thanks again.



Understandable and no problem.

Fighting fire with fire is a really, really stupid idea in my eyes. Nothing personal against you, but you should really consider, if you are able to keep control of it after calling up sleeping dogs.

What makes you guys so certain, that only "pay" sites will be affected? Some underemployed laywers may find it very interesting to check out every single sims page after another? Jonny Depp sending his laywers to this site, as lots of you guys did use his picture as an avatar?

And EVERY single sim site, that displays ads, is a "commercial" site in the eyes of a bored laywer and could be worth a try. As you upload copyrighted stuff to a page to attract visitors, who generate revenues.

Do, what you think you have to do, but there have been lots of people killed while fighting fire with fire.

Just my 50cents or whatever is is called.

For general purpose information:

What are the exclusive rights belonging to the author?

As a general rule, the distribution right and the public display right expire when the copies have been sold. That is, the author doesn't have a right to control the redistribution of a sold copy of his or her work, or control the public display of the sold copy. (The exception to this general rule is that the copyright owner does have a right to control the rental of a sold copy of a sound recording or a computer program, subject to certain limitations.) This is called the first sale doctrine. The other rights do not expire when the copy has been sold, so that the author still has the right to control the reproduction, adaptation, or public performance of a sold copy of his or her work.

Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 106 Exclusive rights in copyrighted works

Yeah, Johnny Depp is going to send a lawyer all around the web, forcibly removing avatars, and get himself rated "biggest dick in the world".

As for underemployed lawyers - this site is in Malaysia.  They'd be some rich underemployed lawyers, with too much time on their hands - otherwise known as the unemployed - and they don't have any money - so - homefree.

What about all the free Simsites, that most likely are not hostet in Malaysia? I think most simsites are using paintings from other artists - why should they (the artists) or their lawyers make a difference between pay and freesites. I don't think, that they care about the sims-community.

This "fighting fire with fire" campaign might create a big problem for every simsite - not only for paysites. I thought, that that is not what you people here wanted.

Well, for a start, freesite owners aren't making money off the copyright - so the very least they're going to get is a "remove it or else" notice. If you don't remove it after that, you're a dick that deserves everything you get.  

There's nothing to gain from suing someone who doesn't have any money, and they wouldn't bother - it would mean huge losses, and any lawyer worth their salt would tell an artist such.  Poor people just lose, declare bankruptcy and stick the opposition with a big arse legal bill.  Paysites on the other hand, they are making money.  I hear they use it to buy holidays, and $4000 modelling programs.

I don't know how this is in other countrys, but in germany a non-commercial blog had to pay about 600 €, because the owner had a small (copyrighted by an other site) photo from a bread in his blog. No Judge had to decide it - in german it is called "Abmahnung" what you get in cases like that. You can accept it and pay, or take the risk to get sued. I - and I think most other freesite owners - don't have the financial background to take the risk of getting sued, so I would pay and close my site.

The costs and the risk for the lawyer is very, very low.

Well then, the message is pretty clear - don't use copyrighted images on your site or your content.  I don't really see how it's a debate - you shouldn't do that anyway.

I do perfectly agree with you, that one should never use another persons copyrighted content. But lots of free sites (e.g. MTS2 etc.) contain HUGE amounts of obviously copyrighted content. And it's not the problem of the uploader, it's the problem of the site owner, if someone doesn't like this.

The only thing i wanted to say is: If you start something, you should be absolutely sure, that you know, what's going to happen. Including worst case scenarios, which are maybe unlikely, but should also be taken into consideration.

Well said, Solander. Well said.

I also think it's a bad idea.  Copyright law in the US at least makes no distinction between commercial and noncommercial copyright infringement.  It doesn't matter if you're selling something or not, you can still be found in violation.

And I agree that sims sites--pay and free--use tons of copyrighted material.  The fabrics that people use for recols, the wallpaper that's used in Homecrafter, the pictures used for deco, even clothing styles without logos--so many of them are copyrighted.  Yeah, small sites probably won't be persecuted.  But I recall in Sims 1 days that sites were receiving cease and desist letters from Disney and a general scolding from the FLWright Foundation (although a limited permission was later given in that case).  And I'm sure there were others I don't know a bout.

You can say, don't use copyrighted materials, but that's unrealistic. Are creators going to make all their wallpapers from scratch?  Or make only abstract paintings?  Etc. And you might argue, get permission then.  I tried (again for Sims 1) to get permission from artists whose work I was simmifying.  In the cases where I heard  back permission was granted, but most of the artists never replied.  And silence isn't equivalent to permission.

