I have no problem if they use patron, but I haave a big problem with adfly because of the malware that gets put on your computer.

This is a completely reasonable take, lol. I don't get what people are disagreeing with.

Far from knowing much about all of this but the EA user agreement seems to say that you have to make it freely available. Maybe something to do with making art based on someone else's property. Similar to other fan art based on books or movies.
It's section 5, the last paragraph.
EA User agreement
In section 3, it also says any user generated content is property of EA.
It's very different from original art creation.

Yes i heard about that, not soon after i went onto The Sims Resource i heard 1 creator had already done a dump of their stuff on Patreon and is making new stuff on there now despite keeping it for free on the free website but what you don't know eh? :\ and a few videos i've seen YouTubers endorsing other YouTubers who're mainly doing this to pay on Patreon to get their stuff which isn't even anything special... it's mainly just the odd outfit or gucci bags LOL i'm laughing.

I'm sorry but that's illegal and the templates alone don't belong to them it's why you create them for free... you do it to improve your games, other peoples games and to help create other things it's meant to be free for all wonderful creative process for all of us to enjoy. So far it's only a small handful as i can see on Paysites Must Be Destroyed but majority of people on free sites are keeping it free and won't do that (thank you i love you lol), Patreon is fishy too and they spend peoples Donations and make people wait weeks or months until they give it back but god knows how they do that... something not right going on there i would stay far away from it.

I wonder- does it cover only content made with the Sims engine (i.e. sims, houses), or does it extend into content made using other programs?

The first, I can understand and is entirely fair, the latter is probably harder to enforce IMO and is in a greyer zone (i.e. is a dress made in Fabulous Designer now EA property, same with a SL conversion?)

The problem is not just CC creators, it's everyone. They expect money for their hobbies today. On every site you see ads, every streamer asks you for money, every creator provides patreon or uses adfly links. That's absurd. People are so pretentious, they think they someone owes them money for their hobbies!

Throughout human history, hobbies were just hobbies. If someone managed to earn money from a hobby, it became a job, and it was rare enough. But now everyone thinks that they're special and should get paid for their every breath.

I think the case that irritated me most was about a site I used to read, a site about horror games. It had loads of amazing reviews, including vintage games, and it existed for many years. It was a real gem. But then the author decided to shut it down and his explanation was: not enough people read the site to earn decent money from it. Yeah I lost all respect towards the guy although I used to respect him a lot. WHY in hell did he expect to earn decent money from a site about horror games? Just WHY?! It doesn't even make sense.

I think our culture is to blame. Everyone wants to consume, so everyone is crazy for money, and everyone thinks they're special, because ironically commercials brainwashed us into believing that ('Buy X product, you DESERVE it!').

I was always under the impression that once it's packaged into the proprietary file structure that the game uses, that's when the EULA goes into effect and ownership is transferred to EA. And it's very easily enforced of that's the case, so long as there aren't extenuating circumstances such as one person packaging another's model for use without permission.

And the transfer of ownership is legally the easiest option for EA. They get to maintain control over everything. No need to try to hassle with unscrupulous actors.

^The above is correct. I make meshes from scratch, as well as textures. I can sell those meshes and textures to my hearts content as they are. Once they're made into a package that can be used in any of the Sims ganes? They're no longer mine, they're EA's and I agreed to that when I installed the game.

That said, EA is fine with people making money off their creations as long as they release the content for free in 2-3 weeks. (It's really that simple!)

I don't mind is someone has a Patreon or Donation button on their home page - that means they're not forcing you to give you money for their content, only if you want to.

Then you have creators who try to earn money from converting other people's meshes/textures, like this recent discussion:
https://sushigal007.tumblr.com/post...to-ts4-creators

It's not a new phenomenon, but it's not particularly fun to see something you put up for free suddenly monetized. I've had at least one instance of an adfly link slapped onto a conversion of some of my items, and I was not particularly happy about that - especially since they first had put up a regular download link and later had hid it behind adfly (The item was salvaged and put up as an ad-free link, because I'll have none of that).

I use adfly blockers but then sometimes they won't work and then sometimes even the adfly link doesnt work. Then I can't download the CC. Opera also tells me the site is malicious. I've given up on some creators who are putting their creations behind extreme paywalls at the expense of my computer.

It's simple - I don't use Adfly links. There's no CC or mods I want that badly. And this ain't my first rodeo with this concept - the battle with pay sites was huge back in Sims 2's heyday.

^ These days I'd rather download from TSR than anything with adfly, because they no longer demand you pay for individual items, and it is possible to get around both the ads and the adblocker blockers without too much trouble. TSR used to be really bad, but now they're rather tame, if a bit annoying. I still don't tend to download a lot from there, but at least now there's no pay-per-item. There's the "pay to get rid of ads" and "download basket" thing, but after all the cr*p they've done over the years I'm surprised if they get anywhere with that. Maybe there's a chance with who never were part of the TS2 or early TS3 community, but I'm doubtful...

Cookies can be (and probably should be) cleaned out regularly. You can also set some limits on the browsers you use on what kind of cookies they're allowed to do anything about, and whether to give you a warning if the site you're on uses cookies you've not allowed for. You may also want to set some limits on apps on Windows 10 (and on your phone) too, as it saves all kinds of information about your whereabouts and prefrences. If you see very targeted ads, or apps that shouldn't know your location suddenly knows it, that's a classic sign of apps knowing a bit more about you than you probably want them to.

^ If you turn off some of those settings, it may be able to save you some battery time and/or storage space, depending on how much the apps are demanding.

