A process for minimizing texture theft!

Sorry but that will never happen - ll wont produce a graphic program on par with photoshop inside sl.

If you have 2 identical garment textures with alpha and shading under dispute of ownership, all LL need to prove ownership is the original layered psd file - the rip off wont have access to this file.

My bf has had quite a few websites taken offline simply by supplying their host with original psd files and a copy/paste statement along with a scan of his signature in the email to them.

BRILLIANT!!
Wanda your a GENIOUS!!

*KISSES WANDA ON THE LIPS!*

& Phoenix you rock too!!

oops

So simple & so dead-on!
Wanda youre a goddess!

& thanks Phoenix!!

There's your proof LL!
Now start reading your DMCA reports!!

Let's say I buy a skin from you, rip it and snag a copy, add a beauty mark, and wear it in the game *but never redistribute it*. I've done things like this, it's fair use, and it's necessary because LL doesn't let you apply multiple texture layers to a piece of clothing, and for things like your face you can't even fake it with underwear tattoos.

Let's suppose you snapshot me (your own customer) and report me because you think I'm wearing a stolen skin. What should happen, do you think?

Look, personaly I don't know how badly I'd mind it. But I have a friend who minds people just SEEING her textures. & you know what that's her right. cos she's the one who spent monthes making a skin.

So if the texture maker feels that badly about you modifying THEIR skin, without permission, you should respect their decision.

If you like somenoe's skin bad enough to want to wear it respect their hard work & don't do things to it that they mind.

I *do* buy a copy. Very first sentence in my message.

I'm talking about buying a copy of a skin or other product, then ripping the textures or otherwise working around copying or modification restructions to customize the product I purchased. I'm not talking about walking by your store and snarfing stuff from your other customers.

yep my bad edited msg.

Also another point is, if you rip the texture & upload it - you have full tight (m/c/t).
Then you give it to your alt.. would you pay for the skin again?
What if you give it to a friend?

It's just like anything in SL. You make it w/ certain perms because you don't know what people will do with it. How would you feel if I had full rights for something you made? Seeing as you don't know or what kind of character I have.
I could give it to my bf, my best friend.. & now they don't have to buy it either.

The fact you used terms like "rip it" and "snag a copy" shows what you have done is somewhat underhanded.
The seller, if they want to allow people to do that - will give you the texture with modify permissions in the sale. If they dont give you that access to the texture, it means they don't want people modifying it and you should respect their rights to impose this.

You also have the option of asking them for a modified version.

Bummer, something like this could have had my votes otherwise - although I would probably want more details before I woud vote for it. Too bad it isn't to apply to all textures. I'm a photographer and don't feel my textures are okay to steal while skins are not.

This *should* be just as simple as providing psd's for artwork.
If you shoot raw format you have the equivilet of a digital negative with file info, dates etc - that should be enough proof of photographic ownership as you can provide information on the file a rip off cannot.

Edit: File creation dates also play a part in this too.

Point out where I said that. Stop making accusation of something I have not said.

Which i've asked myself a few times before and never gotten an answer to...

Yes, and the same thing should work for ripped skins, etc - both parties show LL the source files and compare dates. Right now, LL does not respond well to DMCA claims, which is what both cases fall under. (I don't shoot RAW, BTW. I have an older camera that only supports JPEG.)

I guess your jpegs have metadata in the original files that a screen copy of a tga wont have?

As for the first part, thats what I'm afraid of. As said: how is one to determine who's the first to have made/uploaded it?

As watermarks can be removed...

This may be a bit technical but bare with me...

Every item has a UUID, has it not?
This UUID is unique (probably per kind of item):
One UUD, let's sat '00-00-001' for a Texture will never be used for another Texture; however it may be used for a Pose/animations still ...

How are the UUIDs created? if Date/Time is part of it, then it's makes it almost unique on a second level. If you can reverse from a UUID back to the original date/time the UUID was created/generated (upload?) you know which one was the oldest UUID.

So if there is a dispute about textures (or anything else being unrightfully copied), all LL need to do is hear both parties and examine the UUIDs. The texture with the oldest UUID in that case will be as far as I can see the Original, whereas the new texture with a later generated UUID will be marked as a copy.

Only drawback would be is that if the Original owner decides to quit... and return later, needing to upload his stuff, the IP will be lost (due to the newly generated UUIDs).

So if the proposal would be to use the UUIDs as well as listening to the stories to the parties involved when it comes to claims of fraud of Original work (note the Original here!) and compare the date/time stamp of the UUID will determine for the Lindens who would be the rightfull claimer.

Best part of it, as far as I know, you cannot tamper with the UUID. Confirmation might be needed from the Lindens that UUID indeed already uses date/time stamp, and if not see if it could be implemented.

This kind of system would benefit all parts/object/creative artists; not just the texture artists.

I am sorry but I really object to your remarks that anyone has a right to mess with my skins if i don't want to make purple lips with white spots. I spend hours, weeks on my skins, shading them, applying make up, choices of brow colour, body hair etc. In fact I developed a hand strain while making the Sabrina Fair range because of the sheer work of not only the skins but the volume of the ads for 3 brow options over 24 make up. NO ONE has the right to take my skins out of SL and mess with them and frankly I have been asked and find the suggestion offensive.

Would you doodle on a picasso? Not likely, and I don't want anyone doodling on my skins either. Thank you very much.

I do take suggestions from customers about what they want but to be blunt I am not here to realise everyone elses fantasy or to staisfy every colour whim someone has. If someone wants purple lips with white spots let them spend the hours I have to make them anf enjoy the hand strain.

One remark to this one... The DMCA and such you're talking about is USA. Not all countries support/follow that set.