So...I think this is one case where the fire can jump back and burn us, too.  It's not worth the risk.

I agree that no steps should be taken.  PMBD is here to help/make/destroy (insert you terminology here) paysites.  We are not legal hound dogs.  This would serve no purpose in my opinion.  We are also not here to monitor legal/illegal activity with sites.  Because there may be paysites with this content, there are probably free sites that do it as well.  

Also, if PMBD is storing files of the content, are we liable as well?  And there is a difference between commercial and non-commercial in copyright law.  Non-commercial refers to only in educational situations or not-for-profit.  Paysites have an argument with this anyway.  They are charging for site access, not item purchase in most cases, so the copyright infringement argument would be mute and it is not a tangible reproduction either.

We don't need to mount an all-out attack on the Sims community.  It just isn't necessary.  We are already seen as "villians and thieves".  I can't stop you from doing what you want to do, but I really would be careful because will the end justify the means?  What payoff are you hoping to gain?  What is the benefit?  

We need to be vocal to some degree, but not harassing and not radicals.

I think a positive effort would be much more effective.  If there is enough free content out there, people don't need to pay for paysites.  I don't think any legal action would be taken against any free sites as a result (besides some C&Ds perhaps) as any money to be made off suing would be negligible compared to the costs of doing so, but a can of Disney-shaped worms is not something I think anyone wants to open up on this community.

Learn how to make content.  Get good at it, and share it for free so there's good free content out there for folks to use.  Promote free sites.  Don't pay for pay sites.  Promote sites like Money Better Spent (is that back up yet?) so people who are considering paying for content actually know what they're getting.

I know ya'll are paysite haters and that's fine - but remember, there are positive ways that you can contribute to the cause without bringing down a rain of C&Ds on the free community - which I don't think anyone besides the paysites believes must be destroyed.

First of all a lawyer will lose his license very fast if he goes around soliciting cases very fast.  That is a major ethical violation of all the state/provincial bar associations that I know of.

That said I will assume you are talking about staff or cotnracted lawyers...
For two reasons, first it tends to be very bad PR to go after people not profiting off your work, or for that matter not depriving you of money.  Secondly they are getting the paysite stuff on a silver platter, they are going to have to do their own damn research if they choose to go after freeware, an expense I don't see them all that willing to front.  Furthermore contrary to what you think it may even garner less attention from copyright holders since they will see the community as self-regulating where it matters.


Being 'commercial' means nothing, the sites would get advertising revenue regardless of if the content was there.  What changes things is if the items are being sold, there is a tangible money being made off the items.

Lets clear something up before this keeps spiraling downward.  Lets clear a few things up.
1. If you have copyrighted work on your site you may be approached with a C&D regardless of anything I do.  If you want to use someone else's copyrighted work then that is the risk you take and there is not one thing I can do or not do to change that fact.

2. IF someone finds their work on your sim site you will will be send a C&D letter or (in the US) a DMCA take down notice.  If you comply and take the work down and you weren't selling the work in the first place the likelihood of getting sued is half past nil.  Total cost is nothing.

Best of luck.

For anyone that would like a licensing agreement with a whole list of artist to use their artwork you can go here:

http://www.creativeimagelicensing.com/artists.shtml

It is not expensive at all and they have some great artist there like Olivia, Rood, Nestler, etc...etc. You can tube their images, use them in paintings for your Sims, etc...with two requirements. Many of them on this list have already tubed the images for you if that's all you want and you can get those even cheaper. You can not resell from any of these artists and You must post your licensing agreement number with anything you post so they know it's from you I suppose, and you don't get one of those nasty C& D orders. There is also Dover, you can use up to 6 of their images from any work of art with one exception. You can't resell it in it's original format. Like you can't make copies of the book and sell them. There are many ways to do it legally. Many of these designers would allow you to use their images as well if you ask and explain to them what your doing. I think that is the biggest problem we have in the Sims community...no one is communicating with anyone. It's just a free for all, I'll do what I want and I don't give a damn who agrees or disagrees with me. I don't have to listen to you, but I want you to listen to me.

I wish that were true that free sites they could care less about. I remember a Sims 1 site got closed because they used a lot of Marvel Comics images - on clothing and objects etc...

Then the owners of Hello Kitty also went after a sims 1 artist too and not only did she have to remove all of the Hello Kitty content from her site but also change her alias she was using as well. She had a free site too.

So yeah they do go after anyone infringing thier copyrights - even on free sites.

(http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i119/keirra1983/Lol%20Cats/00000a.jpg)