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#paywallssuck
mack3030 · 2 years
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Why do I feel this applies to a lot of the shit going on in the CC community lately?
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mack3030 · 2 years
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“I can’t post my cc on patreon directly because my files are too huge!”
Well I can’t give you my money because my belief in your bullshit statement is too huge.
20 bucks will get you 2 terabytes of google storage on drive and you’re telling me you can’t cough that up to make your patrons feel safe?
Careful. Your pants are smoking.
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mack3030 · 2 years
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Allow me to make it super easy to understand why you can’t paywall cc forever…TO THE SKETCHBOOK!
(And it only will take like 5 mins of your time)
youtube
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mack3030 · 2 years
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Pro tip: If you don’t wanna look like a dick when defending yourself as a creator, perhaps don’t ignore the legitimate pain and anxiety of your victims and the community by launching into how unfair this is and defending yourself while not mentioning anything about how sorry you are for them.
Because the people who don’t do this are people who actually think about others first.
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mack3030 · 3 years
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I never thought I’d support piracy...
But frankly, I love how they really give a big middle finger to those who think they can violate EA’s TOU and the community’s trust and giving spirit towards them. 
Here’s the deal, if you are going to say that “artists” deserve to be paid as an excuse to justify paywalls, then you have a ton of people to pay royalties for all the CC you put behind paywalls. Let’s go through them shall we:  - EA’s team of creatives:  We know by how well EA’s f***’d the public over that they have to be doing it partly to their creative employees. If you say you want artists to be paid, why are you using their content, meshes, code, heck, the whole GAME they designed and worked hard on as a “cash cow” for you to hold CC hostage?  - The creators of TSR creator and the Sims 4 Studio.  These tools are both offered to the community for free. TSR at least allows you to support them by doing a membership on their site, but I was very hard pressed to find ANY sort of patreon, ko-fi, or other sort of donation tool for the S4S folks. Considering MOST if not all sims modders use their tools for batch fixes, package edits, and other things, they deserve some cash too.  - Any company/creator whose 3D model you used, ripped, or borrowed parts of.  Because this is a common problem for many “exclusive” CC creators. So if you bought part or all of your mesh somewhere else, that person deserves a cut of your profits as well.  - Any company whose brand you used to advertise your makeup, clothing, or furnishings for the sims. Because if you are selling copies of their brand, even for a video game, you’re not using it with their consent. Artists, designers, and other creatives made those products, not intending for you to rip it off, put it in a video game, and then charge people for it.  (This is much more understandable if you are someone who is releasing this content for free and just charging for early access as a donation to the creator. But to literally hold your version of a certain makeup brand, or an IKEA stool HOSTAGE behind a paywall to charge more is nuts and is obviously trying to “profit” off of that trademarked brand.)  - Any person whose free guides, advice, or help taught you how to edit, create, or manipulate meshes, textures, or to create CC.  After all, these people helped you get started, teaching you (for free) how to make content for the community. Surely they deserve something for the fact that they gave up a very precious commodity (time) to teach you.  ---------------------- You see the insanity of this? This community has long had the custom of being a sharing and caring community, as evidenced by people like the creators of S4S who literally create a program the entire community and release daily updates for FREE. 
You really wanna stop the “share and share alike” policy that so many creators have used to help make this community awesome, really?  And before y’all go off onto the “I treat this like a job” bull, let’s get one thing straight.  THIS. IS. NOT. A. JOB.  Nor, frankly, should it be. In the words of @precious-sims​:  All im gonna say is, the sims 4 and all the things surrounding it is a hobby, not a job. Your life should not surround itself around making content for the sims 4. Why would you rely on a market so shaky and short lived to make most of your profits when in a flash the rug could be swept right under you. Its financially irresponsible. 
Preach girl. Preach. Because here’s the thing y’all. Even though right now EA seems to be sitting on its butt when it comes to violations of it’s terms, things could change. For a long time, Nintendo did nothing to stop people from sharing and bootlegging amiibo files, until one day *poof* it wasn’t okay. All it will take is ONE person high enough on EA’s team to say “We wanna go after these people who violate this” to make a ton of people’s day really bad. 
