#there are ways to get paywalled cc without paying

[kdplayssss]

current fave co-ords🌼

one | top - shorts - shoes - hat

two | top - skirt - shoes

three | top - shorts - shoes

four | top - skirt - belt - shoes

♡ big fat thanks to - @joancampbell-jcb / @seoulsoul-sims / @cocogamess / @serenity-cc & more

[valdevia]

Hi, I love your works!! I was wondering where you find the original, unedited pictures you use for your art? Do you take them yourself or find them online?

Hey there! I get them from many different sources! Whenever I can I use my own, and sometimes my followers send me cool pics to use (or put them up in the Sacrificial Altar channel in my Discord), but I find most of what I use through public domain sources online!

For the online part, I put this little list together with some of the common resources I use! Feel free to share it around and copy it:

For an easier experience, I'll copy the relevant part below:

STOCK SITES

- Unsplash: Usually the best quality out of the free stock sites. They’ll try to sell you a subscription plan but you can ignore that.

- Adobe Stock: Select “Free” on the dropdown menu next to the search bar. The free image selection here is big and high-quality, though they feel more like stock pictures than natural photos. Note: They limit how many pictures you can download per account per day, but you can make several accounts to circumvent this if you use it a lot.

- Texturelabs: lots of free, very high-quality textures!

- Pexels: Similar to Unsplash, but it has more pictures with people. If you need a photo with models, this is usually the best place.

- Pixabay: Widest selection, but worst quality control. Go here if you haven’t found anything in other sites and don’t mind sifting through a bunch of garbage pics and occasional AI images.

PUBLIC DOMAIN SOURCES

- Wikimedia Commons: an enormous selection of CC and public domain pictures. Super useful, especially for the really specific images that you'd expect to find on a Wikipedia article. Always check the copyright conditions! To filter by license, search something and then click on the License dropdown under the search bar. Select “No restrictions” for public domain images.

- Picryl: A repository of public domain sources, ranging from ancient historical books and artifacts to fairly modern pictures. If you're looking for something old/historical, chances are it's here! This website is probably one of the most complicated ones to use, so here are three important tips before you use it:

This site added a paywall that appears after the 3rd page of search results. To remove it, install uBlock Origin, go to the “My Filters” page (clicking on the gear icon after opening the extension), and paste this filter: picryl.com##._9oJ0c2

After searching, use the timeline on the top right to narrow down the result by year.

It won’t let you download the full picture without paying, but it always has a link to the source site below the description. Click on that, then copy-paste the image’s name to find it in the original source. That way you can get it for free, and often in better quality than Picryl offers.

National Archives Catalog, The Library of Congress, NASA, and Europeana have wide selections, but they are included in Picryl so it’s usually better to search there and then download them in the source as mentioned above!

- Flickr Search: a ton of usable pictures with a generally more amateur feel, just remember to filter by license using the “Any license” dropdown menu. When you find an image, make sure to check its specific license (you can find it below the image, on the right side).

- Openverse: The official Creative Commons archive, has many sources! Includes other sites on this list, but has a lot of clutter if you don’t filter.

- iNaturalist: a repository of user-submitted images of animals, plants, and fungi. Look for a genus or species, then navigate to the photo list and filter by license.

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

- The Met: An amazing selection of artifacts from all over the world, with top quality photographs of most of them (usually with several angles for each). You can filter images by material, location, and era.

- Getty Museum: Another smaller selection of museum pieces, but this one includes old photos as well as artifacts. You can also filter by dates, materials and cultures. Make sure you include the “Open Content” filter to only see public domain things!

- Smithsonian: Big selection of around 5 million museum pieces, with some 3D scans of museum pieces. Most pieces just have a single picture that can sometimes be low quality, but pieces with 3D models sometimes also include a lot of high quality photos from multiple angles. This collection also includes things from museums of natural history, so you can also use it to search for bones and specimens.

- Artvee: public domain classical art. They make you pay to download high-quality images.

If you guys got any others, please let me know and I'll add them to the collection!

[yooniesim]

ok unfortunately for yall the dash made me have a thought so now I gotta ramble lol

but ya know. maybe it's bc I've had so much time away from here and all the bitching (/affectionate) but over the past couple years, I get less angry about this shit and more solution-minded. and I don't mean for the community as a whole (that's impossible lol) but in a sort of... personal circle/responsibility type of way. like what we can do among ourselves without the confrontation aspect bc, just being honest- from my perspective & experience, the anger and the bitching doesn't really accomplish shit. not to say it ain't justified, & it's important to raise awareness for sure, but i swear me & a lot of others that have been talking about this for a long time have just been barking in circles without anything budging one way or another. which leads to burnout/emotional exhaustion not just for the ppl in question but for followers/mutuals/friends. I spent far too long and waaaay too much mental energy thinking that being the loudest and the boldest would get something to change. but the scammers keep scamming and the shit just keeps going. and sure it's fun as hell to shoot the shit and pick and bitch and laugh with your mutuals. baby yall know I love a good simblr circlejerk. but ya know, when you sit down and think about it it's a lil depressing. and the ppl you're talking to/around are already Aware and eventually the anger wears off and they're just tired of hearing about it. you're preaching to the choir and everyone is just pissed and tired with no clear goal to work towards.

