Any instances yet of anyone selling the H&M trademark?  I have a new internet friend at MarkMonitor the company paid to protect H&M from counterfeits/improper use of trademark and have been trying to explain this whole selling pixels business to him.

She did helpfully post a list of new customers that maybe someone here should email:

cheistophklassen@gmx.de, hj9838@nate.com,y.mschouten@planet.nl,
pabich@mnet-online.de,rebecca.ward@cox.net, ceruelan@naver.com, nay_boogie@yahoo.com, www.aurelienfagot@wanadoo.fr, www.vico508@hotmail.fr,

If my email were listed on a heavily trafficked site like Peg's I'd kill her.

But explain to me how that helps you with Sims 2?  You want to use a package file as a sort of big blue zip file?

The package file is a proprietary file format and is useless unless you have the game.   What can you do with a package file other than use it in Sims 2?

Nouk said:


Nouk, if you have Photoshop I will make you an instant eye kit.

Of course this isn't over yet...

I'm quoting from the manifesto: "It appears that Stanfield does indeed pose a risk to children on some level, in spite of the Judge's thoughts otherwise. A few younger girls, roughly 14-15 in age, have stated that Stanfield, while not soliciting sex from them, has at the very least been extremely inappropriate and overtly sexual with them..."

It goes on from there with more unsubstantiated stuff.  

Hello, libel 101?  

It's the web hosting company that would get sued for housing the information and not the individual who composed it.  Have any paysite owners pasted this thing on their websites?  An IP would yank a site for this.  Just hoping.

The threads are so fluid.  Where to ask a question about Vita Sims?  Why not here.

I went to Vita Sims and was too dim to find the strange pay celebrities.  Are they still there or has she pulled the money makers?  

When I do a Google big brother search I get this:  "The requested URL /sims2_celebrity.htm was not found on this server."

I'm once again looking for guinea pigs to test another set of Photoshop brush textures for me.

This time for the eyes.  The default brush size is about 10X the resolution you need for a Sim eye but they were originally made for something else entirely and shrinking and remaking the set just seemed kinda pointless.



These are samples.  They were all done very simply in Photoshop with two layers (multiply, screen, overlay, whatever) and dodging and burning until the pupil was darker than the iris.  Super easy to use and even if you aren't the greatest Photoshopper you can get pretty good results.

Here is the Photoshop CS2 brush set and the PNG set.

BRUSHES:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xd4r1g

PNG SET:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/a3si15

Let me know about any snafus -- mine not yours.

keirra - I work in tv and/or film in the art department.  In terms of the legal stuff my day is filled with things like trying to figure out how to get the rights to use a print by Picasso or a Time magazine cover from 1974 on screen.  I know nothing about say fighting a parking ticket in court but I know a heckuva lot about copyright and trademark law.

There's no real way to make a derivative work from a package file.  It's always going to be a package file or it won't work in the game.  Regardless of the contents of the file the code is always going to be a package file over which EA Games holds the copyright.  

They can do with their package file what they wish based on their grant of rights.  And it doesn't even have to be anywhere in writing that you can't sell someone else's copyrighted thing -- it's just a legal given.  If they don't want Sims stuff sold then they can fire off a bunch of cease and desist letters and contact some IPs.

EULAs for a game rated TEEN will never be brought up in any legal way if a company can get around it.  If you're under 18 in the US you can't even agree to a legal document or licensing agreement in the first place so the EULA is worthless.

Geez, I feel like I'm at work...

dietofworms - Even though it's a typical kind of non-clarifying corporate email response I believe they are laying claim to the copyright of the .package format.

It's the only thing they can enforce since they don't hold the trademark or copyright to say Disney materials.  The terms of use of the package file allows for free distribution but not to have their copyrightable thing resold.

It's a neat way to bypass the Eula altogether and gives them clear legal control over their game content.

Putting the pictures of your sick child on a blog for friends is one thing.  Sticking those same photos up on a retail site comes across as mercenary.

Random information regarding my pet H&M conspiracy theory.

I'm not a lawyer or even one of those "internet lawyers" that turn up all the time on forums.  I do deal with clearances (copyrights and trademarks used in media) so I know a lot of about what companies let you do and don't do.

I emailed H&M corporate and asked a question about their trademark and reselling it and they told me to contact a company called MarkMonitor if I knew of any violations.  H&M is apparently very protective of their trademark and they pay MarkMonitor to troll the web and auction sites to make sure their name and merchandise isn't being counterfeited and resold.

Wonder what MarkMonitor would make of Carla Niven?

Nouk screamed:



You and your emo hair.  Look at what you've wrought.  12 pages of me not being able to tell the identity or secret identity or hidden identity or multiple identities of anyone.

Does it amuse anyone else that one of the reasons EA might be so hyper aware of the paysite issue is because of paysite owners and their lackeys bombarding them for the last few months about protecting their paysite content from us?