PAY SITES, FREE
SITES, PIRATES AND HONEST SIMMERS
The Good and the Bad of our
simming world
Pirates:
wise saviours or blind killer?
I've read a lot of posts, mainly on a site that must
not be named, that explain why "pirates" feel the right to "grab"
stuff from paysites and post them publicly, for free download.
At first, while I disagreed with the method, I agreed
with the purpose. The entire operation showed an inner soul made
of honour, pride and manly inclination for challenges.
But then the definition of "paysite" grew
wider and wider, and by now countless sites have fallen under the
swords of the pirates. Big or small, expensive or cheap, with lots
of pay content or just few items, friends or foe: no distinction
is made, no care is taken. Pride has turned to arrogance, honour
turned to greed, inclination for challenge turned to taste for blood.
Robin Hood stopped robbing to rich men to give
to poor men, and started robbing to anyone just because he's good
at it.
Mind that I'm not saying this because my Tanning
Bed has been illegally put (to be downloaded "for free"!) in those pirates' booty.
Of course it's saddening for me to realize that at least ONE person who received
this gift from me, despite the copyright I claim over it and ignoring my request -
asked as a personal favour - not to share it with anyone, decided to include it in
the pirates' booty. Actually, they didn't steal anything
from me (I still have my tanning bed, and still I can give it as
a gift to anyone I like); but they have deprived the people that
I gave my gift to, of the pleasure to own an exclusive object, thus
lessening the value of my gift to them. This is what really made
me angry, added to the dismay to see my site labelled as a "pay
site" (that must be destroyed...).
This is silly, really. By the way, they might think
that I recieve hundreds of donations every day, but of course this
is not. In June, when the Tanning Bed has been given to the pirates,
I've recieved very few donations, all from PayPal "verified" members (most of which known persons);
after a long period of silence (the previous donation dated back to April!).
So, I'd need just a little investigation to discover the "guilty", if I wanted to.
But can we really say that this person is the one to blame?
I don't feel that, or at least I want to believe this person just got into a bigger game that by now has lost its track
and is pointing to nowhere.
During the last months, I've talked to several modders that decided to quit modding, or to stop sharing their creations,
because they were disgusted by the nasty behaviour of some simmers. I respected their decision, but every time I thought
that we were losing another good source of high-quality FREE stuff. And who suffers for that?
Not certainly the pirates, but only the simmers
that are wise enough to avoid wasting money on paysites and get
free content from free sites. Is this what the pirates want? If one earns a lot of money with his creations, he would hardly quit modding only because someone is nasty with him; but if he works for free, well, who could blame him if he leaves the arena?
Let's keep in mind that, if this robbery keeps becoming nastier and nastier,
TSR will be the last one to die.
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