Part of that exhaustion is why i made @alwaysfreecc as a positive way to boost always free creators, without focusing on the paywallers. as well as always supporting alternate ways of getting paywalled cc. but I think it takes a lil more than just that. I think, like the post I just reblogged was saying, people need to learn how to make their own content too. I know there's a learning curve, but so many things paywallers make are outright easy to do yourself. Some aren't- there are paywall creators that put great effort into their content and make it worth your money- but a lot of them are. And that isn't to say you should make everything yourself, there's nothing wrong with supporting creators that make content you find interesting or wouldn't want to do yourself, but it can be really rewarding to learn how to make simple edits and recolors on your own. And, image editing and 3d modeling skills can also benefit you elsewhere in life! Whether professionally or when modding other games. Knowing how to make cc in sims helped me figure out how to make certain things for skyrim and fallout, for example. Hell, it's just plain FUN to figure out and do, and I think the community could always use more of that.

Also, sometimes it's freeing to just, stop using certain creators' content. Like, i used to be bitching yet downloading stuff off dhm and shit, out of spite mostly cos half the stuff I didn't even like. But since I cleared out a lot of paywallers' stuff, besides a few I think are worth it/doing things honestly, it just feels better. I don't even think about those mfs anymore until I see something about them on my dash and then I can barely remember who they are lol. You don't realize how much you really don't NEED any of that shit & how you were kinda just downloading it to be downloading it, until you toss it. AND it feels great to have mostly always free creators' content & support them. Liiike i feel proud of ppl i saw get started and are STILL FREE and making awesome stuff, it's exciting! even when I'm not playing the game, I see their posts and be like "dang I need to grab that when I update" or "man they've gotten so much better in so little time" or "wow I never thought of that idea/seen that before". Bc always free peeps get to be so damn creative bc they don't have deadlines or turning off their paying audience to worry about. Like it's so cool and positive and I love that.

idk, just. based on what I've experienced here, i feel like it's kinda time to focus less on what the assholes are doing now (aka the same exact thing they've been doing for years) and more on what to do to make our own personal experiences better. which I know a lot of us are doing! I just wish I personally had done it earlier lol so maybe someone else needs to hear that too. like toss these dummies to the curb and replace them is what I'm sayin. If not in the whole community but just your personal circle. raise awareness as needed sure but don't let em take any more of your energy. cos if you are petty like me (😂) it'll hurt em way more to cast em out than yell at em. all the ppl that have bitched at me yet still have my cc in their folders come to mind lmfao, cos personally that gives me more satisfaction than anything else so I know it's probably the same for the scammers! Like a "you hate me but you can't bear to not use my shit huh 😏" type of deal. Don't give em that sick pleasure! (/projecting) Just focus on you and yours and make some sick ass content for yourself, then share it to me thx 💅

[dullsaredoomed]

What Dollhouse Mafia dulls are doing : DULLhouse Mafia's barbarian action

DollHouseMafia became DullHouseMafia, which shares paid CCs for The Sims 4 in telegram, smells like spoiled dairy products now. Like any other groups, which has unwavering managing group for a long time, it became 'I-WON'T-HEARING-ANYONE' group like we can see similar cases in history.

When you join the group, you will enjoy the warm aura at the moment, but you will get it soon that your comments will be deleted without proper reason even your comments make sense.

Because the manage group, 'mods' in other words, only stands behind who sharing CCs, and if he or she said something untrue, it become roughly true in that group. Doner says always right thing in that group.

But it won't go long, because they can't remember that you did donation before. They are willing to do rude things to you. Their head storage is too small to remember something.

And they show tantrums when you just mention about the price of the CCs. Of course, people in the group usually are either a miser or not really going to pay any money for CCs. But when you just say how much the CCs are, you can see their tantrums in various way. Sometimes they look like burning moth. It's one of their funny reactions in the group.

However, DullHouse has several channels, and they sometimes ask each other for CCs. And you can see their another funny actions.

They can't even search what they want. They seriously NEED HELP when searching CCs, while normal people can search google, tsr or any other search engines. And I think some of them maybe are under IQ70s or suspicious adults who can't have credit cards.

They are just CC junkies. They just can't do ordinary thinking. NEW CCs are all they want. Or they want to excavate old FORGOTTEN CCs even their creators want to forget. They are endlessly screaming 'mine! mine!' like seagulls in FINDING NEMO.

They can't be creative. They are being parasites for 2~3 years since the group born, and never tried to learn any creative skills. Think about these 2~3 years. Some CC creators became famous, enhenced their skills, be an EA partners, or earned some money. But them? They are still in Goddamn shithole. Begging CCs 3 years ago still begging CCs there. I think they have no future.

They leak other people's CCs and Mods like pee leaking. They spill other people's bags of beans without any guilts. They leak other people's time, blood, sweat and tears without feeling sorry. I think they are going to spill great amount of pee when they get old same way, and they might join a group named 'DiaperHouse Mafia'.

They have no patience. At first, they showed respect to Early Access creators. At least they pretended to. But now, they are just dogs which drool, pulled their brains out whether it is Early Access or Perma Paywalled.

