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mack3030 · 3 years

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If you are a creator who uses models from CGtrader, Turbosquid, or Sketchfab, you could be in legal trouble if you charge for your CC....

The amount of times I have seen people mention about how a well known paywall creator has gotten models for their CC from one of the three sites above is amazing. So, I decided that it might be a good idea to reach out and ask the support teams of those sites how people using their 3D model meshes and then reselling them as sims CC affects their TOU. So here’s the basic question I sent all three sites in an email to their support department:

Hello, so I have a question.

Is it allowed for people to take the 3D meshes you guys offer, modify them to work as modified content for a game (Ex: The Sims 4), and then sell that mesh as part of a patreon? There are multiple people in the Sims 4 Custom Content community who do this. Is this sort of usage allowed? They also are using 3D models from your site that have luxury brands like Chanel and Gucci.

Thank you.

So here are the responses I received, and they are interesting:

Sketchfab’s response was the most direct, which I loved.

CGtrader’s was a little bit more complex, but I’ll touch on that in a second...

And finally, Turbosquid.

So let’s talk a bit about some of the things discussed in these emails and what they mean. First let’s talk about the idea of extracting/retreiving the mesh/content, which IS actually a valid concern on the part of these sites. Because here’s the deal...it IS POSSIBLE in Sims 4 Studio to extract the mesh out of people’s custom content. I asked a good CC creating friend of mine @bill-l-s4cc about it, (he’s amazing, meshes his stuff by hand, and is early access...), and he confirmed this for me.

So let’s say you got some CC from a paywall creator, and they bought a model of a luxury bag from CGtrader. They then made it work in the Sims 4, lowered the polycount a bit, and created a few recolors/retextures of that bag. You could STILL go into sims 4 studio, and grab the mesh that they bought from CGtrader, and potentially use it for whatever they want. That is what has sites like them all up in a knot.

Now let’s talk about this whole “what is a larger derivative work”/a derivative work in general? For this, I’m going to use an example from the world of graphic design to help you (since I love graphic design myself).

So I have a membership at Creative Fabrica, which offers tons of graphic design elements, fonts, SVGs, and other elements for anyone who does graphic design of any kind. They are very clear in their licensing about the fact that you cannot RESELL the products you get as-is. You have to REMIX them or create a larger work out of them. Here’s an image from their license that gives an example of this:

Notice how in the first image, all the person did was literally copy and paste one of their graphic elements on a card without adding anything else or changing anything? In the second, they used that element and other elements to create something entirely new. It’s the same concept. If you’re taking a mesh (Ex: a perfume bottle) and literally just changing the color and selling it on patreon as a sims 4 item, that is not enough remixing to constitute a larger derivative work. If you put multiple perfume bottles together on a shelf, perhaps that might count (although it’s murky at best), but again, with S4S as mentioned earlier, the meshes can be extracted. So...that legal problem doesn’t go away.

So what do we do about this? 1) First and foremost, mesh your own stuff. If you are so inexperienced at meshing that you HAVE to use content from these sites to offer CC to people, then you need to get to work on practicing that craft, or somehow find a site that will let you redistribute the mesh on a game like the sims 4. even when people can rip it from your content. (Which considering that many 3D modeling sites have next to identical terms, is going to be next to impossible.)

2) If you see a creator paywalling/charging for content that is from these sites, you’re free to send an email to Turbosquid, CG trader, etc letting them know that their content is being resold in that format. I would also include a link to that person’s patreon. Since selling 3D models is literally the livelihood of the people who run those 3D model sites, and they’re not a massive multi-million dollar company that has the luxury of ignoring stuff like this, they’ll probably take some action.

3) You may ask, are FREE creators/early access creators still in violation if they use these models. “Technically” yes. But they should not be as much of a concern to Turbosquid/other sites since they are not making bank off of it, and the money gained from early access can be seen more as a donation/contribution to the creator. (It’s still “bad” for these sites, but not as bad as redistributing the content with the pure intent of making a profit.)

Again, see point #1. I would suggest that free/early access creators who are using this practice consider trying to mesh these objects themselves just to save themselves the legal/ethical trouble that comes with it.

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I would also like to note that I feel for some people, using meshes from these sites is literally just another form of laziness. (Mainly when they claim the mesh is 100% theirs and it’s not instead of giving attribution of any kind or admitting they converted.) They could hand mesh stuff, but why do that when they can just grab a model and modify it?

But the problem with this bad habit is that it starts to get into the problem of copyright and terms of use. The whole “I bought it, so it’s mine” mentality doesn’t work there. (Also, I find it ironic that paywall creators treat their meshes this way, yet get so mad when pirates use that excuse to share the paywalled content with others).

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TEDtalk, and feel free to reblog and share the word. This needs to stop in the sims 4 community before DMCA’s and cease and desist letters, and potential legal action becomes a big problem.

#turbosquid #CGtrader #sketchfab #sims4 #sims4cc #sims4cccommunity #sims 4 custom content #sims4alpha #sims4maxismatch #reblog to save someone from legal woes

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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.

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:

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:

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.

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.

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.

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:

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:

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:

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 (

) 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

#sims4cc #sims4mm #maxismatch #sims4alpha #sims4cccommunity #paywallssuck #downwithpatreon #EA #maxis #TOS #thievessuck

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