You took his forum post to advertise your forum with your avatar, your "signature", and on top of that, you watermarked his image with your forum URL. Don't you think you're making your forum come off as spammy and intrusive?
Wow, that's terrible. I checked it out once and saw right on the front a discussion about how and where to get a pirated CAS demo, which apparently they allow discussion of as they didn't do squat about it. But this, stealing from the community to make a quick buck from the poor hapless people who do fall for it...completely despicable.
I went over there during the Sims 3 forum hiatus and left fairly quickly. I am not going to get into the reasons why, however, seeing that bogus plea for a $500 donation surely factored into that decision.
Just a word of warning to anybody wanting to check out their mods/cc forum to see what they've stolen. Even visiting the site as a guest, you are greeted with thread preview images of naked Sims with all their "fun" parts clearly visible. It's just pixels, so I don't care, but others might.
I second this. If Maxis and EA are able to put the screws to this guy, they should. I've tried twice to post in the comments section under one of his $9.99 skins asking simply if the creators are getting any percentage of that download fee. Twice my post has been denied a place on his forum. That strongly suggests that creators are NOT getting any of the money, and he doesn't want attention brought to that fact. Then I saw that he is indeed stealing mods and charging people for them (moxiemason ring a bell?? yeah he's charging for that one, TOO!). This is reprehensible and goes against the principles that have made this community thrive for 14 years. If there's a lawyer out there reading this, GET TO WORK! The website is sims4forum(dot)com/ If anyone would like to assist in complaining to his webhost they can email netops(at)unifiedlayer(dot)com or abuse(at)unifiedlayer(dot)com and tell them what's going on. I did. Sites like TSR or modthesims which have been around for years have NEVER charged for their member submissions. What those sites (TSR I know) give you for your money is just easier access, no ads and ways to download in bulk. That sounds ok, because if someone wants to DL one at a time, they can still get all the content that was intended to be free, and impatient people can pay $3.50 and get a DL basket. Simple. Fair. Everybody wins.
Ok, given how EA games are pirated in the thousands, costing EA thousands of bucks while not being able to really do anything about it, does anyone think EA will go after a guy for 70 bucks? Will any mod creator sue over this? Given the costs, no.
And if dealing with law related issues was as simple as most people here seem to think, we wouldn't need trials, court rooms, judges, lawyers, etc. It's not "plain and simple". The law states certain things, the trial is there not for justice and the truth (if you believe it is, stop watching those unrealistic TV shows that claim so), it's there to find out how the law can be interpreted in that specific case.
Yeah, chances are the site will get taken down eventually. Maybe. Possibly. Who knows. I wouldn't bet on it though.
The mod owners who have had their stuff stolen can put in a request to his hosting company. It really is doubtful EA will do anything about the site, but the people whose time and creativity are being stolen can.
Yeah but TSR doesn't go around stealing free content to post on their website, people knowingly upload there and you don't have to pay for TSR, it's just good to do for bonus things.
Some of the mods on that site are free to download once you register as a member so I don't believe the site is charging for free mods available elsewhere. I think instead that site fees make other features of the site available and the over 18 mods only.
ok so i kind of opened this can of worms again ...... i apologize , however when i asked for my stuff to be removed i got back "it belongs to EA , do you work for EA " Nuff said really . As a whole , this will just make us more vigilant in regards to protecting our CC ... once custom Meshes come into play it'll become paramount to copyright and add TOU's to items .
There was a quite entertaining discussion on mts yesterday where the Sims4forum site owner also made an appearance (Not open for posting anymore, but the frontpage news post is open. Please try to use civilised language when voicing opinions =P).
@kiwisims4 – "it belongs to EA , do you work for EA?" – is this a verbatim quote actually?
ok so i kind of opened this can of worms again ...... i apologize , however when i asked for my stuff to be removed i got back "it belongs to EA , do you work for EA " Nuff said really . As a whole , this will just make us more vigilant in regards to protecting our CC ... once custom Meshes come into play it'll become paramount to copyright and add TOU's to items .
Wait ...." it belongs to EA" was their argument to sell it ? that puts them on even less stable legal footing to sell it if they are going to use that argument . How dumb can you get .....
I recently found one item of mine on there. Thankfully, in my text on MTS I put my tumblr link and all that on there and they copied that too. I don't like the idea of people uploading my stuff to sites I don't know about. It makes me feel... well, robbed.
Also, @kiwisims4 , he said he thought you were just a nobody that was claiming the content on his site which is why he was so rude to you. Obviously very unprofessional, even in his mannerisms on the MTS forum discussion is riddled with smiley faces and passive aggressive snarky comments.
I'm not too worried about my one piece but I do now have ToU on all my items which honestly shouldn't be necessary.