They are shameless. The mods who are managing the group became soaked in inertia. People would finally know what is in the mods' tiny brain. [Donation], in other words [Money] is always RIGHT, huh?

At first, they showed themselves as CC pirate badasses. But now? They are as obeying dogs to their doners. And they are not even badasses, they are just pooping asses. All they can product is only poop.

They have no principle, rules or any respectful behavior. They want just free things without any responsibility.

In conclusion, they lost their direction.

Meanwhile, people in the group showed helping mind even in their hard circumstances, but now?

They are just helpless BEGGARS.

Once, they had some compelling reasons, but now all they can do is just whining.

What they still missed out is that CC making needs education, skills which need thousand of times and efforts. It's different from the time when playing with sloppy polygons in old times.

Of course, CC creators who create awful polygons should not thumbs up to this post. Some of them should not even feel happy at this article.

It is kind of destiny to get criticism since when you decided to publish your CCs to everyone.

People have EYEs, SENSEs and Aesthetic criteria.

Some of creators should be aware of how hard it is to get money from CCs and to satisfy others, and do not make fun of their CUSTOMERS.

If you once decided to sell your products, you have to treat your CUSTOMERS. Do not block or mock any of customers without proper reason.

Always be in your mind that transaction and contract make new relationship between you and your followers.

If you do not? I won't care about being your CCs are in that Dullhouse Mafia's savage hands or not.

I only feel sorry for hardworking creators and their cc leaks.

[siimplyjessica]

So I occasionally rant and rave and put my opinions out there. Mainly about my opinions with content creators and putting things behind a paywall etc. I have mixed feelings about this topic. I don't know where a lot of content creators live but here in the United States we have trademark laws copyright laws and other protections. But according to laws that I looked up, it works like this, whether you write songs or you draw art or you knit something, if you paint something, if anything is made in a creative way, and then you start selling it or posting it online, the minute you share it into the world, it is considered your IP. Your intellectual property. You don't even have to follow or submit paperwork with the business bureaus or with any federal commissions. Once you put your work into the world, it's considered yours by copyright. However there are ways around copyright, just as an example with YouTube videos, you can't steal someone else's videos and upload them on your own channel and then get paid for them with AdSense or sponsors or anything else, you have to edit and transform the work into something new. That's the only way you can use other people's content, that's why you'll see reaction channels or even things like on TMZ or other news shows or whatever, you'll see people put their face in the corner and talk throughout, constantly providing their reactions or their thoughts or transforming it in an artistic way that they want. This is a way around copyright laws and it's protected. As long as you transform the work enough that it's a new item or a new product. Reaction videos can't just have a video of your face in the corner without talking, you have to transform it enough into something new, like adding your voice, your reactions, new sound FX and visual FX etc. I've always felt this way when it comes to Sims 4 poses.. when people say that they're being stolen from, and then I look at poses and custom content clothing or skin details, I will compare the original to the new item that's been posted and every pose I've seen, every skin detail I have seen every hair or whatever that I have seen is transformed enough that it looks like the old one but things are positioned differently, colored differently or used in a different way that I can noticeably see a difference between the two. And I feel this way with Sim4 CC item..Every Sims 4 pose that I have come across is significantly changed, you can see the bones or the skeleton of the previous pose, but it's always transformed enough that it's new pose entirely. With remnants and whispers of the old one remaining. This may be a controversial opinion but I feel this way with Sims 4 clothing or skin details. I mean how many times do we see people using and creating new skin detail overlays with that same collarbone used for years or nose details by pxyis for years because people love them so much they integrate them into a new skin detail. Technically they are stealing from the original creator they're just editing it with their own spin and creating a new skin detail by frankensteining a bunch of older ones along with their improvements. I'm sorry, you know, because I'm against permanently pay-walling.. If I saw blatant stealing, literally copy-pasting just uploading a piece of content and putting your name on it, now that's just wrong and actually needs to be dealt with but I have yet to see that with all of these poses and Sims 4 CC. And it seems to be Simsulani who does most of the 'stealing' over the years.. I have yet to see anybody duplicate a pose 100% and publish it though and that's where I kind of feel bad for having this opinion but I had to look at it logically, look at the laws and look at how everything is applied in today's world. I can't let emotion get in the way.. I know people will probably see this and think I'm a bitch but please understand I'm trying to look at it through a logical perspective and if there was blatant stealing I would call it out. I have no shame in doing that.

And I could be completely off base and I could have missed simsulani publishing poses that are verbatim 100% matches to other people, I just haven't seen it. I am down to be corrected so please if you have something to say or want to come back at me with something I'm up please be respectful because I'm trying to address this as respectfully and honestly as possible.

DO NOT STEAL.

I'm just going to name and shame. Since she steals poses and 'adjusts' them.

Please reconsider using poses from Simsulani, since she steals hardworking creators their poses and adjusts them just a little and even asks money for them. But you can see, mostly in the hands that this pose is definitely mine. (I really see it's my crooked posed hand! Or the bend indexfinger from Akira she still kept in... hahaha seeing flaws from my own poses and everything!)

DO NOT STEAL and claim your own.

[sims4findsnfaves]

Gods I hate the attitudes towards early access in the sims community.

