The sooner 2014-deviantART-esque ‘copying’ discourse dies a fiery, bloody death in the Sims community, the better. I don’t care for the majority of this discourse. Especially when it comes to claims of ‘copying’ CC.
When it comes to Simming styles, when people talk about everyone being ‘the same’ or whatever, well, of course people are going to have similar styles because a) it’s called taking inspiration and b) we are all using the same pool of available CC because, unless you make your own skin details or such, you’re going to be using the same CC at least one other person is using. If people share editing resources, then other people are going to be using those resources. If people share tutorials for their style, people are going to try and take inspiration from that. (I’m beyond grateful that the two people I am inspired by don’t claim ownership over texture overlays and bright-coloured lighting like somebody else might try to do.)
When it comes to CC, the ‘ownership’ of an idea is ultimately pretty stupid in most cases, especially when the idea itself is vague. Some CC creators claim they bought an idea to the Sims when somebody else did the same thing 9 years ago, or have claimed ownership over a style of CC that people have been ‘copying’ when people did the same shit in Second Life for ages.
People have tried to claim ‘copying’ over everything from occult body parts to the idea of a halo, and it’s exhausting at this point. Like wotunciba said (paraphrased), It becomes a weird battle of which creators are allowed to use specific references for their work, and which ones aren’t.
90% of this discourse does not matter one bit. It makes perfect sense that two people might reference the same hairstyle for two different types of CC. If two artists reference the same photograph for two separate art pieces, is that theft?
I think every creative could benefit from taking their head out of their asses about ‘originality.’ Nobody wants to be compared even a tiny bit to someone else, and the reality is there’s almost no such thing as a truly unique style or original idea. Most ideas have been done before, and you cannot claim ownership over fairly-vague concepts or reference photos. You are not God’s gift to originality, and everything is inspired by something. So why are other creatives not allowed to take inspiration?
This shit puts off creatives. I have recently gotten into making occult CC myself, and I am usually put off trying certain things because everyone thinks they own every vague concept you could ever turn into a mesh. And we do not need yet another Occult CC War over who can make what…. we really don’t.
No-one owns occult ears, no-one owns halos, no-one owns glowing, no-one owns a Pinterest reference. The sooner we all get our heads out of our backsides about ‘copying’ in a world where creative are likely to take inspiration from the same or similar sources, the better.
gummygunk
tangentwithtanner
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
titsay
