Someone stole my house and Maxis favorited it :(

grod4L · January 2015

Ok, I am really miffed about this. I uploaded a house a while ago called "Casa Bella II" and maxis favorited it. While I am thankful, someone named EL-Rango-BR re-uploaded the exact house, and maxis favorited THAT house, and now it has a huge amount of favorites and downloads, moreso than my original house, and everyone thinks he created it. I haven't played the sims in a while but coming back to see that my creation which I worked incredibly hard on was stolen by someone else, and that they are getting all the credit for it, is very disheartening. Even worse, Maxis favorited it without even realizing that it was stolen, and that they had favorited the very same house by me months ago. I tried reporting the house but I don't know what else to do. *sigh*

BryonyRae · January 2015

I'm sorry this happened to you, grod. It's pretty much the worst case scenario we've talked about over on the Plagiarism thread. I do think you should escalate this particular case to @SimGuruBChick. I know that it is difficult for them to reverse a Maxis favorite, but it's not impossible - it has been done in the past. I think that a case like this, where the copy is surpassing the original in downloads/favorites, is distressing enough to warrant the action. I would recommend that you direct message her if she doesn't check in on this thread. The other thing you can do I see you've already done, which is to post on the copied lot and let people know. The user hasn't enabled comments on their page, or I'd recommend commenting there too.

Sometimes I feel like I spend too much time in the Gallery commenting "Original by ....." on these re-uploads, but I only wish I'd noticed this one when it came out, as often such comments can prevent this type of mistake from happening.

TheGreenLion · January 2015

Oh, I see what he did there. Flipped it around and posted a night shot so they wouldn't notice.

I would definitely message @SimGuruBChick (forgot the k Bry! ) about it, that's pretty sad.

Edit: Also threw a report at it, can't hurt.

LadyDaKare · January 2015

I agree sending this to SimsGuruBChick. You deserve the credit nit the plagiarist. If they can't remove the fav then ask for the plagiarist ' s build be deleted. It would delete from everyone who downloaded. They are of course innocent but it would eliminate the copy.

When I see plagiarist posting I do put in comments it's a copy because I know we all work hard on our original builds. To see them stolen and faved by Max is is like salt on an open wound.

grod4L · January 2015

I just messaged her, I really hope she is able to see it. It's depressing knowing that people are still downloading it today and thinking it was by EL-Rango-BR

MutantMonsterz · January 2015

poor you I want to report it and comment saying it was stolen but I cant seem to find it I typed in Casa Bella II but it comes up with things like Casa Romantica and Casa Real :'( all of us here should write in the comments saying that this she stole it I also sent her a message saying that she has to tell people that it wasn't actually her or she might 10% maybe get accused of copyright -MutantMonsterz o:)

TheGreenLion · January 2015

Well, we know it's by you grod. I didn't see it in the list today, though it might just be invisible for me because I sent a report. Being the weekend I dunno if anything will happen until next week but I didn't get any results from searching EL-Rango-BR. Maybe that was their only piece of content?

marcel21 · January 2015

I'm really not surprised by this! it happened all the time in the Sims 3 sadly $:\$

I am sorry to hear your the next victim of it

It really should be reported!

If you uploaded it first wouldn't it would show it was yours to begin with?

grod4L · January 2015

@marcel21 it should, but somehow he got around that. It doesn't show "Original by" anywhere, so it looks like it was his original creation.

BryonyRae · February 2015

It's exceedingly simple to get around, unfortunately. All the person has to do is "Save As" instead of "Overwrite" when they save the lot to their Library and choose Save New - it blows the Original By away.

TheGreenLion · February 2015

There was a bug that sometimes would tag a creation Original By: CSM_PersonaName. Pretty much the same method as above.

http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/793571/csm-personaname-glitch-bug-solved

I still find it appalling that even with an Original By tag, people still post to the uploader, "how did you make this?" or "wow, that must have taken a long time" as though they are oblivious to it not being theirs to begin with. We have discussed the possibility of Maxis somehow making the Original By tag persistent, not sure if there will be a result though.

grod4L · February 2015

I can't find the lot listed anymore and I think it's because I reported it. If anyone who hasn't reported it can find the lot can comment on it saying it's stolen, I'd greatly appreciate it. Last I checked it still received new comments every day. Haven't heard back from @SimGuruBChick yet, but I'm crossing my fingers. It seems silly but this really is quite an injustice.

