EA Doesn't Stop Them, So it must be ok.

[ChamiMinds]

::shakes head:: I'm having a debate with a few friends on another board about paysites being evil and I even directed them over here! But here's the latest bit of agrument in favor of them especially TSR. They love TSR.. It makes me get sick inside but anyway here's the last few back and forths.
Edited Post to put Link here, my apoligies for forgetting!
http://sims2rus.net/sims2rusforum/index.php?topic=108.0
One member Lita said:

It may be against the EA eula but EA actively support pay sites such as TSR, they even featured them in a fansite interview. The fact is EA are cashing in on this themselves, which is why they now produce stuff packs. In the days of the original Sims, EA gave away a free download every week. They dont do that now, and im sure they cut down the content in expansion packs in order to bulk out the stuff packs

The thing that makes Sims2 such a great game is the very talented modding community, and EA are very well aware of this, so if they take action against paysites they will be shooting themselves in the foot.

Personally I do believe that TSR gives fantastic value for money, I think you can sign up for $9 and just go on a downloading spree, a stuff pack would cost at least that and only give you 125 items. For $9 at TSR you could have thousands of items made to a much higher quality that anythign EA will give you. And you get to pick and choose the stuff you want. The clothes are fantastic, never mind anything else there

Have you seen the wonderful realistic eyes you can get for your sims? and the amazing hair? these 2 things alone have made a huge difference to the way our sims look. EA simply wouldnt pay to employ the kind of artists that are required to make the great content we see on sites like TSR. But this stuff takes time to make and requires a high level of skill.

All credit to Modthesims2 for staying free and TSR have free stuff too, as do many of the other paysites, and lets face it, you dont need to join a paysite to enjoy the game.

Barb says:

I have to admit that I've been tempted to pay, and if the right site came along, I probably would.
Just this morning, I found out that the aquarium from the monster house is on the TSR, and am thinking about it right now.  There are just some things that are WORTH paying for ...

Chami (me! hehe) says:

I'm not saying that there is no time or talent that goes into these objects. Hell I know that as I dabble in it myself. But the truth of the matter is that it's not right to charge for something that was not yours in the first place. These objects, eyes, hair, clothes are all based of the content MAXIS made.

Let's say I have a book that someone else wrote, I take the book and change the cover with a picture I drew myself putting my name on it. Now inside I take out some pages and re-write them and replace them. Put it all together in new wrapping ect. This whole process takes me a few days to finish and it looks really great perhaps even better than the orginal. Can I then take it and ask people to pay me for it? Then I even get others to pay for that same book? Not even a different one?

That is exactly what paysites are doing! I know that EA has done this but again it is their product so they can do that. It's theirs they made the stuff in the first place. And yes they give you less for your money than TSR does because well again it's theirs it isn't TSR's.

And yes I know, I know, If I don't like it I don't have to pay ect ect. And I don't. But I hate it when others try to claim it as their own when it's not.

Barb says:

If the original author - EA in this case - isn't complaining, they are allowing it by not stopping it.  Lita is right, EA lets it go on because it is good for them too.  If they don't seem to care, then it simply comes down to personal preference on whether to pay or not, and is not longer an issue of having the legal right to charge.
On a side note, I did go ahead and subcribe to TSR - which makes me either a hypocrite or a flip-flopper, but I just couldn't turn down the things I want from the site.

Damn she is stupid!
Onward!
Lita says:

The book metaphor is very good Chami, but it doesnt work because the publishers woudlnt let you do it, whereas EA do let people do it, eula or no eula.

I paint with watercolors and acrylics and sometimes I sell my pictures on Ebay. I dont own the copyright in the canvas and I dont own the copyright in the paints, but I do consider that I own the copyright in the actual combined result which is the picture, and I charge people for it. This metaphor doesnt quite fit either I know, but when I sell a picture, Im not selling a canvas and a portion of paint, im selling my own artistic endeavour and people are paying for the visual aspect of it, not because its an 8x10 Cotterman canvas with a smattering of Windor & Newtons finest. Should I give away the picture because I didnt make the canvas and the paint myself?