"Don't you know it's ENTITLEMENT to ASK people to throw a few dollars your way for literal hours of their time and labor, for something that will be free in two weeks anyway?"

Like, maybe it's because I literally can't make my own cc due to my disabilities, but somehow actually I don't think the entitled ones are the people going "hey I made a cc set that's better than any full expansion pack EA has ever released, I spent many hours on it and it's gonna be completely free forever starting less than a month from now, but you can even have it now if you'd be willing to pay pennies on the dollar for the extra convenience"

"I immediately scroll past every time I see early access and block if I see it from the same person multiple times"

I SEE SHINY I WANT SHINY GIVE ME SHINY NOW KAREN NEED INSTANT GRATIFICATION HOW DARE CHARGE MONEY DON'T YOU KNOW WE DESERVE YOU TO MAKE NICE THINGS FOR US FOREVER

Like no wonder cc creators are getting demoralized, I've seen less entitlement from customers when I used to work RETAIL AND FOOD SERVICE

And the AUDACITY to then project their entitlement onto the creators.

Quite frankly I'm starting to think perma-paywalls wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I mean, EA does that with both items and gameplay that aren't worth the data they take up half the time (and I say this as a person that will defend the STAR WARS pack, I'm not exactly a massive EA-hater) and you at least get people that recognize the devs still deserve decent compensation even if much of the decisions made are due to executive greed.

Yet somehow when an individual hobbyist cc creator does a HIGHLY TEMPORARY paywall to try and eke out survival in this economy without corporate greed ruining their content... y'all throw a fit.

No actually, it's not any kind of new amazing protest statement to demand artists make you stuff for free. That's all you're doing. And the worst part is, they're already doing it! Imagine going to your favorite fanartists and getting mad not because they paywalled their art, but because they paywalled SEEING IT A FEW DAYS EARLY (as if that's not literally what most artists use patreon for).

Get over yourselves. If I, infamously impatient among all my friends and family, can wait, you can too.

(If you don't do this, this post is not about you. Also this blog is literally just for organizing my favorite cc and other files so if you don't like it literally just block me lol)

[trillyke]

Patreon Sims CC Tracking - (trying to) help you understand the situation

I know the situation is alarming, and you want to act and judge quickly but I’d like to take a few minutes to help you understand the situation better and easier, as I see people panicking and unpledging from every creator, even without understanding what it is about. Your safety is the first, there is no doubt in that, there is a good post that summarizes how to safely pledge on patreon and what info creators see when you pledge to them. Please do read it and make changes to your information if needed!

Not gonna lie, I don’t have very big knowledge on tracking, haven’t heard about it till a few days ago, I have no idea how it works exactly, I gathered all my knowledge after reading this post and its replies, so correct me if I am wrong. I still want to share my knowledge though to help to understand it better.

Now the part I want to clarify, probably 95% of sims 4 content creators don’t track or doxx you!!

Who probably does it then? And how? You might be aware, that sadly quite a few people paywall their content forever, using NO early access, only so called exclusive content! Since these contents are not available unless you pay, there is a chance some people will reupload them for others! To prevent this, these creators put trackers to their downloads to see, who reuploads their content! Very important to mention, that these downloads are always personalized, sent you in DMs or in privately. Trackers only work if they are in individual downloads, not in a download file in a post that is accessible to all the patrons. I am no way saying that creators who send you their stuff in DMs all put trackers of course, but it is the only way to do so, so I warn you to be cautious with these types of methods of sharing content!

I am making this post to prevent us - who play by the rules, safe to download from, doing only early access - getting involved and put into the same bag as these ‘creators’ mentioned above. It honestly makes me super sad and angry to see that a few bad apples could spoil the whole bunch, and make us all look bad. Please be careful who you support if you decide to do so!! 

[littleblackbooksims]

Have you found any way to get ahold of SixamCC's content without paying?? I found one way, but there's only 2 of his sets on there Like, Admittedly the CC Looks great in his previews but I seriously can't sympathize with a perma paywall..

Best bet would be TS4REBELS or Paysitesmustbedestroyed. You can find Rebels on Twitter @ts4rebels . Sometimes if you search the creators name, the item and free in Google you can find it that way as well. If anyone has any other methods feel free to comment them below.

Thanks anon!

Disclaimer: We only endorse this behavior for creators who permanently paywall their content if the creator simply does early access don’t be a jerk and just wait the extra few weeks.

[ivyandink]

Seems like this might be an unpopular opinion but

I honestly feel bad for the modders who always followed the rules and are taking the brunt of this by losing early access. And when I say modders, I mean MODDERS. Early Access builds, Sims, tiny mesh edits, recolors, etc. can go die in a hole lmao

I don't agree with the arguments that say it's unethical 🤷‍♀️ waiting 2 weeks longer for a mod isn't a huge barrier and strikes a nice balance between keeping content accessible and also letting legit modders make some money from this.

This is coming from someone who's only ever paid for early access ONCE. 😂 So it's not like I'm pro paying cc creators at all lol.

But if anything I think this gives a unique opportunity to find ways to add monetization without paywalling! Maybe offering community benefits or more custom mod support or voting privileges or something like that for patrons. :) I follow lots of YouTubers who have Patreon, and while their main "offer" is their free YT content, their patrons get things like county chats, movie nights, handwritten notes, WHATEVER lol.