Living in Europe myself, a imposed limitation of "a customer may under no circumstances modify his property" is deemed false and will be dismissed as part of even a written contractual agreement. This would go for both RL objects as virtual objects.

That said, if I buy a skin, which has some build in marks (tattooes for example) and I'm going to alter them, remove some, no one can stop me: I BOUGHT the skin, it has become MY property. I'm free to do what I want with it.

Using it, to make copies and redistribute the altered skin as an original, is, like I pointed out before, illegal.
However, selling/transfer the altered skins is not! I'm still eliglbe to sell my property. No matter who created it first, and no matter how many others might have altered it before me.

Ofcourse things like guarantee and such is another issue.

-- Edited
Wanda and Sachi: please read this post...
There are more issues involved then just that.

Wanda:
Sorry to hear you injured your hand... And be assured I won't tinker with skins myself (lacking the skills hehe), but I DO understand why people want to mod the things they BOUGHT.

Being blunt: If you don't like if that would happen, stop selling alltogether. Stop making things (you won't injure your hand then) and just relax in SL and have fun.

Sachi:
As for the example with Picasso: Picasso's arent made anymore, hence they have become special art and taken care of... If you want your skins to be the same, make them and put them on display: they will be unique too, 1 of their kind, and nobody will be using them.

Your analogy is flawed.

no offence, but you are obvously talking about a subject you know nothing about.

You are only entitled to rights the creator gives you when you "buy" a skin or anyother item.
Copyright is always with the creator and you only have rights as defined by them - in this case permissions.

Maybe you should read this;

1.3 Content available in the Service may be provided by users of the Service, rather than by Linden Lab. Linden Lab and other parties have rights in their respective content, which you agree to respect.

You acknowledge that: (i) by using the Service you may have access to graphics, sound effects, music, video, audio, animation, text and other creative output (collectively, "Content", and (ii) Content may be provided under license by independent content providers, including contributions from other users of the Service (all such independent content providers, "Content Providers". Linden Lab does not pre-screen Content.

You acknowledge that Linden Lab and other Content Providers have rights in their respective Content under copyright and other applicable laws and treaty provisions, and that except as described in this Agreement, such rights are not licensed or otherwise transferred by mere use of the Service. You accept full responsibility and liability for your use of any Content in violation of any such rights. You agree that your creation of Content is not in any way based upon any expectation of compensation from Linden Lab.

Except that there is no internal editor. We can adjust prim properties, but we can't create new textures without uploading them.



This won't work either. On display, the SL server composites all the layers on an object or avatar together to create a bitmap that is streamed directly to your client. Any such watermark would be destroyed in this process. The tools used for ripping textures work completely outside of the SL system anyway, and short of not using graphics accelerator cards on the client side (which is impossible) there's nothing LL can do to stop people from dumping these composited textures straight off the graphics memory onto their hard disk.

Most people seem to be at a disadvantage in these discussions, being completely unaware of how computer graphics pipelines work.

If texture maps are displayed to the user, then by definition it is impossible to prevent users from copying them to their hard disks.

Just an FYI.

If your nation is part of the WIPO then they have mutualy agreed on the DMCA.

1. I didn't originally use the term "rip it", but named a specific program. Canimal IMed me asking me to change it to "rip" rather than advertise the program, and I did so. I'm a little peeved at having my good intentions twisted against me.

2. Ripping is a neutral term these days. Apple even used it in advertising iTunes (Rip, Mix, Burn).

3. I'm Australian. I speak informally, and I write only slightly more formally than I speak, and I'm likely to say I "snagged a copy" of a book at Borders, and actually mean that I "bought" it rather than "shoplifted" it. I understand that's hard to believe, but I don't believe in stealing from huge faceless chain stores any more than I believe in ripping off people I might actually meet in SL.

There's nothing underhanded about this, so long as you don't redistribute copies of the results. I can buy a Disney comic book and cut it up to make buttons and the Mouse can't say "boo". I can even sell them, so long as I'm actually cutting up the comics and not photocopying them. I could even sell the modified skin, once, provided I didn't retain the original.

Unless I was retiring my main character permanently, I wouldn't give it to an alt.
I wouldn't do that. No, really... I've been asked, even.
Most of the stuff I sell in SL I sell with full permissions, including scripts, objects, and textures. I've had repeat buyers, and I've had people give me improvements back.

In the real world, I've written several programs and released them under an open-source license, and there's software I worked on in the '80s and '90s in both Windows NT and Mac OS X.
Absolutely. SL is in many ways a test of character. I feel pretty good about mine.

The thing about this is... US Copyright law doesn't agree with you. In fact the "creator rights" in European Copyright law is explicitly not part of the US system.
On the original? No. On a copy? Sure.

I'm reading this and seeing everyone concentrate on the small details here. The big picture is WE WANT LL TO ADDRESS THIS IN A MORE IMMEDIATE WAY THAN THE DMCA, which only (as I understand it) removes LL from any liability associated with IP theft.

1. Make a policy LL, permabanning anyone caught stealing from other creators.
   
2. Make a job position for at least one Linden who is authorized to investigate claims made by creators. HIRE someone for that position!
   
   
3. Provide a FORM for content creators to make a claim of IP theft.
   
4. Actively investigate these claims, both on main grid and teen grid.
   
5. Give both parties a chance to present their evidence.
   
6. Have open communication with the parties involved letting them know your decision as soon as possible.
   
   
7. Make a commitment to protecting your content creators or soon there may not be more content.
   

These are things LL can do to reassure us that they take content creators seriously and want to protect their customers' investment (of time, talent, money, resources, ideas, etc.) in LL. Just the act of attempting to do something to stop it would be appreciated.

p.s. That UUID thing sounds promising as a way of determining just who first created something in SL. Doesn't stop someone else from making something similar, but protects the right of the first creator of something also.