Help with Copywrite Textures.. Please Items taken from me.

Today I Logged into my Transaction history to find that three items had been sent to a Removals Linden..

I then did some looking . And at the same time they were sending my items to Removals I received two emails from LL. stating there was a bug or issue with my account and they were looking into my logs.


I did some more looking and found that Three Items Texture Packs I made had been taken from my inventory.

I submitted a ticket to LL. and got back this "Linden Lab has received notification from a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, that you have infringed one or more copyrighted works in the Second Life environment. The notification identified the following allegedly infringing work(s):
"

Now i took some textures. 1st Texture a Flat Black Texture. and made into a Wrinkled Texture .. with the 2nd texture.

so example:
took a flat black Tank texture. and made it into a wrinkled texture with a long sleeved wrinkled shirt texture.
so now the long sleeved wrinkled shirt is now a wrinkled Tank Shirt.

So I need to know if these new textures are mine..

because if i file a Counter Notification All of my RL info will be givin to the person/persons who filed a complaint about me.

Thanks to anyone who can help

I tried reading the DMCA. But do not understand it.

The original flat textures were yours also? Or did you get them from someone else? If someone else made them, did they come with the permission to be altered like that and then be resold? If that wasn't permitted, then LL is in the right.

The Original Textures Were sold to me to make clothing out of. Sold with the note what ever you make is your sole creation.

You're in a bit of a pickle as you don't know if the original textures were legitimate, I would contact the person who sold you those textures first.

This is funny. You have a lot to risk by defending yourself with a counter-notification. And considering that you can't absolutely prove the chain-of-custody on the textures you were sold, it's probably not an acceptable risk to you.

Which would make me think hey, if the person who sold you the textures didn't have permission to sell you the textures, then file a DMCA complaint against that person.

But then the rule puts you in a double-bind. If it turns out the person had a right to sell you the textures after all- and thus you have legitimate copyright to your products- then your real world information is provided to the seller who can sue you.

You are damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

I shouldn't have said it's funny, though. It isn't funny to you. What a bad DMCA procedure.

Also consider what that kind of a battle would cost you in RL money. Is it really worth it to you to fight this thing even if you were to win?

TO my mind probably not, unless its the principal of it and you are that ticked off about it that you just cant live with it. Then again that may be what the DMCA filer is hoping you will do. Take the small loss to avoid the big one.

As someone who ran a texture shop in SL for nearly 5 years I can tell you the little bit of information you have provided tends to make me think you would not win. Thats my opinion and IANAL.

I know when I make a texture I tend to do all the work in photoshop myself either from hand drawn by me or photographs I have taken myself of objects buildings etc either I own or have gotten written permission to use. I burn off my PS files to CD while still in layers so I have a CLEAR DATE of creation (and I make multiple copies at that time). I mail myself 3 copies which I leave in the envelope to futher prove the date. Only then do I upload to SL. Is this extreme? You betcha! But the content theft for textures has gotten that bad and there are alot of bullys out there that do try to force competitors out with false claims. So I write it off to covering my A**(ets).

some of the premade clothing textures sold contain ripped textures. It might very well be that you bought the textures in good faith, but someone thought they were theirs and filed a DMCA (and knowing that some of them ARE ripped leads me to believe that you unfortunately used ripped textures). At any rate, you can't know for sure that the textures sold to you were ok, so I don't think you should counter. What I would do if I were you would be to email LL with a copy of the transaction where you bought them, who you bought them from, and a copy of the note you got with them. It won't make it ok for you to use them or sell the stuff you made from them but at least whoever sold them to you won't get off free and clear (hopefully).

Edit: also if you have anything up on XStreetSL using those textures, you might want to take them down.

I just happen to have the sales Reciept from Xstreet Still Just looked it up.. Have all the info including the xstreet address where they are still sold..

so i am going to send LL another Email. as the site states this.
"YOU CAN'T RESELL THESE FILES FULL PERM OR LIKE BUSINESS IN A BOX. YOU CAN'T SEND LINK FOR OTHER PERSON."

and I am not reselling THESE FILES. I am selling my files that i made better..

My point is that if you are making clothing from textures that you bought, and the person that you bought them from stole them, there is pretty much nothing you can do except make sure LL knows where you got them, so that hopefully the person who is selling them can be made to stop.

Edit: wait...you mean that you are selling packs of textures? I see you have some up on XStreetSL. Is that what you are talking about? I thought you bought clothing textures.

i bought pack of flat black alpha textures. last year
this year i took those textures and made textures in white with wrinkles.

the site says only i may not resell these files. in business I did not sell those files.
and they should be gone from search if not let me go remove them until this is resolved.

Nope they are already gone from my site.

How hard is it to make a flat black texture containing an alpha channel in Photoshop? Anyone who can add wrinkles to that flat black alpha texture can surely make one faster than I can in GIMP.

I think there's more to this story than has been told.

The way I am understanding this now (and forgive me, OP, if I am wrong) is that the OP purchased a texture pack from someone, made them 'better' and put them back up for sale.

But I am not sure that I have it right.

Took a Flat Black Alpha Texture. Made it into a White Wrinkles Texture with shadows and such..