Really curious to see how this ends up playing out. And it shows your true colors if you throw a tantrum and leave the community AND delete your past content if you can make money off of people lol

[tau1tvec]

Lol your post about disco heaven/TS3 is for real. As TS2 old who sailed the high seas of the booty, wtf do they think we did back then? The current green and entitlement of the Gen Z/TS4 community has me rolling considered who EAxis was ALWAYS against paywalled cc and TS2 players relentlessly mocked peggyzilla and her borked meshes.

Peggyzilla, lol. Yeah I remember that time they got like a whole ass lawyer to write out a permission slip or something, idk, they were constantly mad at everyone, but still expecting them to pay up which is weird.

Otherwise, I think it’s certainly a generational thing yes, although I rather loathe words like Gen Z vs Millennials vs Boomers, bc it’s this very systematic way capitalism likes to pit us against one another, rather than allowing us to work together to take it down, but that’s another conversation to be had… anyway, I certainly see the shift though being a Millennial with an 11 yo, she’s very like ready to grow up and get a job, and I think a lot of that just generally has to do with how we were always kinda going through ups and downs financially as she grew up, although we shielded her as best we could, even I saw it when my mom raised me up, using Food Stamps at the grocery store, it was just… I think we all are very scared about the economic situation we’re all in, esp following something so traumatic as a pandemic… so like, I get it, but I’ve just always really truly believed that things that you enjoy doing in your free time shouldn’t be allowed to be muddled by money… bc money is the #1 cause of stress, anxiety, and even depression for some folks, and like, a hobby shouldn’t do that to you, and that hobby shouldn’t also be inflicting that same harm on others, I could go on and on about the mental and emotional toll FOMO, early access, paywalling, microtransactions, preorder rewards, and all that has on people, let alone youth, but like I said, another conversation, lol.

Everyone wants to do what they love, and get paid to do what they love, but at the end of the day a job is a job, and even if you love doing it, even without the involvement of monetization, it’s easy to get burnt out from something you do too much of, especially due to obligation.

[mack3030]

Imagine being wrong and then blocking someone...

Imagine the gal of replying to a post someone makes calling you on your shit and then blocking them. Oh honey, class act!

Let's talk about your "excuses" for using ad*fly and why they won't hold water:

1) Being a poor student does not give you the right to risk people's safety. Period. As a student, you should know how important a laptop or desktop is for getting schoolwork and other "work" done. So why risk the laptops and desktops of OTHER people just so you can get the 0.05 cents per click you'd make from ad*fly? If you want some proof of how AD^FLY is dangerous, why don't you do some looking into the following blogs: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE

2) The argument of "It's always worked for me, so it must apply to everyone" is so fucking dangerous I can't even begin to explain. This would be like saying "Oh, since my natural immunity has protected me so long against COVID-19, it must also work for everyone else too!" This is the sort of logic that leads to people dying. 3) You honestly want to act as though patreon is scummy? Like, early access isn't a thing. And yes, I'm not a fan of permapaywall builders either and I have talked about that (HERE) but there ARE some builders who are early access. {Case in point?@beansbuilds,@gawdlysims ,@sierrathesimmer} Why can't you do patreon early access? Surely you'd make more off your sets from that than the 0.5 cents you'd make from ad*fly. Or even better, do a donation link like a ko-fi or some other form of donation where people can choose to support you? 4) Also the "ways to avoid ad.fly" aren't always as easy to install or figure out as some people would hope. For example, Universal Bypass, which I have, involves having a file directory somewhere on your computer at all times. If you accidentally delete the program directory "poof" the "extension" is gone. And unlike other programs, since it's basically an unoffical chrome extension, you have to install that directory yourself. Which may not be as easy for some who aren't tech savvy. Now I'm here talking about this as if you'll actually see this (which you probably won't since you blocked me, unless one of your friends/followers screenshots it!) but you really need to work on having a decent reason for being such a jerk. Because all of your excuses don't hold water. Here's the thing that pisses me off in general about creators who paywall in the sims 4 community. They act as is their bad/shitty circumstances give them the excuse to treat other people like shit. Having issues paying the bills? Permapaywall stuff so people can't access your stuff unless you pay. A student who can't get a student job? Put everything behind ad$fly and risk giving people viruses. Living in a country that's in an economic downturn? Time to rip meshes other people made from secondlife/imvu and sell them as sims 4 cc, damn the original creator. Meanwhile, I know so many other wonderful sims 4 creators who are going through just as bad circumstances who are CHOOSING to not treat the community like shit. @anachrosims has mounting vet bills and a dying laptop, yet she's not putting her CC behind ad*fly. @oswanily has had to open up comissions due to monetary concerns, yet she's still not permapaywalling her CC. I could go on and ON about simmers who have had to ask for the kindness of other players to help make ends meet who DIDN'T treat the community like crap to do so. It's the whole "I'm miserable so I need to make everyone else pay for my misery" for me. The fact that your situation means you CHOOSE to treat a community badly, steal, or put people's safety at risk instead of choosing other, ETHICAL ways to deal with your situation pisses me off. Those with the strongest character are those who refuse to hurt others when they are hurting, or in tough situations. There are resources, and kind and giving people who will help you out without having to paywall to get their assistance. Really showing the class here Novvas, oh and by the way, who wants to bet the reason tumblr nuked your first account was because you posted your ad*fly links on there?

