Sims 3 Patterns

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 3 Create-A-Style Patterns:

You CAN use our patterns for any other type of Sims 3 item that uses them EXCEPT for pattern recolors

You MUST INCLUDE the pattern in your download

Credit is NOT required

Sims 3 Objects

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 3 Objects:

Objects CAN be included in Sims 3 Houses

Objects CAN be included in Sims 3 Worlds

Credit to Parsimonious must be given by the download of your your house or world

Objects may NOT be converted to Sims 1/2 and shared without permission

If you do use our objects in your creations, you are responsible for checking our site periodically to see if the object has been updated and replacing the version used in your item if necessary (the date and reason will be listed in the object's information)

Please be aware all our Sims 3 objects require either 'Pets' 1.26/1.27 base game patch. This means your download will also require the same - it is your responsibility to make your site visitors aware of this requirement if you use our objects.

Although you can convert our sims3pack format downloads into package files for use in your game, but they will not automatically get included with your house or world. If you wish for your visitors to get our creations so they appear inside your house or world as you've created it, then you will need to include our original sims3pack files in your download archive. Please do NOT include the raw package files in your archive - your visitors may prefer package files, in which case they are probably already comfortable and familiar with the process of extracting them.

Sims 3 Fashion

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 3 Fashion - that is clothing, hairstyles, make-up, shoes, accessories, skin tones etc:

Fashion items CAN be included with sims or households which use those items

Fashion items CAN be included in a house/world download that contains Sims using those items

Credit to Parsimonious must be given by the download of your sim, household, world or house

You may NOT include our fashion textures with CAST recolors of those items ***

*** This policy was amended in February 2011, previously the policy stated that all our fashion items could be included with Sims and CAST recolors without credit. This old policy was meant to last only for the short duration when our Sims 3 Fashion section included only CAST recolors and should have been updated immediately after original material became available in August 2009.

Sites with files uploaded prior to February 2011 may of course continue to comply with the old policy, however only as long as your existing files remain in their exact original condition and do not have cause to be updated or moved, after which time our new policy now applies and you must therefore cease distributing our original items with your CAST recolors. This does not affect downloads of sims, households, houses with households or worlds with households.

Sims 3 Houses

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 3 Houses:

Houses CAN be used in a World you are sharing online, they may also be altered, recolored or otherwise remodeled for this purpose

Credit to Parsimonious must be given by the download of your world

You may NOT post recolors or remodels of our houses as standalone downloads without permission

Sims 3 Walls & Floors

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 3 Walls & Floors, Lot and Create-a-World terrain paints:

You CAN use our walls, floors & lot terrains in a house or world download you are sharing online

You CAN recolor our world terrains to use in a world you are sharing online

Credit to Parsimonious must be given by the download of your house or world

You may NOT include our walls and floors in standalone downloads of CAST recolors of the walls and floors

You may NOT convert our world terrains into lot terrains or use the textures for any other purpose without permission

Sims 3 Worlds

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 3 Worlds:

You may NOT republish our Worlds, either 'as is' or as a reinterpretation without permission

Sims 2 Objects

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 2 Objects:

Objects CAN be included in Sims 2 Houses

Objects CAN be included with recolors based on that object

Credit to Parsimonious must be given by the download of your your house or recolor

You MAY re-use the meshes/textures inside the objects to make a modified (hacked) version but it must NOT override our original

You may NOT convert the object for other versions of The Sims without permission

You are responsible for checking Parsimonious periodically to see if the object has been updated and if it has, updating the copy you have used in your shared house or recolor accordingly

Sims 2 Fashion

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 2 Fashion - that is clothing, make-up, accessories, skin tones etc:

Fashion textures CAN be included in complete downloadable sims

Fashion textures CAN be included in complete downloadable households - either alone or included in a house download

Credit to Parsimonious must be given by the download of your Sim, household or house

The following policies apply for the use and sharing of Parsimonious body meshes (which can be found here on the site):

If you create clothing which uses our body meshes then you MUST INCLUDE THE MESH in the download

Credit to Parsimonious must be given by the download of the item using the mesh

This policy was amended in June 2009, prior to this inclusion was optional and those who chose not to include the mesh could link directly to our meshes page instead of a normal credit link. Items posted before June 2009 may still adhere to the original policy until such time as the zip has cause to be updated or moved to another URL.

Please be aware that if you are linking to our old meshes page it no longer exists. Instead meshes are now found in with our normal Clothing content in our Sims 2 Fashion: Clothing Section. There is a re-direct in place, but it links only to the first page in the category, the mesh you are using may be on a subsequent page so you will either need to make your visitors aware of this, or better yet, update your zip to include the mesh!

Sims 2 Houses

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 2 Houses:

You may NOT re-publish our houses in any form, this includes re-styles/remodels without permission

Sims 2 Walls & Floors

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 2 Walls & Floors and Lot terrain paints:

You CAN use our walls, floors & lot terrains in a house download you are sharing online

Credit to Parsimonious is NOT required

You CAN recolor our walls, floors & terrains - credit is NOT required for free websites (commercial sites must provide a credit link)

Sims 1 Objects

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 1 Objects:

Objects can be cloned for recoloring

Credit is NOT required*

You MAY reuse the object graphics to create a modified (hacked) version but it must NOT override our original

This policy was updated August 2008. For any site who uploaded a clone/recolor prior to this date credit is required until such time there is cause for the zip to be updated or moved to a different URL.