And even if “big bad EA” doesn’t ever step in, you have a right to the community to allow us to CHOOSE to support you.  Because, not all of us can afford to pay month after month of jacked up prices for “exclusive” cc due to job situations, medical issues, the pandemic, or other expenses.  “Then don’t pay for it, you whining babies! You shouldn’t expect us to create stuff for you for free! There’s plenty of other free CC out there!”  But we don’t. We don’t expect you to create stuff for free. But we do expect you to eventually release it for free AFTER an early access period so that those of us who CURRENTLY cannot pay, can get a break. Many people love to support creators, but when you take away the choice of people and lock everything you’ve ever made behind paywalls, it gets a little insane. And to be honest, we don’t expect you to make CC. It’s a hobby. You’re lucky it’s actually one you’re allowed to get paid for and people want to pay for. But when you refuse to play by the rules, and violate copyright to do so, it’s not a very good look on you. It’s not that we don’t want to pay, it’s that some of us cannot right now, and some of us really don’t like that you’re putting the work of OTHER people behind your “exclusive” paywalls. (/cough secondlife and imvu /cough)  And, as I’ve said before:  If you cannot follow EA’s simple (and very REASONABLE) terms, how in the world are we to expect you to follow any other TOU out there? 
That’s why we’re frustrated. We’re done with you guys preaching about how you want creators to be respected when you cannot even respect the terms asked by the darn creators of the game.  We’re sick of you following EA’s business model and locking everything away until we pay the steep toll price, regardless of the quality of what we get, or if we even **like it** or **use it** once we’ve paid for it. (At least with EA we can...you know, have somewhat of a preview beyond pictures on a patreon...)  And yes, there are other creators. But let’s be real, every creator is different, and has a different style, talent, specialty, etc. We may be able to use OTHER content, but it won’t be YOUR special kind of content that you bring to the community.  Let us CHOOSE to support you. Let us support you because you make great content and you follow the rules and go about it the right way.  Because in the end, the more you play unfairly with the community, the more pirates will force your hand. Because ironically, they have a stronger sense of ethics when it comes to the community than y’all do. And no amount of complaints will stop them either, because they really don’t care about your hurt feelings when you’ve been bleeding the community dry. Just saying. /shrug
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mack3030 · 2 years
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Okay so I just gotta...*snickers*
So I got "recommended" a new CC creators thanks to tumblr's tag system. And this person is hitting the ground running with the paywall red flags.... 🚩 Content is way too HQ/alpha for the sims 🚩 Mentions a "brand" or does something that sounds like they're trying to act like a fashion designer or retailer when they're literally selling pixels. 🚩 Cross promotes or shares content from paywalling creators who are known converters/thieves. 🚩 Content involves "luxury" items or brands to make people feel rich but don't always make the most sense. Case in point....
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This is supposed to be a tub. I have many questions about this picture and item: 1. Where is the faucet? Do they fill the tub with buckets of water? 2. How does the tub drain? 3. How the HELL does someone get in this thing? 4. How the HELL did the movers get something so obviously heavy/bulky/massive into a highrise sims apartment? 5. Why is the creator calling this a rose bath when the flower petals look more like a pansy or other flower? 6. What sort of person decides "ya know what, I have tons of money to throw around, you know what I want? A BIG ASS GIANT GOLDEN FLOWER TUB!" 7. Is this thing even comfortable to sit in? It looks like it'd be hell on your backside. ----------------------------------- Now obviously I'm not gonna tell you who made it because I'd prefer to not reward them for something that I suspect is probably not even their work to begin with. {It literally looks like they just took a flower model off the web, textured it and somehow made it work as a tub in the game? What the fuck?} But I just had to share as this makes ZERO damn sense and gave me quite a chuckle. What's even more ironic? That their little bit of "free" content that they hand out to hook people into paying for their exclusives they have a rule that people can't put it behind paywalls. Yet they have exclusive content of their own behind paywalls, that they also request not be behind paywalls.
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You can't make this shit up y'all. 😂😂😂
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mack3030 · 3 years
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Things the Sims 4 Community Can Do About Paywalls...A Post...
[This is going to be a bit long, so you may want to save it and read it when you have time, or just...you know, buckle in.]
I thought I would ring in the new year by talking about something that I feel we as a community need to finally decide on. (It’s been debated since 2017 or so, and it’s now 2021...) I’d like, if possible, to try to suggest some real solutions and choices that we can make that will hopefully create a better and more honest community out of all of us.  Now I would like to start by making some postulates. In geometry, postulates are facts that do not need proven with a mathematical proof. They are assumed to be true. Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers would call these “Self-Evident Truths”. I would like to use these as a bit of a basis for my arguments. 
Truth: The Sims 4 has been enough of a cash cow for EA.  If you buy the base game ($40) plus all expansion packs (40 each x 10) + all game packs (20 each x 9) + all stuff packs (10 each x 17) you would come to a total of seven hundred and 90 dollars ($790) plus tax. This is of course, without sales, bundling, etc, which many people DO take advantage of, but STILL. That is a TON of money for EA’s pockets.  EA makes a majority of its money on the fact that the Sims 4 is an “incomplete game”. It “completes” the game further and further by adding more “expansions” to the game to the point that it seems almost useless to buy the base game alone without adding to it. 