In any case Im not really taking sides in this issue, Im just trying to present a balanced view. Also it is a very interesting debate and everyone should be encouraged to state their opinion (if they have one) because if they dont then we only hear one side of the story.

But there is one thing that seriously bothers me about this campaign to destroy paysites, and it smacks of something nasty.

This is JM Pescado's Mission Statement on the Paysitesmustbedestroyed website

Firstly, we hate paysites. Are you a paysite owner? Well, we hate you, too.
We do it because it will piss you off. Yes, we are assholes. Tough.
Besides, you're only charging for bandwidth, right?
Isn't it so nice of us to contribute our $100/yr to alleviate your bandwidth load?
No? It pisses you off? Great! And now you know why we do this.

Nothing about eula's or copyright issues, no sensible argument against paysites, no proper critisism, just 'We hate you & We do it because it will piss you off'.

The guy is acting like a thug and a bully.

Sure, the Eula is stated on the first page of the site and the relevant bits are nicely highlighted so that we know what it is that we are supposed to be so incensed about, but the fact remains that no sensible argument, other than the Eula issue, has been put forward. My belief is that the Eula issue is for EAGames to resolve, not JM Pescado.

Lets also not overlook the fact that JM Pescado's site Moreawesomethanyou was also once a paysite. Did he see the light? or was he just incensed that other sites were making more money than he was. Judging from the tone of his mission statement, I know what I am inclined to believe.

There may be a good and strong moral argument against paysites out there, but this isnt it.

And here the stupid newest TSR payer said she agreed fully with her.

And my last reply:

First I want to say thanks to Lita for allowing this debate to continue on here as I've been on other boards that squash any type of debates. Not saying I love debates but on some things it adds to discussion. ::smiles::
Also thanks for showing your opinions everyone!

Now back to topic:
Awh Barb you subscribed to TSR! Did you have to? hehe. You should have gone to the PaysitesMustBeDestroyed link in my sig like I suggested a few days ago, then you could have gotten all you wanted for free! ::Shakes head sadly::

Now just because EA doesn't do anything about it does not make it ok. It's like two guys writing down an agreement that they won't hit each other. Well guy A decides to hit guy B and guy B doesn't stop guy A. Not eceactly ok to continue hitting guy B. I know a bit over dramatic but it is what comes to mind! haha. Both sides should hold up to their agreement.

Lita I know what you were saying with the painting train of thought. Difference being those things you are using were made for that purpose whereas the game was meant to be played not really for the files to be messed around with and changed. It just so happened that people found a way and got interested in it and so it latter became apart of it. Hence the lines in the EULA.

For Pescado's Mission Statement.. that's just his sense of humor from what I've seen in his posts and that's Pescado for you. Does it make it nice? no. But hey they do highlight the parts of the EULA that explains the paysite issue and that IS the argument and believe it should be followed by both parties.
Also as far as I know JM Pescado's site has never been pay. He has it look that way on the front page of his site because that's his sense of humor. And I have to say I find it pretty funny! Haha. He's never charged though for any file of his what so ever.

Oh and should anyone want to unsubscribe to TSR (cause they really are horrible but that's like it's own new topic) I found some helpful hints from a
PaysitesMustBeDestroyed forum member:
Quote
How to Unsubscribe from TSR
With all this TSR stuff, you shouldn't need to have a sub again, unless you're some kind of masochist. TSR makes it hard for you to unsubscribe, because they are a stinking evil paysite. If you have a 2-month recurring sub, what you need to do is to go into your Paypal account and manually cancel your sub. (With Paypal, you can also filter your transactions by subscriptions, which would also bring up TSR) Find the receipt for payment from TSR (usually it's Jan Isaacson) and cancel recurring subscription. That is the most effective way to cancel. Don't let them take any more money from you!

Other notes:
- Juttaponath in the Booty is organized by page number in the Sets category. If you go to her mini-site and filter by all Set, you should come up with around 21 pages if you set view to 15 sets per page. Since Jutta is stupid about not naming 100 of her sets "Adult Silk Corset Underwear" or some shit, I've put it all by page number instead. I will work on something similar with Sims2sisters at some point.

