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Post by potet on Jan 24, 2021 10:48:17 GMT
If the colour photostories I have made with screen captures of the E.A. game "The Sims" come out well, I'd like to make them public. The problem is that I don't know if the screen captures of the games I play, and that show the actions of the characters I direct, belong to me or to E.A. Any idea?  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2021 12:36:37 GMT
If this wasn't The Sims but something called Disney's Cartoon World Simulator instead what do you think Disney would do when they saw an unlicenced Mickey, Donald, Goofy et al product featuring their characters being sold without their permission? But if you want to be specific, from The SIMS 4 EULA: ....you may not otherwise copy, display, seek to disable, distribute, perform, publish, modify, create works from, or use the Software or any component of it, except as expressly authorized by EA.
You can get away with the odd screenshot or video capture here and there for review or illustration purposes, probably parody in some countries, and EA seems OK with screenshots being used to sell User Generated items.
If you (say) compiled a book of The Sims screengrabs and sold it then would EA come after a POD book that wan't on general release? Probably not, Would they legally be entitled to do so though? Absolutely yes.
If you do want a definitive answer to your question then contact EA telling them what you intend to do and asking for written permission to do so. Even if they say Yes they may want a cut and\or ask you to purchase a licence from them to make it official.
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Post by potet on Jan 24, 2021 18:45:27 GMT
Thanks a lot Bizzley. A very useful reply indeed.
I'll contact EA when I deem an album ready for publication.
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Post by Ken on Jan 24, 2021 19:26:27 GMT
If this is purely for your own benefit and set as Private there should be no problem.
Make it Public and you’ll be in the deep smelly stuff.
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Post by potet on Jan 24, 2021 22:32:04 GMT
Ken, for the moment, it is still in the experimental stage, and the two albums to be printed are private.
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Post by JesusNinja on Jan 24, 2021 22:43:24 GMT
That is a tough one. I watch streams on Youtube.com all the time with gamers streaming live play of online games. One guy even does three hour beginners guide on how to buy, install, and play the game. One is Elder scrolls Online. There are lot of people using this game to stream and make money off of their streams. So hard to say. I would be safe and contact EA though. Screenshots might be a different matter and you might just have to give EA credit in the book or something. I have watched people on Youtube also playing music videos and then commenting on them. I do know that they have to pay a royalty to the band.
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Post by potet on Jan 25, 2021 10:14:35 GMT
Thanks, Bizzley, Ken, JesusNinja. I have found the EA address to which such requests should be e-mailed: permissionrequests@ea.com. I wrote them yesterday night with all the necessary details and a PDF attachment of the test booklet. The cover is not super, but the inside is OK. I immediately received an automatic answer acknowledging my request and giving links for those wishing to post videos on YouTube, etc. Apparently publishing some Sims adventures in commercial booklets is unusual, so I'll wait until my case is considered.   |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2021 13:42:59 GMT
Fingers crossed for your request, if EA do grant permission then being able to label it as Officially Approved will open up doors for you. For example computer magazines would definitely pay more attention to it because of the Official stamp. If you carry on with this have you thought about a proper comic book layout? Ever come across Comic Life before? |
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Post by Ken on Jan 25, 2021 14:31:18 GMT
That’s a really excellent suggestion Bizzley.
It may take quite some effort and learning Potet but could lead to some excellent products.
I don’t know if you use Adobe InDesign, as I do, but there some wonderful tutorials and tools available to you with a simple Google search.
Good luck in your endeavors.
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Post by Ken on Jan 25, 2021 16:32:09 GMT
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Post by potet on Jan 25, 2021 17:04:08 GMT
Thanks for the suggestion about bubbles. I can make them with Photoshop although theirs are not so professional and easy to create and handle as shown in the tutorial. A few years ago, I used the Photoshop bubbles to turn perfectly innocent family snapshots into humoristic pictures like this one:  Wife: "His is said to be that long." Husband: "How do you know?" On the other hand, you may have noticed some of my characters tend to deliver long statements, so I opted for captions in a convenient part of the picture. For instance:  Situation: The Athlete (left) tells the journalist (right) they all enjoy their fans' adulation. The club also markets their dirty sportswear because their sweat and their smell turn fans on. Athletes are paid 50% of the profit. |
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Post by Ken on Jan 25, 2021 18:46:03 GMT
As you can see from some of the tutorials a fair amount of text can be spread thro several balloons.
Your second example, in my opinion, has far too much text.
I don’t understand what story you are trying to tell but it may be better to more images with far less text For each image, you may need to edit the images to achieve this.
Another suggestion could less images per page.
A further suggestion could be to write the whole story first, and go through it then creating a story board and creating the images.
Mind you, my expertise is in using InDesign and technical content not writing stories.
So good luck.
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Post by potet on Jan 25, 2021 19:11:50 GMT
The stories in the present volume are whimsical. For the title I have opted for _Loufoqueries simiennes_ (Simian Zanies). When I have finished. I'll test the book with various members of my family. They'll probably agree with you.  For the moment, I have come across a new problem. Beyond 100 picture pages, WordPerfect, ceases to display all the pictures; only a few remain visible. The real problem is that the PDF of the book reflects this state of thing, being therefore useless. If I cannot find a solution, I'll just content myself with shorter volumes. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2021 20:42:26 GMT
Split the book into smaller sections, each of less than 100 picture pages, create a PDF for each section then merge them to make one large PDF.
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Post by potet on Jan 26, 2021 8:31:22 GMT
Permission refused. The book will remain private.  |
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