The Armory #2 on VS?? (by WIntermuteai1)

[RainbowTigress]

Ok, I was checking out witch's goodbye notice on VS and saw this thread by Wintermuteai1.  I thought of JM's The Armory forum, and I thought perhaps he was ripping him off.  I'm not sure about that, but I thought his "disclaimer" was interesting:

New Items For the Armory,
this time a Gladiator Murmillo Helm, and a Greek Style Sword
these are wearable/holdable in "TrueHold Technology" form, just like in armory #1
Note: Beard will stick through this if overly long, etc.



DISCLAIMER:
THIS OBJECT AND ALL MY CREATIONS ARE MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. YOU MAY NOT RE-DISTRIBUTE. YOU MAY NOT RE-POST ANYWHERE PERIOD. THIS AND ALL OBJECTS IN MY FORUM (C)2005 WINTERMUTEAI1. ANY AND ALL OTHER COPYRIGHTS OVERWRITTEN INTO ANY OF SAID OBJECTS BY ANY OTHER PROGRAM ARE NULL AND VOID.

[Oddysey]

Looks like a middle schooler trying to speak lawyer-ese. Heck, even I can do better than that. Just add in a few "party of the first part" and "party of the second part."

[Motoki]

Yes well in a community where the damned game packs up all your downloads and stuffs them into houses without you even knowing about it, keeping it from being posted elsewhere is pretty damned hard to do. I've already seen a number of his items packed up in houses in the Exchange and TSR and I'm fairly certain the people who posted the houses didn't even know it.

I've never quite understood why people get their panties in a bunch over their stuff being reposted. While I do think it's the polite thing to do to ask someone first, if it's something on a free site and proper credit is given, who cares? If anything it's just another free mirror to save your site bandwidth.

[LK]

Looks like a middle schooler trying to speak lawyer-ese. Heck, even I can do better than that. Just add in a few "party of the first part" and "party of the second part."

Don't forget your "henceforth," "hereintofor," and, "hereinafter."  Not to mention an almost total lack of punctuation (except for roughly 8 million commas).

[Pilot]

DISCLAIMER:
THIS OBJECT AND ALL MY CREATIONS ARE MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. YOU MAY NOT RE-DISTRIBUTE. YOU MAY NOT RE-POST ANYWHERE PERIOD. THIS AND ALL OBJECTS IN MY FORUM (C)2005 WINTERMUTEAI1(first I would like to mention that you can't copyright to a username. You can copyright a username, but you can't copyright TO a username. That instantly kills this 'legal bit' Please feel free to give out the objects at your own free will!). ANY AND ALL OTHER COPYRIGHTS OVERWRITTEN INTO ANY OF SAID OBJECTS BY ANY OTHER PROGRAM ARE NULL AND VOID. (repatative. Oh, and again because you can not copyright to an ailias, someone please copyright these to themself and see waht happens. It'll be funny)

Stupid legal crap. If your going to protect your stuff, fine but at least get your legal jumble right. Stupid overzelous prick.

[LK]

Pilot, come on...How do you really feel?

[Oddysey]

So . . . hang on a second. All this screeching about how RGiles and Numenor have copyrighted people's stuff is complete moot, because it says "RGiles" and "Numenor," and you can't copyright to handles?

[Motoki]

The whole copyright shit is stupid anyway. The game belongs to EA and the custom content is no good without it. In Wintermute's case some of his stuff doesn't have any new textures, doesn't have a new meshes, doesn't have any writing done by him etc so what's to copyright? Like that hack where he basically took the Sim Modder baby tool from testingcheats and made it buyable. How do you copyright that? Maxis made the baby mesh and texture, the coded the thing, they wrote the menus etc etc. Is he copyrighting making it available in buy mode? 

He also put the Hotrod which only people who pre-ordered were supposed to get and Maxis didn't want it posted elsewhere up there on VS. I suppose that is copyrighted too?

[Sagana]

Actually I don't believe that's true. You can certainly use a penname for a copyright announcement (otherwise, everyone would immediately have known Bachmann was the same as Stephen King) and I don't see any reason why any other alias would be different. Besides, you don't copyright *to* anything - you own the rights to your work the minute you create it. A copyright announcement, while handy paperwork in certain cases, isn't even necessary.

Despite the nitpicking, I agree the whole copyright issue is silly anyways... derivative works (and other kinds of collaboration, which all of this would be) have special regulations of their own. EA could shut all this stuff down, but they don't want to do that - user created content is way good for their business.

Edit: Yeah, that's not true... you can use "the name of the owner, an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally accepted alternative designation of the owner." Furthermore, "Section 406 (a) begins with a statement that the use of the wrong name in the notice will not affect the validity or ownership of the copyright..."

and "To be covered by copyright a work must be original and in a concrete "medium of expression." See § 102 of the act. Under current law, works are covered whether or not a copyright notice is attached and whether or not the work is registered."

From: http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/copyright.html

Sorry, I am... but I'm anal

[reggikko]

He also put the Hotrod which only people who pre-ordered were supposed to get and Maxis didn't want it posted elsewhere up there on VS. I suppose that is copyrighted too?

Yes! I saw that, with his little disclaimer that since he changed something it was no longer the same object and hence not owned by Maxis. I've never had much use for his mods because, as you said, it all seems to be derivative of the testing cheats anyway. I must admit that I did download the driveable UFO, though, because that's way cool. 

[themaltesebippy]

He made a moving motorcycle from Mickyss' mesh and though he gave credit, he wouldn't give the link to the original mesh because "he doesn't advertise other sites."  What a dick.

