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11-15-02 Don't steal! (an overly long rant...)

Ok, I don't talk about this very much because it's been said a million times, a million different ways, and by plenty of people who have had their stuff out there a lot longer than I have.... but, don't steal! A few people have open permission to use my textures and meshes as bases, but I know those people. ;)

For everybody else, I handle it on a per file basis. I _want_ you guys to email me and ask _before_ you put anything up on a site (yes, even TSR) that's been made with one of my files. My heads (both textures and meshes) are especially easy for me to recognize. Plus, I keep everything in it's original format, so I still have all of my textures in their original layers and all of my meshes in their original MilkShape file. This makes it really easy for me to go back and compare mine to whatever file is in question! :P

Now, most of us (including me) have a habit of modifying other people's things for our own games, but I go to great pains to make sure that those kinds of things stay on my own computer and I don't see why everybody else shouldn't do the same.

I almost had a heart attack a while back because I noticed that one of my heads had been made with a modified version of one of the awesome Sultry Earth free hair bases and I had not given credit. Shelby and Mako were both really cool about it when I brought it to their attention, but I offered to take it down and I made sure to get one of their "readme.txt"s in the zip ASAP. I hate it when I use other people's things because it makes me feel less creative and I always get really embarrassed when I have to ask permission. ^^;

I don't know why anybody would want to have a site if they aren't making their own files, but if that's your thing, please just remember to always ask me first before using anything of mine. I've had to ask Des and Az for permission a million times (they've always been really sweet and said yes so far ^_^), but I've had to throw away a whole batch of files before when people have told me no (ok, so it only happened once, lol), but the point is... ask first. I do, you should too.

It is funny to me when I make something totally from scratch and it turns out looking similar to something of someone else's (this happens to me with face textures all the time!). I once made a male face from a scan of Apolo Ohno, a default Maxis texture, and lots of original drawing and it looked so much like one of Kyoen's textures it was scary!

So, I do know that these things happen, but I can tell the difference between what looks like mine (and I always check _really_ well before contacting anyone) and what really is mine. I'm guessing that other Sim makers can too. Really, I understand that when you're doing any kind of game mod it's very tempting to just borrow from someone else's mod, but it's not a good idea to make those things public or take credit for them (this is especially true for this game because of the audience and the large community).

I also want to take this time to say that if you ever see one of my creations and it looks a little familiar, just email me. I'll be happy to send you my original files and if we do find that I've lost my mind and used something of yours, I will go to great lengths to remedy the situation. ^_^

 
 
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