I'm a photographer and I often run into this sort of mentality. "If you put it online, then it's free for the taking!" Many of the chain emails that you see where people are sending out these "amazing" photos are stolen from friends of mine over at dA (Deviant Art). It can be very frustrating but you have to stand your ground. As long as you didn't post any "Creative Commons" licenses and stated that your items can not be reloaded? Then force them to remove it. By letting it remain, then it just means they will do it to others and those seeing it happen will follow suit.
You can also contact their web host. I browsed over their recently as a guest and was able to see all the Simmy bits and pieces. That is against the ToS of pretty much all hosts. That stuff has to be behind "lock and key" and some sites don't allow it at all.
That was a nice place to hang out while the trolling was at its worst here. I've gone over to delete my account but can't see how, so left a note on my profile page instead. Honestly, how hard is it really to ask permission to use someone's intellectual property?
EA CREATOR NETWORK MEMBER — Want to be notified of patches, new Broken Mods threads, and urgent Sims 4 news? Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/luthienrising.
He's apparently starting to remove uploads he C+Pd from those creators who complained and *also* got in touch with their host. So it would seem like that is the way to go if you want your stuff gone from there. See this thread, in particular the posts by FifthAce and Volvenom.
Direct links to their host's TOS and copyright claims policy:
(Note that only creators themselves can file a claim, or people who are explicitely authorised to do so on their behalf. Complaining to the host about other people's stuff being copied won't lead anywhere.)
Comments
All we can do is spread the word.
@SimGuruSemedi * Gotcha covered SweetieTreats.
Just a word of warning to anybody wanting to check out their mods/cc forum to see what they've stolen. Even visiting the site as a guest, you are greeted with thread preview images of naked Sims with all their "fun" parts clearly visible. It's just pixels, so I don't care, but others might.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8DSLofTJmY
If anyone would like to assist in complaining to his webhost they can email netops(at)unifiedlayer(dot)com or abuse(at)unifiedlayer(dot)com and tell them what's going on. I did.
Sites like TSR or modthesims which have been around for years have NEVER charged for their member submissions. What those sites (TSR I know) give you for your money is just easier access, no ads and ways to download in bulk. That sounds ok, because if someone wants to DL one at a time, they can still get all the content that was intended to be free, and impatient people can pay $3.50 and get a DL basket. Simple. Fair. Everybody wins.
And if dealing with law related issues was as simple as most people here seem to think, we wouldn't need trials, court rooms, judges, lawyers, etc. It's not "plain and simple". The law states certain things, the trial is there not for justice and the truth (if you believe it is, stop watching those unrealistic TV shows that claim so), it's there to find out how the law can be interpreted in that specific case.
Yeah, chances are the site will get taken down eventually. Maybe. Possibly. Who knows. I wouldn't bet on it though.
Yeah but TSR doesn't go around stealing free content to post on their website, people knowingly upload there and you don't have to pay for TSR, it's just good to do for bonus things.
Also, TSR wouldn't respond this way either.
KENNEL | SIKC | SIKC FORUMS
@kiwisims4 – "it belongs to EA , do you work for EA?" – is this a verbatim quote actually?
Wait ...." it belongs to EA" was their argument to sell it ? that puts them on even less stable legal footing to sell it if they are going to use that argument . How dumb can you get .....
Also, @kiwisims4 , he said he thought you were just a nobody that was claiming the content on his site which is why he was so rude to you. Obviously very unprofessional, even in his mannerisms on the MTS forum discussion is riddled with smiley faces and passive aggressive snarky comments.
I'm not too worried about my one piece but I do now have ToU on all my items which honestly shouldn't be necessary.
I'm a photographer and I often run into this sort of mentality. "If you put it online, then it's free for the taking!" Many of the chain emails that you see where people are sending out these "amazing" photos are stolen from friends of mine over at dA (Deviant Art). It can be very frustrating but you have to stand your ground. As long as you didn't post any "Creative Commons" licenses and stated that your items can not be reloaded? Then force them to remove it. By letting it remain, then it just means they will do it to others and those seeing it happen will follow suit.
You can also contact their web host. I browsed over their recently as a guest and was able to see all the Simmy bits and pieces. That is against the ToS of pretty much all hosts. That stuff has to be behind "lock and key" and some sites don't allow it at all.
Direct links to their host's TOS and copyright claims policy:
http://www.bluehost.com/terms
http://www.bluehost.com/acceptable-use-policy
http://www.bluehost.com/copyright-claims-policy
(Note that only creators themselves can file a claim, or people who are explicitely authorised to do so on their behalf. Complaining to the host about other people's stuff being copied won't lead anywhere.)