Texture and Building Piracy in N'burg

vivi, the designs are in question by Ulrika not merely because they are fachwerk. There are fachwerk all over the city designed by others --me included. Ulrika's stating that these particular fachwek are identical in design to her's and taken from screenshots of her texture work and design.

So it was all tehir fault you left, them being all selfish and stuff.

mmmm ...

I sort of thought it had soemthing to do with maybe them getting sick of your overbearing righteousness.

But maybe that's only your forum personality and it's different in world.

At any rate I find your 'valient' struggles these last few weeks terrible humerous since when you first started N'burg you were always going on about selflessly giving to the community etc. Yet now that you got tossed out for being you, you're crazy to pick up all your marbles that supposedly you gave away for the good of your society, and tromp off home in a hissy fit of forum rage.

Well, at least you're getting your real wish! Ulrika Ulrika Ulrika .. all the forums ring with the name Ulrika!

In honor of Ulrika, a cute bunny.

Thanks for helping to explain how the piracy took place and offering to replace those structures. Your master skills as a builder will be needed shortly, as I've decided to remove the remaining fachwerks that I own from the city. There are indeed beds floating up in the air.

I felt I had no choice, as Gwyneth Llewelyn and other city administrators will not respond to my posts in the forum nor return my emails regarding the piracy. It's yet another complete failure of the government of N'burg on all levels (aside from you). They're like ostriches with their heads in the sand.

~Ulrika~

Everyone spins in their favor, yourself included, whether they realize it or not.

I don't understand, given the falling out with the departed resident, why the folks of N'burg don't divorce themselves entirely from her influence in these things. If, as you say, she is a vindictive sort and this is all over $10 or so, why not remove her work and get someone like Kendra, who has graciously offered, to help create a workable edifice and let this all recede into the dust of history?

You don't seem to dispute that these are UZ designs. Was there no other way to accomplish an N'burg worthy structure than by using the work of someone you don't seem to care for and who you seemed to already think is capable of causing a ruckus?

The city itself has more to lose by this confrontation and the refusal to seek resolution quickly and quietly seems rather stubborn.

The saddest to me is that this is being all handled so ass backwards. If they had asked you for the usage, and didn't seem to treat you as a pariah at every turn things would most likely be very different.

The Ulrika that I've always had the pleasure of interacting with has never been beyond rational discussion.

Case in point --recently I asked Ulrika if I could use portions of her incredible "Thriller video" in a machinma of my own.

She agreed immediately, said it sounded like fun and only asked for a credit in the movie --which Id have given regardless.

One wonders, of course, why this thread hs not been closed and multiple posters sanctioned for forum guidelines violations.

Oh. I know. The ResMods aren't doing their jobs.
They enjoy the drahma as much as "the rest of us".
LL frimly believes that one resident is the foremost drahma queen in these forum's history and should be allowed to create any drahma needed to fill out that person's real life day.

I gotta say. My cup runneth over here.

Keep up the drahma - oh wait. I prefer, death to the drahma queen. Much bloodier.

There have been no violations of LL rules by anyone on either side. I didn't name names until the guilty party outed themselves, they have admitted to copying the structure, and I have provided proof of the piracy.

~Ulrika~

Well, I can understand the irritation, but all I can really say is as I'm more a scripter than a builder, this kind of "piracy" is absolutely expected and par for the course in scripts.

You're absolutely right. In regards to the buildings, they only had to ask. In regards to the website content that was deleted, I simply wanted attribution for my writing. It's as if they don't want to treat me as a human being, asking permission or giving credit. Instead, it seems as if they would rather take, delete, or steal. I just don't get it.

~Ulrika~

Nice selective reading and interpretation of the forum guidelines/TOS. There are various violations... including bringing personal issues to the forums.

You know... no matter how this works out...

I have lost any interest I once had in visiting Neualtenburg, and that's a shame.

However, it might serve as an example to those of us with an interest in user governments on what /not/ to do. I hope no one minds, but I'll be pointing my friend Finn in the direction of these posts, and ask her to come up with something to handle just this sort of contingency.

There has been a lot happening in the threads related to this topic. As a service for those who have interest in protecting IP, I thought I would summarize the information so far in a single post.

Proof of Piracy

The picture below is the original structure. Note how smooth the alpha layer blends on the window curtains and especially the white vertical bar in the center of the window. (Window texture originally provided by Kendra Bancroft.)



