My Story as an Artist on TSR & The Inside Machinations

[nohead]

OK, so it's the copyrighted stuff (ala Disney) you refer to when you say they are breaking laws then, i got the impression it had something to do with the EULA?

For clarification, in case someone clicks the why nohead's a troll link, the search result doesn't display quotes properly so it looks like it's me being uncivil, it's not .

[calalily]

OK, so it's the copyrighted stuff (ala Disney) you refer to when you say they are breaking laws then, i got the impression it had something to do with the EULA?

Why don't you go start a forum about "Copyright violations must be destroyed" - start now - you've got a big job - very important !!1!

For clarification, in case someone clicks the why nohead's a troll link, the search result doesn't display quotes properly so it looks like it's me being uncivil, it's not .

No, you're boring, you have no case law to back you up, and your arguments suck.

[nohead]

calalily: i'm sorry for the not having a life comment, it was not meant to be taken so seriously. I don't know you and have no idea of how your life is, please accept my apologies.

[calalily]

calalily: i'm sorry for the not having a life comment, it was not meant to be taken so seriously. I don't know you and have no idea of how your life is, please accept my apologies.

Accepted - I've been called worse before by the paysite side.  

I believe that it shows just how nasty paysite supporters really are - so every single time I get insulted, I remember it, and the next time people tell me about "respect for others" I pull out my notepad file, and inform them differently.  It truly weakens their argument - and shows them as the cowards they are.  

[deathtotsr]

One thing's for sure, if nohead can apologize publicly in a forum somewhere it isn't Thomas.

[HawkGirl]

One thing's for sure, if nohead can apologize publicly in a forum somewhere it isn't Thomas.

lol Thomas isn't a robot. He's also not a bad man, people forget who they are, when it comes to money. They change. Have you ever heard the expression? The way to change a man from your friend to your enemy, is to lend him money. Or, if you lend a friend money, make it a gift. Even in the bible, which contains some of the oldest documents available to man. It says you cannot have two God's, God and Money. Money brings out the worse in people, they do things they normally wouldn't do; for more. That's also why it says: It is easier for a rich man to find a needle in a haystack, then it is for him to enter the kingdom of heaven. Because that is basically what they are doing, always searching for more money. Refusing to see all the riches they already have. All proverbs, all meaning the same thing. I'm quite sure we could find proverbs on money in some of the ancient Buddist texts, as well as a lot of the apocrypha.

They always want to concentrate on one area the EULA. So that is what we have to argue with them. What was the first thing Nohead said, when it came to what laws are they breaking? Oh I thought it had to do with the EULA. That's like holding the middle piece of the puzzle, and unable to find all the other pieces. The EULA is the center, or core. There are many branches off of it. I personally think it's because as long as they think of it in terms of a company, they don't have to look at the human side of it. Makes it a little easier to sleep at night.

[Zazazu]

calalily: i'm sorry for the not having a life comment, it was not meant to be taken so seriously. I don't know you and have no idea of how your life is, please accept my apologies.

See, whenever someone makes some sort of "get a life" comment, I read it as "My argument has no merit. I know you've realized this, and I can't come up with anything that makes me look good. Therefore, I'm going to use a 2nd grade insult in the hopes that it will hurt your little feelings and make you cry, taking the focus off of how stupid I am."

In this case, it's accurate.

[blackmars]

lol Thomas isn't a robot. He's also not a bad man, people forget who they are, when it comes to money.

I see him as a bad man. Anyone who treats people the way he does and sends spies to sneak around to see what everyone else who isn't petting him are talking about is a complete viper.

If money is the root of all evil then Thomas is evil by association.

[HawkGirl]

lol Thomas isn't a robot. He's also not a bad man, people forget who they are, when it comes to money.

I see him as a bad man. Anyone who treats people the way he does and sends spies to sneak around to see what everyone else who isn't petting him are talking about is a complete viper.

If money is the root of all evil then Thomas is evil by association.

