just in case some moderator decides it needs deletion.
The thread is currently here, if anyone's interested:
http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?&openItemID=item.24,root.1,item.43,item.61,item.104,item.127&threadID=3c59233ac5acfdadea46f92efe01c7e8&directoryID=24&startRow=1Content:
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I am wondering why EA games and its Sims2 Community list sites that make people pay for custom on their fan Listing, when such paysites are in clear contravention to the electronic license agreement signed by every single person who installs the game, and also in contravention to the TO listed in the Fansite agreement, here:
http://thesims2.ea.com/community/approval_fansitekit.phpthus (emphasis mine):
Electronic Arts Inc, and its subsidiaries, affiliates and licensors (collectively, "EA") grants you a non- transferable non-exclusive license to download and/or install and use one copy of the software tool ("Tool") and/or materials ("Materials") (collectively the "Tools & Materials") solely for your personal noncommercial use in connection with EA's products, in accordance with the terms below.
EA owns all of the rights, title and interest in the Tools & Materials. You may not alter any of EA's trademarks or logos, or alter or remove any of EA's trademark or copyright notices included in or with the Tools & Materials or EA's products. Your right to use Tools & Materials is limited to the license grant above, and you may not otherwise copy, display, distribute, perform, publish, modify, create works from, or use any of the Tools & Materials. Without limiting the preceding sentence, you may not modify, reverse engineer, disassemble, license, transfer, distribute, create works from, or sell the Tool, or use the Tools & Materials to further any commercial or unlawful purpose. Without limiting the foregoing, you may not use the Tools & Materials to promote another product or business, or on any site that operates or promotes a server emulator.
You may include materials created with the Tools & Materials on your personal noncommercial website for the noncommercial benefit of the fan community for EA's products, provided this is beneficial to the product(s) in EA's judgment, and provided that if you do so, you must also post the following notice on your site on the same web page(s) where those materials are located: "This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with Electronic Arts, or its licensors. Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Game content and materials copyright Electronic Arts Inc. and its licensors. All Rights Reserved." You will not represent that your site is endorsed or approved by or affiliated with EA or our licensors or that any other content on your site is endorsed or approved by or affiliated with EA or our licensors.
and, at the bottom of the same page,
Creating Fansites
We love it when fans create personal websites devoted to The Sims 2, but any and all use of our assets is strictly subject to the terms of our Fansite and End User Tool License, without exception.
Yet, the fansite listing includes the following sites on the front page alone where you can either only
buy custom content (the use of the word "donation" notwithstanding) or where a portion of the content is only available by paying for it (listed as "subscription", and some listed as "free").
The Sims Resource
7 Deadly Sims (listed as free, but a Sims 1 site - the linked sims2 site is 8th Deadly sims and it is a subscription site).
Glamour Sims
Loving Touch Designs
Glam Sim
Artistic Habitats (one of the Sims Host sites, see Sims Republic list below)
Emerald Sims Estates
Eclectic Sims
Simmetrical (listed as a free site but who has a portion of the site as pay only downloads)
Reflex sims (listed as free but also a part paysite)
Simslice (listed as free but in fact
all sims 2 downloads are available by a monthly subscription only)
Aussie Topenders (listed as free but with a "donation" -- "I mean, pay or you won't get this mesh" area)
BlueSims (listed as free but with a high proportion of pay content).
The Sims Republic (listed as a free site but you actually need a
paid subscription with their
Webhost, SimsHost.com, to download content. Also listed as a sub site)
Sims Connection (listed as free but with pay content)
Sapphire Sims (listed as free but with some pay download, at least one which is in contravention of copyright as it incorporates art by Jonathan Bowser into a mesh)
Sims 2 studio (listed as free but with a high proportion of pay content)
Sims 2 Creations (listed as free but with pay content)
The Real Sim
Tigersim Collections (not even a site, just a bunch of ad links designed for traffic revenue)
Vitasims (listed twice, once as sub, once as free. A subscription site)
Around the Sims 2 (listed as free but with "donation" content. Oh, and listed twice)
Tojah and Camilla's Sims 2
Mango Sims 2 (listed as free but with a large donations section)
Charmed Sims
Hans Christian Adersim (A SimsHost site -- and he is using trademarked Disney images to make content then charging for it)
Simply Similicious
DebbySim Decor
Wallsims (listed as free but actually part pay)
And that doesn't even start on the "forum" pages.
This is not an attack on those site owners, who may not be aware that what they are doing is a violation of the EA EULA for both the game itself and fansites. I am not saying these site owners intend to act against these terms, or that some of the sites don't offer files of extremely good quality, or that they don't work very hard to provide good custom content. But that is a moot point. Many of these sites also take Maxis meshes and use trade marked images (such as those from Disney, original non-public license art sites and others) to make their content, then charge for them. Fair enough if they were using someone else's intellectual property and offering the result for free, but it is commercial sites I am talking about.
Many are hosted on free webhosts, so they can't talk about needing donations to cover bandwidth costs, or even guarantee that the content people are paying for will be available to download once their free bandwidth is exceeded.
I am, however, wondering why, even if EA Games doesn't wish to quantify their rights re Sims 2 package files, there is not a warning on the page telling simmers that paysites are, in fact, a violation of these terms. Not saying anything is a tacit approval of these sites, some of which offer nothing more than recolours of Maxis meshes, and less informed sims 2 players may think that paying for these files is the "done thing".
For the record (so people don't misunderstand me), I do donate money to free, good sites like modthesims2 and insimenator.net
These, and other good sites such as parsimionoius.org don't charge for files in breach of the EA EULA, but do ask for donations (in the true meaning of the word) and are upfront about where those donations go, whether for bandwidth or "cake money" as parsimonious likes to say *smile*. So I am not some custom content whore who's just crying "whaaaa! I want my content for nothing!" I make my own and there is free stuff around that is much, much better than on some paysites.
I am just wondering, as an EA customer concerned about many who aren't overly active in the community and may not understand the ramifications of these sites, why EA tolerates sites that mislead the community in this way, by having some believe that this is appropriate.
I wonder if the Sims 2 community realise that this is unique in the gaming community: no other games community that I am aware of (eg Baldur's Gate, NWN, etc) makes people pay for custom content not created by the actual designer and manufacturer of the game, no matter how much time and effort is put into such content. The reason? The content makers do not actually own the final product. The Sims 2 is doubly unique in that some (I emphasise,
some) custom content makers do not seem to understand this.
And, uh, what happened to your "no exceptions" policy?
Thanks for listening. :-)
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PMBD
Author