Even with sales and other things, it’s easy to spend over $500 dollars on the sims 4 game + expansions. Still a lot of cash for a game that is years old. This is just money that is spent on the game that goes to EA. This does not account for:  * Money spent to buy a new computer because your old one wouldn’t run the sims.  * Money spent supporting CC artists who have donations open or early access.  * Money spent on access to sites that have ads/paywalls/exclusive sims 4 CC such as Leosims, etc. (Which are the problem, frankly)
We should be able to respect the fact that a majority of us paid a hefty amount for this game. It is unfair, and frankly greedy to REQUIRE people to pay MORE just to unlock or gain access to specific user created content. 
I am not talking about a VOLUNTARY support or donation because they like what you offer. I am talking about FORCING people to pay if they want to ever be able to use the CC or mod you offer. 
Now, the typical defense for this is “Well, I’m an artist! I spend time/effort/etc working hard on these meshes, the code, etc to make this content!”  Which leads me to point #2. 
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Truth: Mods, CC, and other content for the Sims 4 are useless without the game. Once they are created/uploaded to the game, all copyright to those objects IMMEDIATELY transfers to EA. 
I teach art in a Missouri public school. Our state standards dictate that when art students are in middle school grades, they have to learn about copyright, fair use, and creative commons. While I am not a copyright lawyer, I have had to learn enough about this subject to teach it. So allow me to break down a few facts about copyright: 
First, when ya make it, ya own it. There’s not a process to apply for a copyright. The moment you create something that is 100% your own work, you hold the copyright to it. 
Second, when you make something that is created based off of or USING someone else’s intellectual property as a reference or resource it is a fan creation. In art, we call this “fanart”. It is not 100% your own work. Someone else’s intellectual property is involved. 
Fan creations always have tread a very thin and shadowy line when it comes to different companies and the legality of them. You can easily search google for various articles explaining it, but to summarize it in a short method: 
Most companies do not actively go after those who create fan creations unless they are making profits that could instead be going to the creators of the intellectual property. If the fan creation is discovered to be making profits and/or taking the intellectual property in a direction the creator does not approve of, they have legal options to pursue (court, cease and desist letters, etc). 
Third, Copyright can be transferred from person to person. In most cases this is done through a written document that both parties sign, however there IS an exception to this that EA uses to allow itself to transfer your copyrights to your content to them: 
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EA’s agreement with you is non-exclusive, meaning that the moment you hit “agree” on the sims 4 terms and conditions, you have handed over your rights to any CC you create for the game. 
If you want to maintain full creative rights over the mesh/mods/etc you make then, you have to not make that content for the sims 4 and make your own platform to host it on. This is way easier said than done. 
Truth: There have been various examples in the past of CC creators who have stolen meshes, bases, bits/pieces of work, or “inspiration” for CC from other sites/companies, who have been called on it publicly. 
The most recent event concerning this was drama concerning itsbrandysims and their use of meshes from imvu/secondlife (you can see my opinion on the subject HERE), but there have been other documented cases. Leosims, for example, has been listed as an example of someone taking meshes from secondlife creators and reuploading them (when it was told to me, I was shown THIS thread as evidence). Another well known creator was accused by a former sims 4 cc creator (who now makes content from second life), and was called out in THIS post in 2019. 
The horrible part of this? Many of these creators are charging people (often at not so great rates as well), for STOLEN content. Content they don’t even own, that they ripped from another place. This should not be accepted by a community that loves a game as much as the Sims 4 community.  Truth: EA has provided a way for people to make money while not hiding content behind paywalls entirely, and the INTENT of this was to OFFSET COSTS.  Almost every post about content locked behind paywalls features this post found on the Sims Forum from 2017. In it, SimGuruDrake, who was the community manager at the time (she has since left the Sims 4 team for another job).  Most of you who have seen this discussion topic before know this post by heart, but I’d like to highlight one important aspect of it: 
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One thing that is always important about communication is the intent behind it. The intent for people to be allowed to make patreons and allow early access wasn’t so people could just make money for themselves, the idea was to offset costs to buy programs to make the content. For example, a yearly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud (which has photoshop, illustrator, etc) costs a couple hundred dollars US a year. If someone was using photoshop to help them create their CC in addition to blender or other free programs, EA/Maxis wanted to allow the creator to not have to pay for making the CC out of pocket.  Can EA/Maxis control what people spend the money they make off of patreon on? No. But it should be noted that the intent of this action was to help people pay for supplies for their hobby more than to make a business out of it. 
