'Free' designer shapes

EDIT: This thread has 20 reads and no replies, and I realise now the title might be misleading, but I can't edit it. This isn't a "where to find free designer shapes" post - it's an "are these designer shapes legitimate?" post.


Hi there

I usually lurk, but today I have a question. Well, three actually. I run a blog dedicated to helping newbies, and finding freebies and good deals around SL. Yesterday I found two related places (different sims) that had a lot of great original content for free. Lots of really nice Japanese-created content, pretty skins, original newbie kits and the like.

One of the locations, though, was offering free shapes from well-known designers in SL. I don't own anything by these designers, but I do know the names, so before I blogged about these shapes I wanted to make sure they weren't ripped off.

Here's a pic:

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii300/sl4nowt/shapes.jpg

As you can see, there are shapes by Blowpop, Naughty Designs, Minnu Model Skins, and Laqroki, among others. The boxes contain the shapes only. Most of the shapes inside the ad boxes bear the designer's names, except the two male Laqroki shapes, which are just called 'Aidan' and 'Cliff'. The pictures on the boxes show most of the models wearing demo skins.

First question: Are these shapes given away by the designers so their demo skins can be seen on a good shape?

Because if those shapes are modifiable, then someone could easily just note down the slider settings, recreate the shapes and then give them away. The place I saw them at isn't even selling them; they're freebies, and they're not trying to claim the shapes as their own (if they were, then I wouldn't know anyway; I couldn't look at a shape and say "that's from Laqroki"!)

Second question: If shapes given out like this are modifiable, then is copying the sliders and recreating them considered 'fair game', as long as the original creator is credited?

Third question: Should I blog about these shapes, or not? I certainly don't want to promote content that might be stolen, or considered as stolen.

Everything else in both areas I went to seems to be perfectly legitimate. I'm just concerned about the shapes.

Thanks for your help!

Hi Mariel!

I can't tell much from the screenshot, but the concept you describe sounds kinda familiar... yes, there are shape designers who specialise in offering fine-tuned shapes for the most common skin designs. If you read the forums at SLUniverse, you might come across a thread with a pretty long discussion that focuses on the pro and cons of creating shapes for popular skins.

Or are there any other hints that those shapes are ripped from the original skin designers instead of being created from scratch? If you think so, it might be a good idea to contact the skin folks and point them to the store, then see what they say.

Actually, I'd see it like this... they use demo skins instead of bought (good) or ripped (blah) versions. Now why would any copybot only rip a shape, but leave the skins alone ... given that ripping shapes works at all, I don't have a clue. But you never know what's inside one's mind. *sighs*

Hi Lilith

I can't see any hints of the shapes being ripped off, to be honest. I did actually send my alt in-world to get one of them, and I plan to send her (she's the one I do all my "guy's stuff" posts with, and she's one confused woman!) to the relevant skin store to get a demo of that skin, just to see if it's the same. If they do a shape with the same name, I'll get the demo of that shape, too.

The shape she got was the male 'Dante' shape from Naughty Designs. I have actually seen the Dante skins at Naughty, but having tried on that shape I really don't think it's one that would come from that skin. From memory, the Dante skins are modelled by a quite fit male avatar () and the shape I got from the freebie place is much smaller and skinnier.

I'll go over to Naughty and see what the demo skins and shapes are like, though, just to be sure. And if I find they look the same but are modifiable I'll drop the creator a notecard asking if that use of them is legitimate. That seems to me to be the best option.

Thanks for your reply

The only real way to know if its okay is asking the creator.

Yep. Believe it or not I was the first person to sell Mod/Copy permissions shapes.

While someone "stealing" your numbers is very possible - To me its preferable to the alternative of my customers not being able to fine tune their shape as they see fit.

As to the quality of free shapes - Try one on and see if you like it.

There would be no way to ever know if it was stolen unless someone admitted to it.

I can usually can spot one of my shapes on someone, but not always.

Thanks for the replies

I've just been to Naughty Designs to look at the demo of the Dante shape, and it's definitely no-mod, so the settings won't be visible anyway. The skins don't come with a demo either, so the only thing I can think of is that the shapes I found at that freebie area were created to be worn with the Dante skin (and the other skins listed), which is why the models were wearing the demo versions in the pictures, to show what they looked like. The real Dante demo shape from Naughty Designs is nothing like the one I got over there; it's much taller and more muscular.