Garden of Shadows is down, but not out.

[strangetomato]

I thought I'd do my part to spread the word to anyone who might be wondering about Garden of Shadows, and why it's not working. It seems TSR made a legal complaint to GoS's web host about them redistributing their supposedly "copyrighted content." There are more details here on nymphynymms journal. (ETA: And also on Jenfold's dreamwidth journal.)

Thank you to simgaroop for bringing this to my attention. I'm a big fan of Garden of Shadows, even though I mostly lurk. They continue to create quality content for Sims 2, even though most other cc sites gave up the ghost a long time ago. I was thoroughly enjoying the Earth Day monthly theme, and I'm saddened that this messes with their next monthly theme right around that exciting time when the new theme is decided and announced (which theme won? Does anyone know? I was just going to go check). Way to ruin everyone's fun, TSR. Bunch of dicks.

Comments

[song-sims.livejournal.com]

Oh, you have got to be kidding me, considering TSR uses other people's "copyrighted" material all the time, including that of other creator's and EA, and has the audacity to charge for it.

We won't even get into some of their other questionable activities.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

The part that gets me is how they figure there's any overlap in consumers of TSR content and the folks who frequent GoS. Do they actually think we'd go directly to TSR to buy the stuff if GoS didn't exist? *stifles laughter* I can't imagine they're actually losing any potential customers this way.

Yeah, the less said about them, the better. I try not to think about them at all most of the time.

[madame-ugly.livejournal.com]

Let the secreting BEGIN!

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Bahaha! I was thinking the same thing.

They're so getting secreted for this. They're getting secreted SO HARD. That'll learn 'em.

[lady-talaie.livejournal.com]

This is just insane. I mean TSR is know for haveing other simmer take credit for other works. The fact that they descided that they are god on this ruling is totaly bonkers. On top of that isn't most of that content making it to TSR after it has already been floating around TSR. The copyright is to the creator not the site. They hold no leagal grounding when the content was not created by members of there site. ( I had to do resaerch I few years ago on copyright material and I know for a fact that all media regarded as written, draw, or over all created with the use of art stuff.) That being said TSR should be sue for forgery on the above grounds.

[cindyanne1.livejournal.com]

TSR needs to just let go already... too much effort, and I refuse to believe they are actually losing money over any of this. That ship sailed a long time ago.

[meetme2theriver.livejournal.com]

They probably ARE losing money from being dickheads all the time, though.

[akatonbo.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, Liegen already had an arrangement with Pescado for technical server stuff, so it looks like things should be up and running again elsewhere (i.e. probably Pescado's server) soon. In the meantime, on with the TSR-destroying.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Nice. There's something so oddly satisfying about having Pescado swoop in to save the day once again.

[muslemura.livejournal.com]

Woah! Way to sink even lower than I thought even they could o_O

[doronjosima.livejournal.com]

I'm going to repost the info too, my three or four readers might want to know. XD

I'm kind of disgusted with GoDaddy over this; I use them for the two sites for my business (webcomics) and have rarely had trouble. Though, when other sites have stolen the intellectual property on my sites and I've sent legal notifications to GoDaddy (their host) about it, they've done absolutely nothing and the people pirating our hard work never even had an outage. Delightful way to conduct business there, guys. This just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[nymphynymms.livejournal.com]

Thank you for spreading the word on this strange tomato.

"Which theme won? Does anyone know?"

Am not sure at all. The backup we will be using when we move servers is from Saturday, so the poll will still be open. But it would be comical if it was Apocalypse.. because things really did go bang :P

[jenfold-sims.livejournal.com]

No Nymphers, the poll will have never been made! That said when I saw it last on thursday morning, probably a few hours before the server got pulled Apocalypse was 6 votes ahead.

[pyrate-xx.livejournal.com]

Fair sure your icon sums up perfectly what we all feel TSR should go and do with themselves.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yessir, it says just about everything I want to say about TSR. Anything more just wastes my typing energy on something I'd rather ignore completely.

[ownsimscorner.livejournal.com]

TSR are lower than low. I mean, what the hell are they hoping to accomplish here? They must know they don`t have any real "claims" on the CC they create, so why do they do this? Sheer malicious pleasure would be my guess.

[lady-talaie.livejournal.com]

Actually as I said above the creators them selves hold the copyright claims to any CC they make. If they then sell said content to TSR they kept there rights but TSr know holds some rights over it. Also if the CC is made by and owner of TSR then yes they do hold the right to that.

Just thought I would point that out. It falls under the heading of intellectual property.