Onto the next truth! Truth: There is an image that disputes this post above, however the authenticity of it and timing of it are very disputed. 
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This image is often thrown around by people who lock content behind paywalls, but I would like to take a second and try to provide an honest assessment of it.  First of all, I have a bit of a problem with the fact that the original person who “messaged” SimGuruDrake this question has not been identified. This image was not posted on the tumblr of a CC creator who claimed “Hey I reached out to a sims guru and this is the answer I got!” The main pages that have this image are either tweets from CC creators using it to defend their stance on paywalls (ex: here), or tumblrs/tweets “debunking it” (ex: here, here).  I even reverse image searched this image using google, and another platform and could not figure out where this originated from. Of course, I’m not an expert, but...still. 
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The fact that the origin of this picture is unknown casts doubt on it. If it were a well known CC maker who is known for being honest, that’s one thing. But the fact that we don’t exactly know where it came from is suspicious. Because frankly, anyone with some decent editing ability could photoshop this. 
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Here’s my imperfect edit, but I’m just a self-taught graphics nerd and I am not as dedicated at faking screenshots as some. (And the crap photo quality didn’t help.) Another common issue is that at the supposed “time” that this question was being asked, some state that SimsGuruDrake had already left the Sims 4 team. I will admit, this photo is within the correct timeline, as SimsGuruDrake did not officially depart the sims 4 team until February 2018. (There is a post on the sims forums that has a timestamp that confirms this.) But, if you were in the process of leaving your job within the next month (as a two week/30 day notice is common when leaving a job), would you REALLY be answering questions in DMs on twitter, or be focusing on packing up, and training your successor?  The last thing that really makes me doubt the validity of this picture is the fact that it’s not really easy to message the sims gurus on Twitter. This appears to be twitter from the screenshot (although there are some things that are a little out of place from the current UI): But when I attempt to direct message a sims guru I get this message: 
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I even tried seeing if I could reach out via DM to Drake herself, (who now posts under a different twitter) to see if it was possible: 
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Could the policies have changed since 2018? Possibly, but I feel that opening up direct messages is just asking for Sims 4 team members to get angry messages, so this could very well be a long running EA policy. I have also reached out to her via a twitter tag (as of 1/2/21), and will update y’all if I get a reply:
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Okay, so now that we’ve gone through all of this, let’s talk about the last truth that’s really important:  Truth: Putting content behind paywalls has generally been considered disgusting by many in the sims 4 community, and TAKES AWAY the choice of people to support CC creators they love/appreciate WILLINGLY.  A few notable posts sharing the disgust with this practice can be found: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE). And these are just what I can find from a simple precursory search.
Okay, Brainiac. So what can we do to solve this problem? 
Well, there’s a few methods we can employ, and sadly, it’s going to take a bit of a commitment and concentrated effort from the community. 
Step #1: Make the COMMUNITY the VICTIM instead of EA. 
Now when I say this, I don’t mean we’re actually victims, but mean that instead of constantly saying things like “WHEN YOU DO THIS YOU VIOLATE EA’S TOU!”, thus making EA the “victim” of the crime. We change the dialog to saying “When you lock stuff behind paywalls, you cheat the sims 4 community and disrespect their choice to support you or not.”  Because let’s be honest. Maxis/EA really doesn’t give much of a care about if people aren’t following this rule. You can report people to the team, but as far as most people have seen, it doesn’t get anywhere. But if we make it where the community is the party being “wronged” it is much harder for those who have paywalls to not be scared. Because the community, in the end, has to be with them.  DepthofPixels had a really amazing post about this HERE. 
Step 2: Decide to not support anyone who puts their content behind exclusive paywalls and do not hesitate to spread the word about why you choose not to do so. 
By that, I mean
not paying any patreon accounts that don’t offer either their content 100% for free, or offer early access.
And sharing about why you choose to do that on your social media. Something I might suggest would be to make it a bit personal and share something like:
Instead of spending $15 a month to get exclusive content from Leosims (or any other patreon/paywall creator here) I’m spending that $15 supporting creator x, creator y, and creator z, who don’t put their work behind paywalls! 
Link their patrons, share why you like their content, and why you take the stance to make the community better. Make it a positive thing, praising the people who are doing RIGHT by the community. 
Yes, you may not get their content for a while (although there are some different places (
x
,
x
) to find them *cough*. But in the end, is it worth supporting someone’s content when they’re treating the community badly? 
Step 3: Report creators who actively steal content from IMVU/secondlife to those respective companies, and all others to EA. (Even though nothing may happen.)
