Plagiarism

[tigerplayer91 3]

I honestly do not understand what is so bad about "plagiarism" as long as the person gives credit to the original creator. But on this site people are dead set on no plagiarism what so ever. I personally dont see it as plagiarism. I see it as spreading around work to the people who dont go to the same site that creator does. Say someone from Simtropolis wants a building from SC4Devotion. They have to go to that site, register, check their email, and confirm registration. For one site that might not sound like a big deal but there are countless numbers of SimCity 4 sites out there. I do not get what the problem is. I am currently registered at 5 different sites but Simtropolis is by far my favorite. Its easy to use, friendly, and welcoming. Other sites (not naming names) make you look by author. I am sorry, but I dont know the author of every building I have on SimCity 4. People should be allowed to share creations. Uploads shouldnt be exclusive to one site. That just makes it harder for the rest of us. This whole ordeal was brought about by a lot I was downloading called "Chase Tower." This kid uploaded it from SCC.com or something like that and everyone kept yelling at them for plagiarism. If it wasn't for this so called "plagiarism" I wouldve never found this building. They even gave credit to the original creator. I would not care if someone shared my uploads (which I dont have any) with other sites. But I guess thats just me.

[Silur 3,308]

Law is law ...

[tigerplayer91 3]

well thats it. there is no "official" law on upload sharing. thats my new name for it.

[dedgren 830]

I guess, tigerplayer, that you have a PC rather than a Mac.  If you want a Mac, you go to the Mac store.  That's how the folks who make Macs want things.  If you don't want to go along with that, don't buy a Mac.

Now, I'm presuming what you will respond is that you want is a particular thing off the SC4D or one of the other fansite's exchanges that isn't available on the STEX.  You are not happy that it can't just be uploaded onto the STEX by anyone who wants to see it available here.  Well, look at it the other way around- what if someone who wanted to start a new site simply DL'd everything from the STEX and from SC4D and from another fansite or two and then started saying, "Come to SCAlwaysandForever- our exchange has everything!"  Is that fair to the folks who put their time and effort into those other exchanges?

Even more important, many creators of custom content care a great deal about where they upload for distribution to the community.  Some only upload here at the STEX, others only at SC4D, still others only at some other site.  Do you have the right to change that?

When it comes right down to it, in the wild west that is cyberspace you can probably do just about anything you want, if you can live with yourself afterwards.  Does that mean you should?

Things to think about.  Remember, this is a community of folks united by the common enjoyment of a much beloved game.  Friends, in my experience, don't steal from other friends- at least to the extent that they want to remain friends.

David

[joe2102001 19]

Realistically there are no laws to protect non-copyrighted works, so lawfully they would have a hard time proving in a court of law that they are entitled to the rights of their work, however if people started stealing all their work and uploading to sites without their permission, how long would it take till they said screw it and stopped making all the stuff that keeps this game interesting.  Ultimately we should respect the fact that they put such an immense amount of effort for us, as they could just keep it for themselves and these sites would whither and die along with the game.

[Sam 163]

Originally posted by: tigerplayer91 well thats it. there is no "official" law on upload sharing. thats my new name for it.quote>

Actually there is. Copyright automatically applies to any creative work and it is not permitted to distribute the creation without the express written permission of the original author. Simtropolis abides by the law and its members are expected to as well.

Additionally, such distribution against the wishes of the creators would be very disrespectful to those people, and if they were shown such disrespect I don't think they would be very likely to make further creations for you to enjoy. They uploaded those creations to their respective sites knowing the usage rules of those sites (which include copyright), so please show them the respect they have requested (by reason of having uploading their creations under those rules).

The rules are mutual agreements that by joining Simtropolis you have agreed to respect. Please think very carefully about that agreement.

Originally posted by: joe2102001 Realistically there are no laws to protect non-copyrighted works...quote>

see my response above. Any published work is automatically copyright of the creator, even if they don't register the copyright.

Originally posted by: joe2102001

... so lawfully they would have a hard time proving in a court of law that they are entitled to the rights of their work, ....quote>

Actually its not too hard. All the copyright holder (original creator) needs to do is prove the file date of their creation from their computer, which will naturally be earlier than the file or uploaded date on the plagiariser's upload.

[tigerplayer91 3]

I don't want to create a Totalitarian SimCity4 site but I dunno. I just think it would be a lot easier if people all uploaded to the same site. Im not going to say favorites and who I think should get all the uploads. I just think it would be way easier that way. Or atleast share dependancies. That way when people download stuff from the STex, they dont have to scour SC4Devotion of all those megaprops and dependancies and stuff. I wish they didnt take the BSC files off of the STex.

[WackoJak 0]

You don't have to scour at all. Go to the BSC LEX and click on Dependancy Help in the side menu. It's the most painless task ever.