BryonyRae · February 2015

Yes, when you report, it removes the lot from your view, which makes sense if it had offensive content or something, but not in a case like this (which is why I don't report). It is still out there, but people are still commenting on it on your behalf.

james64468 · February 2015

Sadly this is part of the problem with the online gallery. Hopefully EA and Maxis will work on issues like that. They need to prevent things like that from happening in the first place.

yanti68 · February 2015

Not again!

Why does this keep happening again and again?!! I am so sorry that your creation got stolen and worse it got favourited by Maxis! Only EA can stop this! Reuploading the same lot should be stopped! Surely they can program that in a patch so that this thing does not keep happening again and again? Going to report the lot!

lisamwitt · February 2015

I'm sorry. This happened with Sims 3 all the time. I stopped looking at the exchange altogether because of this, it just kept making me mad. I only look at lots that people have "advertised" in creative corner now and started putting mine there. For some reason people want the rec's. I don't remember seeing much thievery on the Sims 2 site. Lots just displayed the average number of stars they had out of 5, there wasn't recs or downloads. So unless a house was rated at 5 stars, there wasn't any reason to want to steal it.

lovelylyssia095 · February 2015

I'm so sorry your house was stolen

I was hoping by now there would have been a fix put in place to stop this.

grod4L · February 2015

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that I have been in contact with @SimGuruBChick, and she has helped me out by removing the plagiarised lot from the Maxis favorites page. Victory! Haha...but seriously, I am so happy there are people here that are willing to help in situations like this. Yes it sucks that it happened, but people make mistakes! Thank you SimGuruBChick for all your awesomeness. And to anyone else this has happened to or may happen to, know that there are people here who will help you out!

BryonyRae · February 2015

I'm very glad that this was taken care of for you, @grod4L! Three cheers for @SimGuruBChick! (*) (*) (*)

TheGreenLion · February 2015

Oh thank goodness, glad it's been resolved!

yanti68 · February 2015

I agree with Bry, three cheers for @SimGuruBChick ! Wonderful news! Glad that the stolen lot is not favourited anymore!

LadyDaKare · February 2015

grod4L wrote: »

I can't find the lot listed anymore and I think it's because I reported it. If anyone who hasn't reported it can find the lot can comment on it saying it's stolen, I'd greatly appreciate it. Last I checked it still received new comments every day. Haven't heard back from @SimGuruBChick yet, but I'm crossing my fingers. It seems silly but this really is quite an injustice.

I do believe you are correct, that once you report it is removed until further investigation. I am so pleased that @SimGuruBChick was able to help you out and delete that unknowing and mistaken Fav. She is great in helping us Simmers. It is unfortunate that the "Original By" is so easy to overwrite. It would be wonderful if Maxis could find a way to hard code that in so it can't be overwritten. That said, @TheGreenLion put if perfectly. People actually upload other people's lots with the "Original By" and other Simmers are all like - that's great, great job. All they did was hit a few keys.

EA owns all of our builds in reality. We all know this to be true. Yet, I think the reason why so many people responded to you @grod4L is because the ability to build and design our own creations and share them with the community and receive the recognition that we did an awesome job is what attracts many of us to this game in the first place. I would like to see if the developers can make it such that no load downloaded from the gallery can be reuploaded. That would solve this "Stealing" problem. For collaborations and contests there would need to be another tool available to make the lot "open".

@SimGuruBChick is there a way to recommend this to the developers? I'm certain many on this thread would be happy to beta test. Where would or how would this be best recommended? Is there somewhere else posting this would work better?

BryonyRae · February 2015

@LadyDaKare I wish that was the way it worked, but no. When you report something, it is then hidden from *you* but not from anyone else. Also, plagiarism is not an available category for reporting an item, so I tend to assume nothing is done about those cases. FYI, we have a thread dedicated to the discussion of re-uploads and the "Original By" bug, wherein people have posted their opinions and suggestions - would love to hear from you there.

Nhicks · February 2015

That sucks! I run across my stuff re-posted and I comment thanks for the re-upload. Really don't know what else to do....On the bright side at least you know MAXIS REALLY liked your build

Nhicks · February 2015

Am I missing something I only see the re-upload by EL-Rango-BR not yours....Is your ORIGIN ID the same as the Forum ID ?

Dazed_cass · February 2015

Hmm, the other day I noticed a friend had edited a sim and uploaded it to her gallery but it did give credit to the original maker of the sim?

The Sims Forums

Someone stole my house and Maxis favorited it :(

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