So sent LL all the info from when I bought. what their site said and what I made and what I was selling Waiting for Answer ...

But some of the Black Alpha Textures in the White Wrinkles Textures Were my Black Alpha Textures...

I took the white alpha texture from another texture.. and used the black alpha textures as templates..

to answer as many ?? as i can.

Please and Thank you for all your replies. is Helping me to Learn..

Copyright law specifically addresses "derivative works". It violates U.S. copyright law -- so I assume it also violates SL's DMCA.

Whether you alone (or you AND the person you purchased the textures from) violated the DMCA is immaterial. Modifying a texture doesn't make it yours to resell. Only the copyright owner (that would be the original creator) has the right to do so and resell it unless you have a license giving you explicit permission to do so.

FindLaw lists Exclusive Rights of the copyright owner here:

http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/241476.html

The Exclusive Rights
A copyright owner has five exclusive rights in the copyrighted work:
Reproduction Right. The reproduction right is the right to copy, duplicate, transcribe, or imitate the work in fixed form.

Modification Right. The modification right (also known as the derivative works right) is the right to modify the work to create a new work. A new work that is based on a preexisting work is known as a "derivative work."

Distribution Right. The distribution right is the right to distribute copies of the work to the public by sale, rental, lease, or lending.

Public Performance Right. The public performance right is the right to recite, play, dance, act, or show the work at public place or to transmit it to the public. In the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, showing the work's images in sequence is considered "performance."

Public Display Right. The public display right is the right to show a copy of the work directly or by means of a film, slide, or television image at a public place or to transmit it to the public. In the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, showing the work's images out of sequence is considered "display."

and there you have it.

To the OP, I'm thinking with all those many beautiful stained glass textures you have up for sale on XStreetSL, you must be pretty good with graphics programs. Try making the textures from scratch yourself? I bet you could come up with something better all on your own.

If I recall correctly, you can't. Only the copyright owner can file a DMCA complaint.

So any Clothing I make from any of these Textures Weather they are the ones i bought or the One's I made.. I can do with as I see fit? That is my question Now? I can resell them in any way I see fit?

Obviously not.

Are you one hundred percent sure the one you bought the textures from is the original creator of them?

If he/she is, did you get the permissions to alter the textures and resell those altered versions? Because to me, it looks like you were passing those altered versions as your creation alone. Might just be a misunderstanding though.

I wouldn't if I were you, at least until I understood exactly what the problem was.

The normal agreement when you buy textures in SL is you can sell products that use them or even modify the textures and put them on products that use them.

You CANNOT however sell or distribute the textures or derivatives of them.

This means the products you sell have to be either made of prims with the textures on their faces or clothes/bodyparts with the textures on them.

You cannot get around that by selling a prim with the textures (or derivatives of them) in the contents as that would still be distributing the texture/derivative.

I interpreted this the same as Cortex.

As you stated, the textures were intended for you "to make clothing out of", which is then considered your creation. Clothing in SL language means clothing items that can be worn in world.

Altering the textures and reselling them is still reselling the textures, it is not clothing.

This is generally the rule for all kinds of texture packs, unless they have been stolen already.

Two elements in analyzing whether this was a derivative work are (a) whether the original work was protectable by some copyright (there are many different copy and distribution rights that we tend to lump together under "copyright" as if it were just one thing); (b) whether the original work was sufficiently creative to be copyrighted (you can't copyright a blank white canvas, for example); (c) whether the allegedly derivative work still includes any copyright-ed/able portion of the original work.

In this case, some "original" copyright holder is claiming that they can recognize their own work within the derivative, and that it is subject to some copyright.

They could be full of it, or it could be legitimate. Linden Lab is not going to get in the middle of it -- they are just doing to respond to a DMCA takedown notice by taking it down and letting you two fight it out in court.

Regarding who may or may not have had any rights in this entire thing: there is no way to know, as a customer of textures on SL (or the web for that matter) that someone actually has the rights. To protect yourself, you need a contract. (You will also later need the means to enforce the contract.) And Second Life doesn't help there at all. People click on things and you could argue what transaction they are performing. People say things in chat. In the end, it is quite likely that the identities of the people will be unknown, even if you can convince and afford LL to get you documentation on what transpired. After all that, if you're lucky and can find the person, you can go to court. The other person is a teenager who probably lives in some other country and they are not going to respond. Maybe you can get a summary judgement of some kind and an injunction for Linden Lab to try to do something like lock out an account. Linden Lab will be ineffective at blocking the person, and all the anonymous avatar's assets are already cashed out in an untracable manner. At this point you've spent 30,000$US and what have you accomplished?

Good point, Feldspar. Since anyone with any sort of experience with alpha channels and graphics programs can make a "flat black alpha" file, it's not exactly the Mona Lisa. I know that we (in the USA) cannot copyright just plain words like "black cup" but we CAN trademark words like "black cup" that appear in a specific font/graphic/etc. I would assume the same would apply to basic graphics files like the flat black alpha.

I would advise Terri to just make her own "flat black alpha" file and then play with it from there. It's not hard, and would avoid a lot of heartache.

Thanks Everyone for your Advise that is exactly what i am going to do...

very much appreciated..

and your Right LL will not do anything.. And I know that..

so oh well.