[sims2-21b]

Okay so let's talk about paid Sims 4 custom content, shall we?

I've noticed recently that a disturbing amount of players that use custom content aren't actually aware that locking custom content behind a paywall is in fact illegal. And because people don't know, those creators get away with it and make us believe we're bound to ridiculous terms of use they set for the stuff they create.

There's multiple issues I have here, but let's start with paywalled CC, let's see what EA has to say:

You can fact check this here:(https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/16175450/#Comment_16175450)

In short, locking custom content pieces behind a paywall is forbidden unless it's early access and it's made available to download for free after 3 weeks max. Paywalling content for any longer is just flat out illegal, end of story.

Therefore if you do come across cc that's been paywalled for longer than that, you're not breaking the law in any way shape or form if you download those items from other sources (there are a handful of websites that provide paywalled content for free) and you shouldn't feel bad about it considering they are breaking the law by withholding the content unless you pay.

Now that we've covered that, let's look at TOUs. Yes, I understand people put work into original meshes, lots of work, the issue is - let's look into what EA says again (you can (and I actually encourage you to) fact check this for yourself in EAs terms of service) :

*UGC=USER GENERATED CONTENT

When you contribute UGC*, you grant to EA, its licensors and licensees a non-exclusive, perpetual, transferable, worldwide, sublicensable license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works, publicly perform, publicly display or otherwise transmit and communicate the UGC, or any portion of it, in any manner or form and in any medium or forum, whether now known or later devised, without notice, payment or attribution of any kind to you or any third party. You also grant to all other users who can access and use your UGC on an EA Service the right to use, copy, modify, display, perform, create derivative works from, and otherwise communicate and distribute your UGC on or through the relevant EA Service without further notice, attribution or compensation to you.

Simply put, when a creator uploads cc, you're free to use it in whatever way you want. The moment they use the game engine/in game items to create custom content - which applies to any CC piece out there - they sign over all rights to EA. This means that the CC creators terms of use do NOT matter whatsoever, EA makes the rules here.

Of course claiming other people's work as yours is still a shitty thing to do and you shouldn't do it, no question, but you're well within your rights to upload cc items with your builds or Sims instead of linking any individual cc item, you can recolour anything you want and put it online for others to use, edit meshes and whatever else people try to forbid you to do with it.

If you look further into this yourself you'll hear the argument thrown around that this only applies to the in game gallery as it says "users who can access your content on an EA service", except it says access or USE on an EA service. Wording, very important in the world of contracts. The game is an EA service, therefore every single cc or mod ever made is used on an EA service, therefore this applies to all CC.

Again, you should always state that you used this or that creator's item as a base for yours, that's just human decency, but they can't forbid you to use the items they share online for people to download.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't support CC creators, there's software they use that's expensive, they take time out of their day and custom content and mods improve the game so much, but you should support creators on a voluntary basis to show your appreciation for their work, not because you wouldn't be able to otherwise access the content.

That's that, but there's another whole different pet peeve I have, the audacity of some creators to copy brand items, like Nike, Gucci, Apple etc and then paywall those PLAGIARIZED objects and/or say in their TOU that you aren't allowed to use those objects for own creations, while they themselves stole them. Yes, sure they put in work and recreated them as 3D objects, but it's not their property.

Think about it, you don't make a painting your own just because you redraw it digitally. Yes that takes effort, but it doesn't make you the owner of the original work and I hardly doubt CC creators have official brand deals set up with those companies.

That's my take on it, but I strongly encourage anyone who uses custom content to inform themselves about the legal situation instead of playing along the rules of CC creators that abuse the community for profit.

Sims custom content used to be from players for players and just to make the game more fun. It's becoming more and more of a money scheme and it just feels icky and scammy.

[yooniesim]

I've seen a lot of people over the past couple days discussing patreon early access and whether or not it's included under ea's new policy. Most seem to agree that exclusive/perma-paywall models are bad, and a lot of people seem okay with early access. So I thought I'd share just why I don't really approve of the early access model either.

1) Trusting patreon creators (in the sims community) with your private information is a risk. Unfortunately, it's been shown by exclusive and early access creators alike that it simply isn't safe to trust them with your info. Eacc creators (not just exclusive) have communicated with each other about those that have shared their content early, and the info they have can include usernames, email addresses, real names, and possibly even paypal information if you have it linked to your patreon account. Users have been doxxed and harassed over sims cc of all things. I, personally, don't feel I can pledge to anyone safely anymore, whether they're following the old 2-3 week early access model or not.

2) There is no quality control. There is no way to determine what you're going to get before you pay for it, and if it's not good quality, you're most likely not going to get a refund. Patreon doesn't make creators refund you, they have to decide to do it on their own. So you can have mods that don't work, ridiculous high poly meshes, no proper LODs, low quality textures, etc and you're stuck with that.