Now, now. I'm willing to bet if you took away TSR from him, you'd find he's not evil. Remember the Sims1 days? Steve and Thomas were not bad men, or evil. It wasn't till they figured out they could make money off it they they got the way they are now. Even when they first became a paysite they used to make sure everything was cycled out, so even those that couldn't afford it, got the pay things. They could have blown MTS2 out of the water with all the members they had, if they had just done what they asked Will. Asked for donations. Monthly donators. Most the problems they have over there, that they need these spies for? They have done to themselves. Not us, not Delphy, Them. Like now? What did Thomas think would happen joining that Save the Sims community? He saw what was going on over there and he joined anyway. I prefer to think of it more than evil, as they lost their flippin minds. lol

[blackmars]

You do have a point there, Hawkgirl.

[Anouk]

The ip Nohead used on Sims2community originated from Sweden.
He will be able to use the Swedish information just fine.

[deathtotsr]

One thing's for sure, if nohead can apologize publicly in a forum somewhere it isn't Thomas.

lol Thomas isn't a robot. He's also not a bad man, people forget who they are, when it comes to money. They change. Have you ever heard the expression? The way to change a man from your friend to your enemy, is to lend him money. Or, if you lend a friend money, make it a gift. Even in the bible, which contains some of the oldest documents available to man. It says you cannot have two God's, God and Money. Money brings out the worse in people, they do things they normally wouldn't do; for more. That's also why it says: It is easier for a rich man to find a needle in a haystack, then it is for him to enter the kingdom of heaven. Because that is basically what they are doing, always searching for more money. Refusing to see all the riches they already have. All proverbs, all meaning the same thing. I'm quite sure we could find proverbs on money in some of the ancient Buddist texts, as well as a lot of the apocrypha.

They always want to concentrate on one area the EULA. So that is what we have to argue with them. What was the first thing Nohead said, when it came to what laws are they breaking? Oh I thought it had to do with the EULA. That's like holding the middle piece of the puzzle, and unable to find all the other pieces. The EULA is the center, or core. There are many branches off of it. I personally think it's because as long as they think of it in terms of a company, they don't have to look at the human side of it. Makes it a little easier to sleep at night.

Sorry to argue with you over this but after all the dealings I've had with that thing that tries to impersonate a human being (but is doing a terrible job at it), I'd have to disagree with you there. Thomas is a very proud, arrogant, domineering idiot. Someone who is like that would not deign to offer someone else an apology here or anywhere - because they can't do it - it's not in them to be able to apologize for fear that that would make them look like they did something wrong and according to what I saw, doncha know Thomas thinks he's God and doesn't ever do anything wrong - it's everyone else who's wrong - but not him. NEVER. We're all the thieves and liars and idiots but not him. Excuse me but most men unless they are Meglomaniacs don't think they're god and can just do whatever they want and get away with it, without saying sorry or suffering the repercussions of it.

[deathtotsr]

I didn't get that Netseeker was looking to be paid at all, just doing a comparison for kudo's verses being paid. Which you can actually see. I am so thankful I never got caught up in that mess. That I left after just a couple weeks of being there. Netseeker, you could also call EA, ask to speak to the legal dept, and tell them you have some evidence files they might be interested in seeing. But, don't be too surprised if they already know about this thread. They seem to know a lot of what we do and say here. lol

Sorry I missed this earlier in the thread, was just re-reading the thread now and noticed what you said here.

One thing I think this site is overlooking is that EA games or Maxis (whichever - because they're one & the same now) is in cahoots with TSR. It should be obvious to you that they are. I mean why else would Steve Bonham keep getting invited to their headquarters for the scoop on the new games and expansion packs if they weren't? You don't see Delphy getting invited there, nor Quaxi, nor Numenor nor anyone else in the free community, do you? Or at least I haven't heard of any of them being invited so far.  Why don't they invite Delphy and give him the scoop on something if they're so against TSR making money on their product and opt instead to help out the other guy who's just doing it because he likes their product like Delphy?

