Brick Back Torrid Midnight!

Mistress' original blog entry was ill advised, yes, mainly because she is defiant about the fact that she does not feel modifying the textures is wrong. I had no idea who the people involved were until the names were named - because it was a private issue until then. Ambyance's post put it all out there front and center, names named, even uninvolved people sucked right in.

ah, so now I'm patently stupid. Hello kettle, this is pot. Come in kettle. You are black. Over.

I didn't call you patently stupid, I said to claim that is patently stupid. Nice try though. I did not say CHIP YOU ARE PATENTLY STUPID. Get a new line, the kettle one is quite worn out.

Listening to Americans discussing copyright is a bit like listening to a bunch of medieval alchemists trying to establish how many angels fit on the head of a pin.

My my, aren't we snippy. Thanks so much for the calm rational debate.

No problem. What was the explanation for your snippiness?

Well, my main point is that we should support the use of the permissions system as it was intended, otherwise we wreck things for ourselves, the content creators.

coco

Well, it seemed to me in this particular case this had very little to do with whether or not someone followed the law to the letter. More to the effect of one person being fully aware the author of modified content would feel very bad about their work modified, yet doing it anyway, and then when questioned basically blowing them off to the effect 'what are you complaining about, this is such a non-issue'. I.e. pretty much showing them something along the lines "my desire to have custom item is more important to me than however you may feel about this issue, because i personally don't find it to be an issue."

I can be reading it completely wrong of course, but when seen from this point of view i'd find it much more hurting to find out person i have respect for has little concern for my feelings ... than some anonymous asshole selling ripped textures for quick buck. Because i don't expect such asshole to care in the first place. But a friend, i'd hope to have enough empathy to put themselves in my shoes just as much as they can consider situation from their viewpoint.

But this is now getting way into the discussion over this particular mess of a case that i've been trying to avoid, so dropping it now, sorry.

Listening to ANYONE ANYWHERE discussing copyright is a bit like talking theology...

Somebody usually invokes god and goes on a jihad...



Seriously, though. I've never seen this problem singular to a country, don't you think that saying 'Americans' is a bit biased?

It must be said that the US has lead the way when it comes to arcane legalistic bullshit regarding "intellectual property". However, the EU is certainly trying it's hardest now to indicate that it will fuck over consumers in the interest of big business as well, so in the end it will probably all work out the same.

And my opinion and stance, as a content creator, is that this kind of stuff is permissable, and even if it isn't, is going to happen anyways. The challenge for content creators is thus to create something that has value and cannot be ripped off; custom work, for instance.

What on earth? I have no idea what you are getting at.

I assume that the work in question IS valuable.

I also assume there is virtually nothing that CAN'T be ripped off, given what I know of some of the hacks available (besides this one).

What custom work has to do with it, I have no idea. That stuff can be ripped off as well.

coco

I also understand that Torrid apologized profusely. Yet she still felt so hounded by people over this that she decided to leave.

I wouldn't do it simply because reading the forums has made me aware of how content creators take extreme issue with this, regardless of my own opinions. However, someone else may not know or even think twice about it, any more than they would think of remixing their cds. They aren't bad people and neither is Torrid and this whole thing is out of control.

Yes.



Who cares what Philip thinks? Our U.S. judges are not going to consult him on it.



Any IP lawyer will tell you that its not something they can give black and white answers on. Its the judges that need to be consulted on this matter. Sue somebody and we'll find out what at least one judge thinks.

Yes, i wasn't speaking about Torrid, sorry, and i think it's really unfortunate she got dragged into it... this is such a car crash of issue all around, really >.<

Yeah, but who is going to want a shirt that says "MY NAME IS BUBBA MCDONALD" except for Bubba himself?

Custom works generally don't get traded about, because they (should) be tailored for a specific person and need.

/agrees

also dropping it.

If there's any silver lining here at all, perhaps it's that people will be a little more careful, maybe a little more considerate and exercise more judgement when they're posting in their blogs. Because if they're not, this is the end result. And this is pretty disgraceful.

What if, Lordfly, someone had something that could make an exact copy of anything someone else owned, depending on certain permissions?

Then it wouldn't matter that it was a custom build. A person using such a thing could copy - and then keep for himself or sell - any build you made for anyone. After all, a house is a house.

I believe it's important that we uphold the permissions in their intent, and discourage the use of various outside programs, in order to protect our own businesses.

coco

forums GOOD, blogs BAD

Agreed. Pass Jauani his very own Bubba Mcdonald shirt please.

No... the forums are just as bad. But at least we were able to report a personal attack.

My quote, in it's whole context, should not have been misinterpreted because I said "someone" told her that. I do not know who did it, but I do know that it was an anonymous, chickenshit alt.

QFE

I bet every single one of you purchased an animation that was obtained by the 'creator' from a thrid party. Which the sole purpose of these motion capture files is to be used within a project of some sort. IE for game developers, rendered movies what not. Not to be thrown in some pose balls and sold pretty much as is.

I bet every single one of you purchased some photo sourced skins and or clothes with little change to the origional. Which I doubt were asked for permission to be used within a commercial setting.

I also bet everyone has some textured object or just a texture that was either just saved off the net or purchased. Most of these textures are uploaded into SL with little to no change and sold free and clear. I doubt they asked permission.

All of these are not the origional intended use of the art, correct? But that's ok in most of the minds here. The issue is is that you can't pick and choose which parts of 'fair use' you want to enforce. Technology has moved faster than the copyright laws. It seems like its not going to catch up fast enough to the point we all just might get screwed from this entire venture.

No commercial gain was obtained through the use of changing these textures. All this is is a squabble between friends. It just so happens that these friends decided to air their dirty laundry (who actually cares who started it?). This really isn't about texture theft or GL issues. Its about bruised egos. No one likes their art to be changed and perhaps even possibly *gasp* improved (don't know the content in question so don't think thats what I'm saying). And especially not by their friends.

Admitting this would actually make the origional creators more human sounding and given far more credit. If this would have happened to any of the thousands other designers it wouldn't have been covered this indepth. It is just as unimportant as it would be hearing about it happening to someone less in the public eye. The egos are just bigger.

A house is not a house; you apparently haven't done custom work for very long. People are EXTREMELY particular about what they want in their homes. A custom job for somebody isn't going to fly with someone else, and they'r ejust hacking away with a program/script (which already exists, btw), they don't have the patience nor gumption to do it themselves anyway.

The ability to copy your work, bit for bit, exists already. It's existed for over a year and a half. I've come to terms with that fact.