3) There are no standards. People on here argue a lot about what should be charged for and what shouldn't, because there's no consistent standard for what is acceptable or not. Should sims/tray files be early access? Recolors? Conversions? Only mesh edits? What about tiny mesh edits? Is it the time alone that matters? But if that's the case, how much time should a creator have to spend on something for it to be worth paying for? There's no agreement, and so what people will put behind a paywall gets more and more ridiculous over time.

4) New (and some old) accounts making patreons without interacting with the community in any other way besides making money off them. There's no standard for who should make an account and when, so a lot started out just with the sole intention of making money. Also, there are older creators that tapered off their interactions with the community to purely focus on patreon. Early access took over the community so completely because it was easy and anyone could do it, and so they did. This only furthered the problems with quality and standards of cc.

5) Early access creators becoming exclusive over time after they built a following. Also, other shady methods to make more money I've discussed in other posts, such as: making super tiny edits look more enticing by lumping them together in "add-on packs", linking their "free" content through link shorteners/simsfinds/tsr, steadily raising tier prices in order to access all of their content, releasing a piece of cc for early access then coverting the same piece of cc to another frame and putting it under early access again, increasing the early access time period or "forgetting" to unlock things on time, and more. All of this just shows me that many early access creators aren't much better than the exclusive creators. They're toeing the line to stay in the public favor, and perhaps avoid legal consequences, and nothing more.

6) Shifting the focus in the community from creativity to monetary gain. Modding communities (such as those for the Sims, TES, Fallout, Dragon Age, Stardew Valley, and many many more) are built upon learning from one another and working together to enhance the gaming experience. In other words, to have fun! Modders have done amazing things without having the goal of making money off of it, and while it's nice to have that as an option, the sims community shows that it winds up hurting more than it helps when it consumes to this extent. I've talked about this before so I won't go into it too much, but creators are burned out and tired, and other simmers are frustrated and bored. It changed the community as a whole and it shows.

As a concept, early access is fine, but in practice... when everyone is doing it, in so many different ways, with no sense of standards... it becomes a problem.

[texasthegreatdestroyer]

I'm not going to tag the post in question or the person who made it, because for the most part, their post a good message, but honestly, I really fucking hate this point.

I do not care what sort of position someone is in. How broke they are, rather or not they're able to make their rent, that does not justify someone else directly profiting off of someone else's hard work without the IP holder's permission. And I'm not coming at this from the point of an anti paywaller. I'm coming at this from the POV of an artist. If I was a game dev and I found out that people were out there making profit of my hard work, and in some cases, making more than me, and without my permission, or better yet, against my own wishes, I would be absolutely furious. Yes, EA is a corporation, and I know people aren't as likely to hold their wishes of their own property in regards, but there are still people behind that company who put their love and ideas into that game. So when I see people bring up their problems in life and use that to excuse away them violating people's copyright, it's annoying. I get the struggle, I've been there and I've done that, but it does not make it right. At the end of the day, yes. Being a CC creator should be a hobby, 100%. I have no issue with early access people because Sims gurus have said it's fine, and really, if you're getting money to give out free content early, then you aren't getting paid directly for the content, but instead are paying for perks given by you as a creator. But if you're out here telling people to pay you or no content at all, and then giving someone a sob story as to why it should be okay to line your pockets with someone else's IP, then you're in the wrong 100%. There are things you can do to make money other than make Sims 4 cc with the same talents you already have. Do early access, or sell the models themselves. Put yourself out there to work along side indie game devs. There are literally better ways to go about this sort of thing without being a thief. There is simply no excuse to make all of your content exclusive like that.

I don't condone exclusive content in the slightest. Not just as anti paywaller and pirate, but MAINLY as an artist.

[sunflower-petals]

updates, thoughts, ramblings

tl;dr: I'm on TSR, Early Access Patreon Thoughts, & Life Bullshit

So, it's been a while since I've made a post like this; how are you guys? I've been alright I suppose. Life has been stressful, to say the least. But Axel, my corgi, is doing well! He's a little over 6 months old now, and omg is he full of energy! He's the cutest thing. His favorite snack is banana and he loves this giant stuffed monkey toy my mom bought him (and by love I mean he ripped all of the arms off lol).

I'm on The Sims Resource now; I've mentioned this, but I thought I'd go ahead and say it again. I debated it forever, mostly because of the back and forth I read all of the time on here about TSR, early access, and paywalled cc. The most I've ever done is one early access a month, and as a person without a job, it's hard to spend a lengthy amount of time on something and not ask for a little bit of money for it, so from that standpoint, I get it. Of course it's against EA's terms of use and in my personal opinion, I just wouldn't put any cc permanently behind a paywall. It just seems unfair (and it's pixels). I paint irl (watercolor/gouache) and I'm currently trying to sell that. There's no way I'm giving that away for free; I work my ass off on those pieces. My soul goes into my paintings, you know what I mean? But sims 4 custom content? I love making it, of course; I ask $1 if a person can give, sure, but I'd never permapaywall it because it's just not my life's work. It's not my art and part of my soul I'm putting out there. However, I totally can't judge a person for paywalling cc in the world we're in today. It's fuckin hard to make money; I get it. I'm sure some are just greedy; of course. But, I don't know their heart or what they're thinking. I honestly just pass over it. I can't afford to pay for cc.