[simtopi]

So freaking lame. >:(

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

Good to see that TSR is still the worst. Bleehhhhh.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yup. It's just business as usual in the Sims fandom. :P

[fantasyrogue.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I don't even know what to say about TSR anymore except to just shake my head.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

How about "bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling"?

That's from Pratchett. I forget which book.

[autumnparanoia.livejournal.com]

Bastards, I wondered what had happened to GoS. :(

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

I know! I thought it was just either a) my internet acting screwy or b) GoS experiencing a server outage (well, that's technically true, in a sense) and it'd be back to normal in a day or two.

[sixamsims.livejournal.com]

TSR suck balls in a big way.....END TRANSMISSION.

[jenfold-sims.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this post Tomato, the more people that know what's happening the better.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

No problem, Jenfold. It was my pleasure to help spread the news of this most recent TSR douche-baggery. It really sucks when a whole forum goes down like this. I imagine it's pretty near impossible to reach everyone with the news.

(And hey, I spoke to Jenfold without getting bitten or shot or kicked in the face. The rumours are not true, people. Heheheh.)

[lady-talaie.livejournal.com]

To clarafie for meetme2theriver:

In a sense yes it is all owned by EAMaxis. (That is a given which in turn actaully proves that TSR has even less of a leg to stand on.)

But if we pretend that it is indenpent work recolors aside, which need to be with permission any way, all the work in copyrighten to the creators. So if some one had to fix a mesh then they know have rights to it becuase it is not the orginal anymore and is something new. But the post the same thing from one site done by one person and then going to another site with it and claiming that it is some one else is in not okay. That was what I was getting at with intellectual property.

And as to what fantasyrouge said, sereiously if your readin that contract corectly then TSR wins for life and even the creator in some sense get their rears handed to them because they may put their work up at more than one place. Like I know simmers who posted at GoS, Mod, and a Club Crimson. It is still their work and they posted it at more than one place to get it out there. Then people steal it claim it as their own and post on TSR hoping the orginal gets yanked.

[meetme2theriver.livejournal.com]

"But if we pretend that it is indenpent work"

Yes, but... it isn't. Pretending otherwise doesn't make any difference.

[simgarooop.livejournal.com]

I wish TSR would just stop doing this shit. I don't think the "sharing" that was going on at GOS was really affecting their revenue in any case, considering they seem to be close partners with EA and that in turn is a huge advertisement for that site.

Any Sim Newbie can find TSR easily and buy a subscription, unaware that selling CC goes actually against EA terms of use.

I'll never understand why EA supports this site in particular and not ModTheSims instead, but I'm afraid that trying to find reason is like beating a dead horse.

Last night's exhaustion made me forget to unlock my previous entry, so I'm doing that right now to spread the word to more people. And I'm also updating my MTS profile again. You are right, the more people know about TSR's acts, the better.

[meetme2theriver.livejournal.com]

I honestly think that EA is looking at this from what seems to them to be the most profitable angle - by supporting the biggest Sims CC site, they are getting the most publicity for themselves. You like to shop at TSR? Come try our excellent EA store items!

If they wanted to, they could so easily stomp on TSR for selling what is essentially theirs, but they won't, because they would alienate a huge number of their customers. Likewise, if they openly supported paysites, they'd alienate the non-paysite crowd. So they remain quiet on the matter, and continue to promote themselves through TSR, which they've probably found will work better for them than doing do through MTS. It's all about the money.

[traciandrus.livejournal.com]

Arrg this is stupid. :/ TSR strikes again.

Oh and I'm sure we will have a shit storm of secrets this week. lol

[selenecorvino.livejournal.com]

Thank you for letting me know.

I really try to avoid TSR like the plague.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

Me too. I'll break my rule if I really want some specific thing, in the interest of casting the widest possible net (for example, I have a couple CF gothic dresses from TSR), but normally I don't even go near it because I don't want to get douchebag paysite all over me.

[will-o-whisper.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wonder if TSR ever just sits back and really thinks about what they're going bugfuck over. Probably not.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

Oh, I very much doubt that. They're not even in the same area code as reality.

[dhearest.livejournal.com]

I usually just ignore T$R but GOS is my favorite sims community and I'm very upset that they did this. I'm glad that it will be back up soon. Thank you for the information. I was really concerned when I couldn't access GOS yesterday, now I know why.

[honorkid54.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting.

This is utter and complete crap.

[anebrd.livejournal.com]

Alot of people are writing, wondering how TSR will make such claims on copyrights and whatever. However I wonder if it is the case of simply removing a threat to them. I mean GoS has a huge fan base. Perhaps TSR thinks we will go there. Merely a thought.

[llama-ramalon.livejournal.com]

I saw this right when I was about to try and get on, darn. :(
Else-wise, bleh on TSR. That is all.