[Geronimo 4]

Well thats the way it is, its not that bad and if you dont like it, make your own BATs....

[Silur 3,308]

Originally posted by: tigerplayer91 I don't want to create a Totalitarian SimCity4 site but I dunno. I just think it would be a lot easier if people all uploaded to the same site. Im not going to say favorites and who I think should get all the uploads. I just think it would be way easier that way. Or atleast share dependancies. That way when people download stuff from the STex, they dont have to scour SC4Devotion of all those megaprops and dependancies and stuff. I wish they didnt take the BSC files off of the STex.quote>

 

We live in real world and let's respect one another ...

And Your finding work is ZERO against BAT artists work !!!  

[Odd from Sweden 129]

As a bater, I would like to add my point here. I have had great help from Simtropolis, without the Simtropolis tutorials, the downloads and the great help from all friendly forumers, my bats had never existed. Further, without Simtropolis I would not have even been a very devoted SC4 player at all.

Furthermore, it would be unpractical to have the bats for download in many places. Making screenshots that fit the site's format, uploading and checking/ responding to comments and moderating occational flaming comments is enough to do in one site. Sometimes more experimental advanced bats are reported to have bugs that need to be announced, fixed and updated and that process would be a hell to do in say five different sites.

Therefore, I upload my bats only here, to contribute back to all the devoted Simtropolis moderators and users and keep it all going. Creating a decent and decently sized bat takes at least 20 hours. If anyone do not think that it is worth to spend a few minutes to check a couple of different DL sites to get the new bats that come out, then I do not think that this person appericates the bat work enough to download the buildings.

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: joe2102001

Realistically there are no laws to protect non-copyrighted works,quote>

What constitutes a non-copyrighted work? Wikipedia taught me that works created by the US Federal Government are in public domain; other than that, it's (almost) only in public domain if the creator has been dead for at least fifty, usually seventyfive years (and that wouldn't apply to the SimCity community in the foreseeable future), OR if it's creator has released the work into the public domain. If so, you may do what you want with it.

Now, copyright laws are already de facto relaxed in the SimCity community, since it's common belief that you may reuse already made work AS LONG as you link to the used work as a dependecy and credit the creator. But if they specifically states that you may not reuse any of their work, you may not. That's the law.

I'll agree with the first poster that the SC4D search isn't the best, but thanks to the limited number of download available, it's pretty easy to find the stuff you want on the basis of the categories. And as Dedgren says, and Odd elaborates, different things are found on different locations. Either because it would require too much work to maintain files at severla locations, or because you would have to point all users to another site (that way it would also be hard to discover bugs etc. if you worry about that).

[Geronimo 4]

Originally posted by: Odd from Sweden (.......) Creating a decent and decently sized bat takes at least 20 hours. If anyone do not think that it is worth to spend a few minutes to check a couple of different DL sites to get the new bats that come out, then I do not think that this person appericates the bat work enough to download the buildings.quote>

 

Very well pointed out, Odd!

And as Dedgren pointed out :

Remember, this is a community of folks united by the common enjoyment of a much beloved game.  Friends, in my experience, don't steal from other friends- at least to the extent that they want to remain friends.quote>

Last, about the search function over at SC4Dev: Because you cant search for specific words on LEX doesnt mean you cant find it IF you try a search on the forum. And if you KNOW what you NEED, you`ll probably also know who made it...

[tigerplayer91 3]

The SC4Dev site takes so much time to search but I wasnt aware that the LEX also had BSC on it. Thats really helpful to know. Plus you dont have to search by author there. and Odd: thanks for your input it kind of gave me a better perspective on things from your point of view.

Silur:

We live in real world and let's respect one another ... And Your finding work is ZERO against BAT artists work !!!quote>

I already said that I dont have any BATS or anything of the sort made...so yeah...

[Bluebeard 0]

Throw out the legal crap it's all about Respect.

     Stealing others work is just that stealing no matter how you spin it.As to the exchange at SimCity.com well it ain't such a nice place.

[tigerplayer91 3]

Oh I know, the SimCity.com exchange is horrible. This place was like a safe haven. I was so happy when I stumbled on it searching "Big Cityies" on Google. lol. As to the law thing. I kind of agree with you. I dont think theres any real law about BATS being copyrighted...

[BIWDC 2,296]

On the copyright issue as per US law anyone may copyright there work so weather you

register it with the government or not you have a right to hold it.(other nations this may 

be different)

On uploading to other sites some authors wish to control where there files are located

so they upload to only 1 or 2 places,this helps them deal with copyright issues.This is 

a big thing with game faq/walkthrough writers.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

First of all this is a Canadian site.  Canadian copyright law applies, and it is pretty stringent.  Theft of intellectual property occurs if the author is named in the material even with a pseudonym.

There is no question that copying STEX or other material to another server is illegal.  Under international agreements, this applies world wide.

End discussioin.