Sorry for the rambly mess; basically I'm just tired of seeing the community arguments over this shit. Really the only way to "get rid" of people permapaywalling is just to not pay for it. You can't control where other people put their money though. But if someone has a kid to feed, a mortgage to pay, and people are willing to pay for their cc....I get it. (Just saying I don't know of anyone specific I'm just saying hypothetically ya know don't yell at me I'm sensitive lol)

This brings me to my Patreon. A few months ago I decided to go 100% free; no more one early access per month. I am probably the most indecisive person on planet Earth because I'm now trying to decide whether or not to go all Early Access. I've never went into detail about my personal life (what I have to pay for, etc) because I never want anyone to feel guilted into becoming a Patron but making all of my cc EA for 2 weeks would help a lot. Idk I'm just thinking out loud honestly.

I still have a whole folder full of wips lol. What kind of cc would y'all like to see? I'm still kind of obsessed with making jewelry. What cc do you feel the community is still lacking? I feel like there's not a lot of male cc around still. Maybe still disability related cc. I'm in the process of figuring out how to make missing limbs so stay tuned for that!

Hope y'all are holding up and are well! <3

[ravasheencc]

I love your work, but please, you have 400+ patrons, it's time to leave TSR. It's not safe to download from there without ad blocking, so now that they block downloads when adblock is detected it's not possible for simmers to get most of your work unless they can pay.

I debated even answering this, but I figured I would in case anyone else felt the same. Let's begin my typical, novel-length response.

TSR is completely safe to download from and saying otherwise is false. The ads may be annoying, but it is far from ad.fly etc where your computer is at risk of getting malware and viruses. On top of that, the admins at TSR individually check and in-game test uploads to verify they meets strict standards. This ensures you, the downloader, can confidently download CC knowing that your gaming performance and computer memory won't be negatively impacted. So if anything, you are much safer downloading from TSR than anywhere else.

You can absolutely get all of my CC for free. If you don't want to see the ads, it is only $4 a month for the VIP membership which removes the ads in addition to other benefits. The very small team that admins the site work incredibly hard and care very much about the community. Their effort, which again includes checking uploads to keep downloaders safe, is their full time job and isn't free. In addition, TSR is the only site that directly compensates artists for their CC. Not only does making CC take an incredible amount of time, but typically artists use programs (like photoshop) that cost money to use. So whether you pay for the VIP membership or have to see ads and wait 15 seconds to download - the outcome of that is artists are compensated for their hard work. But I digress, bottom line is in no way is my CC behind a paywall. You can access most of my CC, for free, on TSR in addition to direct downloads on my website which are hosted on Sims File Share and don't use pay-per-click links.

I am incredibly grateful for each and every one of my patrons. I value everyone in the sims community, not just patrons, and constantly engage/seek feedback to create CC that adds aesthetic and functionality to the simmie experience. I open as many lines of communication as I can including DMs on all my social media accounts in addition to my discord servers which are open to everyone. Point being - I don't close that off for patrons exclusively. The CC I create for patrons is not behind a paywall either and I only make early access 1-2 weeks so the rest of the community doesn't have to wait a long time to get it. And as far as my patreon benefits are concerned, the only complaint I have gotten so far is that I post/message too much so I feel that I am providing benefits that reflect my extreme gratitude for their support.

I have put in love, dedication, and countless hours to build the 400+ patrons I have and it isn't up to you to tell me what to do. Like many of you, I was hit particularly hard by COVID. My boyfriend (AKA life partner/bff/roomie) owns his own company and instead of laying off his employees he choose to cut his own pay by over 50%. Because TSR is wonderful and appreciates/compensates their CC creators, this has become a lifeline for me during this time in addition to my support on Patreon. In turn, I have spent significantly more time creating CC so I could continue making 3 sets/month on TSR and also produce additional sets for Patreon. Since starting my Patreon in March, I have consistently released sets outside of TSR which have many more objects/set as compared to my TSR sets. I have also fulfilled requests and published single items in between larger sets. All of which I have made available completely for free, without the use of pay-per-click links, after a short early access period (and sometimes immediately).

After working a full-time job, I spend almost every night and the majority my free time to create CC for the community. I also help new creators/artists with problems they have, create tutorials, dedicate a lot of my time to responding to messages/comments on all platforms (TSR, Reddit, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, Discord, etc.), and generally put a lot of effort into being active in the community/listening to your needs. This being said, I sympathize that you have to wait 15 seconds to download my CC but have you ever considered that I spent weeks creating that?

Again, I debated even responding to this but wanted to make my perspective clear in case others felt similar to you. I am a person - not a CC making machine. My time and effort is worth something and I work incredibly hard to make *free* CC for you. In conclusion of this over-explained response to an anon ask, I am glad you enjoy my CC and hope in the future the few second wait isn't such a bother.

P.S. For all the wonderful simmies who I am sure will respond showing me love and support, just know I understand this anonymous opinion is not speaking for the majority of simmers. The warmth I typically receive from this community has brought so much happiness to my life. And even to the anon... no hard feelings, just hope this brought some perspective to the other side of CC.