Here’s the deal. When people steal from either of those sites, they are infringing on someone’s copyright, as well as Imvu/secondlife’s copyright as well. It’s not okay, and they should be held accountable for it. Here’s the LINK for submitting a ticket to Secondlife. I haven’t been able to find one for IMVU, but maybe someone else will find one. Let those companies know and allow them to handle those specific creators.  As to the other creators, EA may not handle them at the moment. But IF (and this is a wishful thinking “if”) there were suddenly a flood of messages about certain creators...? I think they might have to pay attention to some of those messages. There is an official report form, but it might even be worth tweeting to SleddingGuruFrost, who is the current community manager asking about their stance on paywalls.  And last but not least: 
Step 4: Make sure that those who are doing the right thing and not putting their work behind paywalls feel appreciated. Show them some love via a tumblr ask, or by tagging them on twitter, or by going up a tier on their patreon (or pledging for the first time). Celebrate these heroes who are creating content and not forcing it on us. 
Us asking for people to give us a choice to support them isn’t being greedy, or disrespecting their time. We just want transparency, and respect from those who create content for the game we love so much versus them treating us like we’re just a source of income. I know it might seem a bit hard to do this for some of you, and for some it may seem like I’m preaching to the choir, but we have to decide where we stand on this issue and stop letting those who abuse this system keep doing it. We can make a difference if we decide as a COMMUNITY to work together.
With commitment,  ~Sunny
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mack3030 · 3 years
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Nothing ruins my excitement for good custom content more.
Just follow the damn EULA y’all.
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mack3030 · 3 years
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so plasticsimz just called me dramatic on her instagram story because i said “this isn’t about paywalls anymore, this is about people’s safety”
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So that’s how you’re gonna respond to patreon reviewing your account, Plasticsimz? Okay.
1) You were called out for trying to pay others to doxx real people just because you were upset over the sims.
2) You were also called out for being classist as fuck when apologizing. An apology that not only came off fake, but was insulting to poor people. And (based on the comments on my post) you didn’t even mean.
3) Your patreon was in violation because you’re under 18 and you didn’t have a parental permission form. You admitted as such yourself on your reply to my post. People reported you for it. 🤷🏻‍♀️
4) You have just put yourself in even MORE hot water by trying to send people here to harrass me. See below:
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Anyway, I’m going to leave it at that since this “smelly teacher” {as you and your friends called me on your public Instagram story} (who is showered and ready for work at 6 am in the morning) has to get ready to work.
Toodles!
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mack3030 · 3 years
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Just gonna drop a little meme...
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mack3030 · 3 years
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you will soon learn your lesson :)
You mean the fact that the sock puppet accounts doxxed me and got a ton of spam emails sent to my work email? Okay then. No biggie. Sent an email to the IT guy at the school since I’m on the road. Told him about the doxxing and threats. He’s in the loop. He can help deal with that shit.
Or are you talking about the people earlier today making anon comments about my teeth of all things? Like I’m 4’10, why don’t you just make a short joke and get on with it?
I have been doxxed before. Not scared. Not backing down. Sorry. Find someone else to bother and send hate to. 🤷🏻‍♀️ All you guys did was literally prove my points.
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mack3030 · 3 years
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so simmerkate decided to paywall a nintendo switch lite set & @bill-l-s4cc decided to recreate it for FREE! & it’s functional just like simmerkate’s! can we please give them some recognition ?:)
Absolutely! What a great way to fight against paywalls too! And if people get mad about it, they recreated it from scratch and it wasn’t stolen so...
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mack3030 · 3 years
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The amount of ego I see from some cc creators who try to paywall their content is astounding. 🤣😂
Like just because you feel the need to charge everyone for your pixelated content we now have to consider you part of some elite group? Get out of here. 😂😂😂
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mack3030 · 3 years
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I’m not in this for the free content. I’m in this fight to have a fair and ethical community where the rights of artists are respected, and the community is supportive because they choose to be.
I’m fine paying for cc and content, as long as the people making it are respecting the copyrights of EA and other creators. Most paywall creators do NOT do both of these things.
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mack3030 · 3 years
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It’s happened before, and still happens. Here’s the most recent evidence. 😂😂😂
There’s plenty of great early access creators you can support with the money you’d spend on good ole Leo. @joliebean released a great hair today, for example.
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mack3030 · 3 years
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Some of y’all in the community reaallly need to stop making us pay more to get your “exclusive” content.
Let us choose to support you. Some of us may not have the option now due to circumstances or COVID, but those of us that can WILL when given a choice.
The community has a right to say this is ethically wrong, regardless of the whole “EA’s TOU” debate.
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