You know years ago when home computers first came on the scene, I & my husband had a users group and companies helped the users groups out a lot by giving them free software and equipment. Heck I even had an engineer from Western Digital come over to my house to adjust the CMOS on my computer to accept the first IDE drives on the market - which he did for free - because Western Digital gave me the IDE drive but it didn't work. We had a user group and it was free and we didn't make any money on anything and when we talked about computer hardware or software we voiced our honest opinions of them. Even still the software and hardware companies had no problems whatsoever not only giving us the material but also the support.  So if big companies can and did do things like that for small user groups, why is it Maxis/EA can't do something like that for the smaller free sites that support their game? They don't and the only reasons why I can see they don't is either because it might hurt their interest (yes they may have some kind of intellectual or financial interest)  or can't be bothered because they think it may hurt them too if they were to bring TSR down. (Either as a backlash in the community for having brought them down, or a dwindling user base because now there's less content in the community).  So why would they care/worry about what happened to me on TSR if they don't even seem to care that TSR is contravening their own license agreements?

But what they may not understand is that by giving a little support here and there (maybe based on capacity and size of the site) to the free sites out there and more support (financial and invitations to get the scoops) to the bigger sites like Delphy's is that if they did that, there wouldn't be a backlash in the community, nor would there be a dwindling user base, because now there are plenty of places available for everyone to post their work without all the headaches of financing these things all by the users selves. I know they will say they tried to provide a place with the exchange, but for the community at large that's not good enough - for one thing it's base of downloads is too narrow (sims, and lots only) and for other it's near impossible to find even specific EA content on there let alone a specific user's stuff who isn't a part of the EA staff. So if they want to keep the exchange still they can but if not they can abolish it and start to fund the other free sites out there and keep them operational - or better yet not fund them but provide free server space for these sites (that way there's no accusations of misuse of funds going around the community on account of that).  There's ways to take TSR down and still maintain their image in the community, if they really wanted to. Thing is it doesn't appear that they really want to, or it'd have been done long ago.

I'm sorry to say but harping on the EULA isn't going to get you anywhere, you have to go after them for all the other infringements they've done and that's where that Swedish gov't link the other user provided is very valuable. Not to mention all the  companies who's copyright images appear on content on TSR's site.

And as an after-thought.... See what a little support can do? Years later (I'm talking about 20 years later now) I'm still citing what Western Digital did - that's called the best advertising you can get in sales, - word of mouth and goodwill. That one little act that they did 20 years ago still allows me to promote them today (okay before now it's been only to people I've actually met in real life, but now I'm endorsing them and how they behaved with us to the whole internet). Maybe EA/Maxis could stand to take lessons from Western Digital in that department of showing goodwill and support to those who are promoting and using their products.

[AW]

Netseeker2 - I don't know if you will know the answer to this, but here goes....my theory has always been that TSR is paying some type of royalty or commission or what have you to EA, would that be a correct assumption or do you know?

EA is not doing all of this inviting, etc. for nothing.  They are corporate and the first question that a corporate person is going to ask is "What's in it for me?"  

I would also be interested in the tax filings, etc.  Since the creators are paid a direct commission based upon sales figures, so to speak, from a Human Resource perspective they are contract employees and TSR would have to issue, those who are required by their countries' laws, tax forms detailing monies earned.  Since TSR operates as a business, with paid employees and contracted employees, it should be accounting for tax revenue and self-employment taxes.  Your thoughts?

Let me also add that copyright infrigement is a bunch of bullshit.  In order to claim copyright or a derivative on existing works or copyrighted material, there must be a contractual agreement between said parties, fansites are not considered as being a contracted designer or contracted employee of EA.  Even then, the first sale right doctrine comes into play.  As I have said before, if I do not sell it, advertise it as my own, make false claims as to the derivatives, etc. there is no law currently that prohibits the Booty.

[blackmars]

I think those of us who are aware of EA's presence in the greater gaming world know they're in on the game with TSR. Not a surprise there at all. EA has been known for its greed-driven practices (not to mention their mistreatment of employees and what not that they recently tried to remove from their Wikipedia entry so they could look clean), so them hooking up with TSR wouldn't be a surprise.

As for the little previews I've heard of free site people being invited to those little things. It probably depends on who you know and/or blow (not to be crude but that's how somethings work). Maybe they do invite Delphy and Numenor but we just don't hear about it. TSR we hear about because they toot their own horn the loudest.