[Dark Trepie]

Ah, but you forget.  He made MTS2 what it is today.  As he pointed out several times in that Idiot-fest of a 9 page thread.   

[Motoki]

Uh, has he been there lately? I don't think 'making MTS2 what it is today' is anything to brag about. 

[Motoki]

Sorry, I am... but I'm anal

I honestly could care less about all the legalese stuff. Believe me I've seen more 'copyright' arguments than I can remember. Nothing good ever comes of them and no one ever 'wins' them though both sides are inevitably convinced of their correctness. Personally, I don't really care what you can or cannot do legally (which btw no matter what anyone says or what references they use, there doesn't ever seem to be unanimous agreement on this) I just think the whole thing is stupid and pointless for what's supposed to be a fun hobby.

What it boils down to for me is, are people making stuff because they want to be creative and share, or are they making things to promote themselves and/or their site, to get credit and some sort of internet fame, or in some cases even money? For a hobby, I feel like it should be the former but it all too often seems to end up being the latter.

Maybe I am just lax or free-thinking or whatever, but when I've made custom content for games it never occured to me to use the word 'copyright' or give people some long disclaimer. Once you've got so many stipulations on your work that the person who downloads it feels like they practically have to sign a waver what the hell's the point?

I think most people are generally respectful and don't need people to tell them how to behave courteously, but at the same time there are a lot of kids and otherwise immature people online and in the gaming communities and everyone who releases their work needs to be aware of this and to be able to deal with it. You can post all the copyrights in the world but the cops are not going to run and slap the handcuffs on some 10 year old kid because they uploaded your lipstick shade for the The Sims 2 on EA's public site.

[J. M. Pescado]

What it boils down to for me is, are people making stuff because they want to be creative and share, or are they making things to promote themselves and/or their site, to get credit and some sort of internet fame, or in some cases even money? For a hobby, I feel like it should be the former but it all too often seems to end up being the latter.

Money, obviously. Do you realize how much it adds up when all you people are paying me $29.95/month? Of course, not everyone can be as awesome as me...

[Pilot]

Edit: Yeah, that's not true... you can use "the name of the owner, an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally accepted alternative designation of the owner." Furthermore, "Section 406 (a) begins with a statement that the use of the wrong name in the notice will not affect the validity or ownership of the copyright..."   ( I stand corrected)

[Andygal]

Money, obviously. Do you realize how much it adds up when all you people are paying me $29.95/month? Of course, not everyone can be as awesome as me...

1422 members times 29.95 is 42,588.90 per months times 12 is 511,066.80 a year.

That's about right for somebody as awesome as Pescado.

[Inge]

If we're talking of "intellectual property" aren't concepts such as "Armory" for old hacks and "long beards" Pescado's trademarks in the first place, WRT sims modding?

[Pilot]

A Trade Mark (TM) has to be registered with your countries local registry office. Example, McDonalds has trademarked .

The slogan is theirs and can not legally be used by anyone else to promote their product. Same goes with the "M" arch logo. What I am still not sure about is the use outside of promotion. It is legal to use the logo and arch for satire, and there is nothing against using the logo in a book/movie/TV Show. (there is also the (R) for restricted use. Not sure on the details of this). What cannot be done is the Trade marking or Copyrighting of common things.
The "armory" for instance is a common word in the English language. The U.S. would never let you copyright it, or use it as a trademark.
If you were to say create a restaurant called "The Armory" then you could trademark the logo and copyright the artwork. (this is where I think the (R) comes in.) but you can't sue someone for writing "the armory". Just as you can't sue a rival restaurant with the same name so long as they bear no major similarities.
This is my understanding at least. Hope it's clear.

[Sagana]

Personally, I don't really care what you can or cannot do legally (which btw no matter what anyone says or what references they use, there doesn't ever seem to be unanimous agreement on this) I just think the whole thing is stupid and pointless for what's supposed to be a fun hobby.

Well, I'm not going to argue with you about it as I don't disagree with you. That's why I was apologizing in advance. I just can't stand the dissemination of incorrect information. I'm the same way about... oh say, if someone posts that a user-created clothing mesh made their computer burst into flames. and if I saw unanimous agreement on anything, I believe I'd die of shock

[Hook]

An armory is a place where you keep armor.  And weapons. 

Wintermuteai1's use of the word "armory" seems appropriate, considering he has a helmet and sword there.  Any confusication with Pescado's Armory is purely coincidental.

On the other hand, extracting Vincent's Sim Modder code from the debug cheat, packaging it into a separate object, then claiming it's your own is a bit far-fetched.  Why the HELL do I need to download a separate object when everything is available right there in the code for the game, just a shift-click away?  Seems a lot of Wintermuteai1's hacks are like that.

Hook

[RainbowTigress]

On the other hand, extracting Vincent's Sim Modder code from the debug cheat, packaging it into a separate object, then claiming it's your own is a bit far-fetched.  Why the HELL do I need to download a separate object when everything is available right there in the code for the game, just a shift-click away?  Seems a lot of Wintermuteai1's hacks are like that.

I wondered about that too.  He made it sound like he had found something hidden in the code by Maxis that us mere mortals weren't intended to have access to, and he, the Mod God, unlocked it for our use, easily found in Buy Mode.  All those posts thanking him and worshipping were a bit sickening.  I guess they don't realize it was there all along like Hook said, just a shift-click away.  But why wouldn't Wintermute know that?  Is this a case of not seeing the forest for the trees?

Cheatmachine- Unlocked by Wintermuteai1

this was hidden in the code of the New NightLife EP, i simply made it accessable. find it in outside, general.
catalog description says:
Sim Modder use to modify, Career, Motives, Aspirations, Skills