This picture below is of the unauthorized reproduction. Note how jagged the curtains are and the lack of transparency on the white vertical bar in the center of the window. This is indicative of the screen-capture method of stealing textures.




Unauthorized Reproductions

Below are images of the unauthorized reproductions on city land taken before their deletion, followed by two pictures of unauthorized reproductions that were distributed to citizens (one full copy, mod, sell). The individual who created the unauthorized reproductions willingly came forward earlier in the thread to discuss the allegations, so no names are being named.






Responses

There has been no official response from the city government to emails or posts, despite providing clear evidence that several officials engaged in and approved the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of my structures. However, several individuals have come forward to discuss and even admit their role.

The accused provided no technical explanation of how the unauthorized reproductions were created and instead chose to engage in character assassination to discredit my claims in the SL forum.

An official admitted that she knew that the buildings were unauthorized reproductions, oversaw their placement on city land to increase land-sale revenue, and defended the act of creating and using them.
Below is a post from a member of the RA that corroborates that the land, on which the unauthorized reproductions were placed, was to be sold:
Resolution

So far, the unaware owners whose homes were shown above, have agreed on their own to remove the unauthorized reproductions. I will provide them with modifiable structures later in the day as thanks for purging the unauthorized reproductions from their inventory. The structures have been removed from city land. I have removed the remaining structures owned by me from the city.


There still has been no official response from the government, who fail to respond to both forum posts and emails. Given that dispute resolution and IP protection is one of the fundamental reasons this government exists, its absence throughout this crisis is evidence in my eyes of this project's complete and total failure to put forward a credible government.

~Ulrika~

Ulrika, given the sheer volume of issues that you've been bringing before N'burg of late, given how much time the members spent on the last case involving you, and given that all of the N'burg participants also have real lives, jobs, and families with temporal, economic and emotional thresholds of their own,

And given that it's FRIDAY,

Maybe they're not so much ignoring you so much as catching up with other concerns at the moment.

Your complaints have already met with some success. I predict that your complaints will be dealt with, if not by the end of the business day.

I do suspect that this will all result in a campaign to erase you from Neualtenburg, if not out of spite than because it's probably easier than having to worry about continual future IP complaints from you.

If you walked outside today and found that I'd backed my car into your Ford Expedition and scratched it up, you'd probably have a hard time getting an insurance settlement out of my company within the week, despite the fact that the employees at the insurance company do that work as a full-time endeavor. N'burgers do their experigov project in their spare time.

valid point to be sure. It's my hope that I've come up with a solution everyone can dance around.

/103/d5/103037/2.html

You are absolutely right. I took my giggly baby to the park and I feel much better now. I'll exercise some patience instead of my typing fingers for a couple of days to let folks catch up.

~Ulrika~

What, no comments about the idea of you driving a Ford Explorer? I thought I knew just how to needle you, too.

I missed that completely. It is quite funny.

~Ulrika~

As an addendum to this thread, in retribution to the piracy charges, those responsible were busy last night purging the city of all objects owned by me, without permission from the city government. They have even sadly removed structures and textures created by other artisans over which I have no claim.

What's disturbing is that all of this is illegal. According to this law, radical changes such as this are not permitted without government approval. While it's not surprising that those who engage in piracy would also break other laws, the real surprise is that it appears that the city government has truly disintegrated. All the power now rests in the sim owner and her two friends.

~Ulrika~

LOL love it!

And that is how rl works too. Welcome to your new SL.

You are so right.

When I confronted the responsible individuals in the city about the unapproved modifications, they stated that they only recognized the sim-owner's authority and deleted a stretch of a street before logging off to drive home their point. Thus, it seems that the sim owner along with two cronies (one who has pirated structures and another who denies the power of the government) are acting as a team outside of the N'burg government.

It just keeps getting worse.

~Ulrika~

Wow, that's like, exactly what I tried to explain in the last N'burg thread and everyone was like 'oh no karsten this guvment werks '

Theoretically, it should work. It's just that you're screwed if the sim owner grants sim manager rights to her cronies, who start pirating and deleting city structures willy nilly, combined with a complicit legislative branch and an out-for-lunch judicial branch. It's a perfect storm of malice, complicity, and apathy. The only one left in the city with any credibility is Kendra Bancroft, although I keep hoping like the naive fool I am that the others will come around.

~Ulrika~