Screen-Shot Pirates

Many (in case someone reading this works for the music industry this is merely as example and in no way reflects an admission of any wrongdoings on my part) but I'm secure enough to say doing so does not make what I did right. I merely am able to admit (but not in a legal sense) that doing so is illegal.

ZOMG!!! ITZ TEH SCR33NSHOT P1R4T3!!!!

The DMCA says reverse engineering is not illegal, and is an exception to the law.

The texture in question is of a RL house design that was copied from RL so it's not an original design.

I support the DMCA and believe intellectual property should be protected, but in this case the design isn't original and reverse engineering is perfectly legal and acceptable according to the law.

Except that the whole "reverse engineering" term doesn't apply here, because that's not what's happening.

That's the charge.

And a lot of people call what goes on in the forums slander, too, doesn't make them right.

actually Kevn --you are incorrect. There is no one style of fachwerk --Ulrika's particular fachwerk is very specific and original.

BY your logic I could copy a painting by Mondrian exactly using a screenshot and claim it's okay because it's not like Mondrian was the only one who ever made a painting.

What do you call it then? The charge is the house was copied by reverse engineering.

It's a standard texture of a wall with windows and lines. Every house is slightly different.

Would you feel better if an extra line or two are incorporated?

This house design is all over the web, I even posted a city full of the exact thing. Ulrika even admitted it's a dead ringer.

Plagarism, theft, pirating, copyright infringement, etc.

Of course theft is wrong, at the same time, any time you distribute a digital media over the internet there is the chance of it being stolen. If an artist puts their works up on a website and then gets pissed at the jpegs being distributed amoung people, then it's their fault for letting the image get out in the first place.

I consider it the same with SL, if you put something up, and think no one is ever going to try to take it using an outside program, an ingame screenshot, or just print screen, then you're living in a fantasy world.

I wouldn't personally make a stink about anything of mine being stolen, unless it was sold by someone else or distributed as a freebie.

I would like to see how you arrive at those charges.

If that's the case, and the texture is so easy to come by and/or create, then there would be no need to steal it with a screenshot.

No, Kevn --you're commenting on a closeup image. Fachwerk as design was very specific from house to house about the intricate design of timber wattle and daub.

Ulrika's Fachwerk had a very specific layout of timber formed in a very specific layout over the plaster walls.

Take it from me please --I researched the history of fachwerk very carefully while building Neualtenburg. Ulrika's design was unique unto itself.

Excellent. Now she can protect it, if is isn't found in RL anywhere.

I still have one, so I'll compare it to the hundreds I see on the web when I have time.

I noticed Ulrika never denied it coming from a rl design when I mentioned it, she ignored that part of my point. It appeared she wasn't denying it was from a rl example.

Because those are the terms used when copyright infringement occours.

Not true! I can paint a RL house, and my painting is still copywritten.

It's only a copyright infringement if the design is unique and not a copy from an already existing design.

Not true. Copyright law != Patent law.

Copyright and Patent laws are not the same bug. I agree. We are talking about copyrighting a design, a texture if you will. Not a system or item. This is just a picture we are talking about.

One can protect a specific design material for a shirt, but if the pattern is a standard pattern, even if it's slightly different (brighter colors or thinner lines) it still is an open source.

We don't copyright the Bible, because it was here long ago.

These designs for this type house are very common and old. It can't be copyrighted unless she has made a completely new design, one that wouldn't be called Bavarian, then she might have a right to seek damages, if any can be proven. But then the design wouldn't be allowed in N'burg proper.

The bottom line is, the city has been damaged by these efforts. Good people are trying to fix the damage. The plaintiff had left all and vowed never to return, which most people would assume means she was leaving these things behind.

As soon as she pronounced her complaint, every single copy of a disputed object was removed.

What does she want. She wants the head of the person who spent the many hours replacing the buildings she removed illegally according to the constitution she wrote.

This whole project was her baby. Roads and infrastructure were partially hers. So we know she did the work here with the intention of donating her time and efforts. Only when the city decided to pay builders did she decide her work should be compensated. The constitution she mostly wrote says people who bring things to N'burg must allow the city rights to them. But now she says that's for after she wrote the constitution, the spirit of that rule doesn't count before she made it official. That way her stuff isn't under the same rules, because they came before the rules. See how that works?

I don't want to stir the pot, but I must say this shouldn't even be an issue. Adults don't usually come back after months demanding their toys back.

Uhm... Ulrika's "permanent" absence from SL seems to be getting less and less permanent daily.

P2

Kevn, even if it was inspired by a real design --Ulrika didn't just slap a photo of a real house on to a prim --she painted it in photoshop. It is her artwork.

But by the same token, and more applicable to this argument, SPECIFIC incarnations of the bible can have other copyrights... An illustrated children's bible, for example.

Who's been taking screen shots of Kendra's structures? Are you making yet another accusation here? Please spell it out so I can abuse report you yet again.

Because I am not aware of any "screenshot piracy" involving Kendra's work. Pray tell where did you get this nugget of information? Or are you now admitting that the screenshots you were worried about earlier are actually not of your own original work?

Wouldn't it be shocking if the work in question in that "other" debate turned out to be derivative and "reverse engineered" itself? Wow, that would be an ironic dramatic twist to the whole "scandal" wouldn't it?

For the record, I would never make nor purchase a product that used stolen screenshots of someone else's work in them, especially Nephs dresses which (unlike you), I buy frequently.

You have bought what, one dress in the years you have been playing the game?