We've had an app that's meant to help track the covid virus (warning if you'd come into contact with someone who'd been sick), but for the most part it just manages to drain batteries like a hungry caterpillar. People were first encouraged to download the app, but now some experts are saying they're very skeptical to it for a variety of reasons, including questioning the anonymity of the tracking data. And it was also recently discovered just how easy it is to track someone with the supposedly "anonymous" data companies are collecting via other apps. Reporters got hold of some supposedly anonymous tracking info to test the claims, and very easily managed to figure out the exact person it belonged to (reporting on it and also giving information on what to do with such apps). That's kinda scary...

Sometimes the best way to deal with it is just to turn off permissions for tracking on everything you're not using "at all times", and instead give permission to use cookies while you're actually using the app. That way the app isn't constantly tracking your whereabouts and what you do, but only have access to information when you're actually using the app, giving you more control over what it has access to. You can do the same on a computer.

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As for adfly, I have avoided these links ever since I switched computer, not clicking a single one - with one (accidental) exception. That one exception is the ONLY time my antivirus has actually given me a "I've blocked a bad file" warning since I installed it over a year ago (I've been extremely careful). What made it worse? The page wasn't even fully loaded before I got the warning. The page was blank, I frantically clicked it away when I realized I'd clicked an adffly link (the creator had a mix between simfileshare and adfly on the same page, hence the mistake), and then I got the warning.

I mean, if it was one out of a hundred, then maybe it wouldn't be that big of a deal (I'd still not trust them) - but it's ONE out of ONE. So I don't trust adfly AT ALL .

I have downloaded from adfly links in the past with adfly redirectors and all that, but lately it's been really difficult to get anything safely from those links. It's "cross fingers and toes and hope to not get anything nasty". Lately I just started to skip them, and with my new laptop I don't want to come anywhere near them...

Oh, I don't use TSR, either. (They may have changed their tune, but I haven't forgotten what went on in the past.) No adfly, no TSR, no paysites.

It's so hard to avoid paysites for me these days. I go to Tumblr and half the users I look through hide their CC behind adfly links that do not work for me. I can refresh, I can edit the url, I get stuck where it asks me to turn on notifications. No way, I'm good on the notifications. The CC isn't work it.
I got a TSR time skipper Chrome extension and it worked for the longest time. I'm not waiting 160 seconds when I have tons of CC I am downloading and since my internet is so slow, I'm already waiting 10 minutes minimum for one damn piece of CC to download. I can't wait 15 minutes to download one piece of custom content, man.

Still working for me with a adblocker : https://chrome.google.com/webstore/...godbae?hl=en-US
saw this site mentioned in comments thought I would add the updated one in case others didnt know this site now has Ts2/Ts3 & Ts4 they took over for another site it seems: http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org/booty/
also keep a eye on this greasy fork script once its updated it will be like golden magic on tsr I used it when it was working quick & easy instant downloading for free ATM ITS NOT WORKING TSR got smart I guess lol : https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395018-tsr-freemium

I'm a creator and I don’t know if other creators have experienced it but almost every real life person who knows what I do has told me I must be mad for giving it away for free. The favourite approach, when they realise I have tuned out, is to try and shame me into selling stuff by telling what I could buy if I did charge. And almost instantly they become experts in virtual graphic design and the business of selling it.
I no longer talk about what I make, especially the things I make for fun, not the sims 4, simply to avoid the sneers and advice.
When I started playing this game (when dinosaurs walked the Earth) I used it to escape real life (still do) and I always appreciated creators that gave their work for free, (still do). I promise myself, one day when I couldn’t afford a Sims 2 set that I wanted so bad I could have screamed, that if I ever figured how to mesh I would always share for free. And I do, I'm totally happy at S4S sharing for free and my TOU states no pay sites at all including adfly and TSR. If I did find any of my work on a pay-site, even though I share for free I would consider it theft.

I used to make and release CC (mostly in Tumblr, but in other forums too - and it was always 100% free) for TS2 and TS3, but I never really got around to share any of the (very few) stuff I have made for TS4, I think in part because I'm sort of repulsed by this growing attitude in regards to adfly, paysites, and perhaps controversially(?), patreon. I don't remember such proliferating of paid CC in the TS3 times (aside from TSR and a very small set of paysites.) I don't want to name names, but I find it quite crazy that some TS2 CC creators who used to pride themselves in making free stuff, now with TS4 all their CC is pay...

I am not here to defend creators because I am one but modding is like a 2nd job. The amount of work when patches break, requests, etc it takes a lot and I can understand why some use link shortners and Patreon. I use a link shortner that loads in 3 seconds if you use Google Chrome and ad-blocker. When mods break it can takes hours if not days to update all mods. The last patch took me around 3 days to get everything and then you're hoping people don't get mad over it.

The nerve of some people who think they can yell at someone who shares their work is unbelievable. You are not required to share your work. If someone gets mad, I would tell them to not use the mod. Of course, people have every right to get mad if they have to pay.

I believe it's called TSR Skipper!

don't know if I'm misinterpreting your comment, but ...it's definitely not a hair creator who I was talking about

I came across a creator on patreon where you have to pay $20 for an extra recolored object - $20! I can't even imagine what goes through that person's head thinking they actually should do that.

Yes, that is a major problem and especially if you have never been a creator. I got tired of waiting for my requests so I dipped into modding and anyone can do it if you're willing. It's a second job. Let me tell you as someone who has over 100 mods. When the game patches - all mods have to be updated, errors happened, I take requests, and you have to get text descriptions of all mods. This is not easy to do with me being a graduate student, works and etc.

If you've never created content, maybe you shouldn't judge all. I do agree some mods are overpriced - my Patreon is simply 1.00 a month if you choose.