Hehe... if they ever find you, just threaten to throw them in the pool and delete the ladders.

(that still works, doesn't it? It's been so long since I killed a sim on purpose...)

I see exactly what you mean! It's such a no-brainer! Who would want to go to a free site when they could go to the Sims Store and spend even more on this wonderful product?  Since I've already spent well over 500 bucks on Sims products since the Original Sims... why not spend EVEN MORE on inferior products that require fixing but never get fixed by anyone but the modding and hacking community who do fixes better and faster than Maxis/EA ever could?  I'd much rather buy things that don't match, cause traffic problems, and are the wrong scale... than get them for free and find out there is absolutely nothing in the package I'd ever use anyway. Where is the adventure in discovering you've been screwed?

Oh geez... I'm laughing so hard I can barely TYPE LOL! Seriously, tho...

Back during prohibition, when the making and consumption of alcohol was illegal, there were companies who would make kits to make non-alcoholic beverages. On the label, they would give complete instructions on how to MAKE their product into REAL alcohol, that read something like this:  "We strongly suggest you do not cover product with cheesecloth and put in a dark place for 7 to 10 days or fermentation will occur, resulting in an illegal product.

Along the same vein... the warning was intended to be a slap in the face to the establishment saying, "We are going to do whatever the hell we want to the LETTER of the law... and there is *nothing* you can do to stop us."

So if people do use the links to go and download, you can say "Hey... we posted a warning... we did all we could possibly to warn our membership of this illegal content. We even discouraged our membership from downloading!" I'm sure people will do the smart thing and not go there... right?

Ahem. surrrrrre.

Hi, I'm new here... but read this thread with interest.  My take on this is if someone puts something on the web... they should expect it to get ripped off. That's just how it is. May not be legal, but it's one of those "known" risks that they should take into consideration when they use the net. 

Second... you can easily cover your ass on this. EA/MAXIS isn't saying that you are hosting these sites, they are pissed off that you are advertising them and by doing so, are sending a lot of traffic away from the Sims store.

Have a sticky thread at the top of your forum saying, "THESE ARE KNOWN SITES THAT CARRY ITEMS FROM THE SIMS STORE. DOWNLOADING FROM THESE SITES IS AGAINST THE STORE TOS AND IS THUS ILLEGAL! WE STRONGLY SUGGEST OUR MEMBERS AVOID THESE SITES AND SPEND THEIR MONEY AT THE SIM'S STORE RATHER THAN GET THEM FREE AT THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS:

Then, of course, list the complete urls and update them as necessary.

This way you aren't *technically* advertising them...but warning your users of potential problems. And EA/MAXIS can't do crap about it. I really doubt they can do anything about posting the links and TELLING people to go there, either. The guilt is still on the people that download and those that actually host the files... but it would be nice to have the links in the same area (Evil Grin)