- Along with full sets, I'll be adding single meshes by FAs and RAs to their folders, because some creators like Lianaa, Sophel21 etc require meshes from other creators. This should solve that whole ridiculous "pay mesh, free colour" nonsense they have at TSR too. I have not packaged them together with the sets, so you would need to search for the meshes yourself. Razz Sorry. Hey, TSR makes you do it, too!

Any comments or things I've left out? Besides of course they are stupid because I am trying to be civil and nice in this debate.. boy is it tough with them sometimes though!! That's why I had to post it here. So sorry for being another whiner! Haha. ::Grins::

[Soup Parrot]

:roll: Chami, I see various attitudes

I don't care

Oh its your choice to buy so dont complain

Maxis doesnt enforce it must be ok

Sometime we have to stop and realize that many people we are posting with may be younger than us, quite possibly under 18. They don't know better, they don't know different, they have been bassically conditioned that this is the norm. Even Adults.

I have seen several threads where people will tell us bits and pieces of a discussion but no links so we can join in the debate. It be nice to have a link.

[iamjbird]

i'm 15 but yea.. nothing bully about this site. they shouldn't take it personal

[tIIsuggas]

Chami, I would like a link too.

[Pescado]

i'm 15 but yea.. nothing bully about this site. they shouldn't take it personal

There is no 15. This is still 12.

You are hereby officially warned for failing to convincingly pretend to be older than 12.

[tIIsuggas]

I didn't want to start a new thread, just in case the link I give gets locked.

Please anyone feel free to join in, it appears, that most on this forum aren't well informed.

We need to be civil, as it is the official uk Sims2 site.

[Quorneater]

Bah!  I can't log into that site.  T2, since the point about Paypal being a secure way of paying has been raised in that thread, you could take the opportunity to point out that Paypal does release your actual home address to the sites you send money to, and that there have been instances of paysite owners publishing subscribers' addresses.  That should put a few people off paying for paysites!

[tIIsuggas]

To make a new account at the UK forum, click register, it takes you to EA reg page, make a new account, then go back to the forum, and log in.  It is different from the BBS as you don't need games registered to join in the forum.

Bah!  I can't log into that site.  T2, since the point about Paypal being a secure way of paying has been raised in that thread, you could take the opportunity to point out that Paypal does release your actual home address to the sites you send money to, and that there have been instances of paysite owners publishing subscribers' addresses.  That should put a few people off paying for paysites!

I don't know, but I think the UK site is independant from the US site.  Edit, skip that, you need to log in with your bbs account details.  http://thesims2.co.uk/pages.view_frontpage.asp  then click on forum.

Thanks for reminding me about the paypal scandals, I will edit my post.

Any chance of a reminder as to which paysites were sharing personal info?

[Soup Parrot]

if you are registered in the EA system no need to make a new account, just sign in as normal. :lol:  Unless you want to be covert

[Surelyfunke]

Rose Sims shared personal info with TSR, resulting in a couple of bans. Birgit also collected and shared Bluesoup's personal info. Other paysite owners were involved, but not sure how widespread the sharing of info went with regards to them.

[tIIsuggas]

Thanks, I will go and edit my post again.

Keep em coming.

[wicked_one]

paypal only gives the site owner your address if the site owner tells them they want your address with your payment/donation--for shipping purposes....or if the site owner didnt realize that they have more options on the donation/sub button that says "no shipping address required"
Paypal shouldnt have it set to "shipping address required" by default (I doubt they'll change that anytime soon), but it's up to the site owner to know their paypal options before putting the button on their site

[BlueSoup]

I found a way around that shipping address thing, regardless of how the site has it set.

[iamjbird]

i'm 15 but yea.. nothing bully about this site. they shouldn't take it personal

There is no 15. This is still 12.

You are hereby officially warned for failing to convincingly pretend to be older than 12.

my sweet 16 is in 2 months..  :?

[Pescado]

There is no 16. That is also still 12. You will remain 12 until you are properly 18. This is your final warning. Further transgressions will result in banning.