Sims 1 Fashion

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 1 Fashion - that is clothing and heads:

You CAN publish buyable conversions of our clothing textures

You CAN use our head and clothing textures for NPC skins

You CAN publish mesh conversions of our clothing & head textures (i.e associating the texture with a different mesh)

You CAN publish recolors of our textures

Credit is NOT required for any of the above, however you are responsible for ensuring that the associated meshes are distributable and meeting any terms set by the mesh artist if you wish to include them

Please be aware that most of the sites who's meshes we've used are dead and gone, some are still online, but almost all have been abandoned by their owners. Nevertheless, their policies over the re-use of their artwork still applies and you are responsible for checking and complying if you choose to also include the meshes we've used in your creations.

In cases where the site no longer exists it is probably safe to assume the mesh is distributable, and in general it is probably better you include it with your item than link to us as a form of mesh 'repository' but we will not take any action against a site that chooses to link directly to particular pages on our site for this purpose.

Sims 1 Walls & Floors

The following policies apply to the sharing of Parsimonious Sims 1 Walls & Floors:

You CAN include our walls and floors with a house you are sharing online

Credit to Parsimonious is NOT required

You CAN recolor our walls, floors & terrains - credit is also NOT required

Converting Items For Other Sims Games

The policies stated above assumes that creators wish to use our items as part of another item for the same version of The Sims.

If you wish to convert our items from their existing format so they are suitable for a different version you will need special permission - please email us detailing which items you want to use and which game you are converting them to.

In general permission is not likely to be given for converting Sims 2 objects to Sims 1 objects, and there are a large number which are also intended for conversion to Sims 3 when time allows (mostly newer objects). Please note that where permission is given for such conversions, it will not be given exclusively, so if you get permission to use particular meshes, it's quite possible other creators may also have permission to use those same meshes.

In all cases credit will be required as a clickable link by the download of the resulting items.

Non-Sims Artwork Policies

All the policies stated above apply to creators who wish to use our items in their own Sims projects. If you wish to use our artwork as part of a different use un-related to The Sims then policies stated below apply. Please note that we cannot give you permission to use materials included in our items which are property of EA for obvious reasons (we are subject to EA's license agreement for Fan Sites which allows us to use their materials in this capacity provided it does not negatively impact EA). Nor can we give permission for the re-use of included elements belonging to other sites.

You CAN use extracted meshes from any objects (furniture) for any FREE games mod

You CAN use extracted textures from any patterns, objects, walls, floors and skins (fashion) for any FREE games mod

You can NOT share extracted meshes or textures as stand-alone downloads (i.e. on a textures or 3D models site)

You can NOT use fashion meshes for any non-Sims project (these are based on EA's meshes and then adjusted and re-mapped which means they are more EA's property somewhat more than they are ours)

You may be able to get permission to use our materials for a commercial game mod, but there is likely to be a license fee payable which will be at least $100 (US). Please email us giving full details of precisely what your project is and which of our items you wish to use.

Needless to say since you cannot copyright an idea (only it's execution), you are allowed to use the design of any of our items as a concept to base your items on without any credit, so long as you don't use our actual materials in your project.

Frequently Asked Questions

"Surely it would save your bandwidth if I shared Parsimonious stuff on my website?"

Once or twice a week without fail some visitor will write to me and offer to upload our stuff to some Media Fire or Weebly site.

In most cases they're trying to be helpful, thinking it'll save us money. It doesn't. In fact it has precisely the opposite effect. Our bandwidth usage is pretty high (usually in the range of 100-150Gb per day). That costs a great deal of money, but in order for it to stop costing a great deal of money it would have to fall down well below 50Gb a day to make any real savings. On the flip side if people start downloading our files from other sites, their visits don't generate any advertising revenue. Unlike bandwidth costs advertising income is pretty linear, it starts falling off just as soon as traffic starts falling off. In short loss of income makes an impact much sooner than the reduction in bandwidth costs.

These little unauthorized mirror sites rarely make much of an impact individually, but there are a huge number of them and it takes up a great deal of my time trying to get them shut down (it's much like whack-a-mole only a great deal more stressful and time consuming). I'd have more time to make more custom content if I didn't have to deal with such things - so please leave our content exactly AND only where it is.

Parsimonious is in violation of MY intellectual property rights - how can I get this problem sorted out?

Obviously if one of our artists has accidentally used some graphic design materials or Sims content that they shouldn't have done, then I will attend to the matter as a highest priority.

To lodge a copyright complaint please send an email to me (Kate) at webmistress@parsimonious.org detailing exactly which items are involved, and provide a URL of where your original materials and stated policies can be found. Please be aware that I will not respond to completely ridiculous complaints from attention-seeking idiots so don't bother unless you have a genuine beef.