Minnu's "Last Statement"

http://shoppingcartdisco.com/2008/06/07/mms-last-statement/

Happened upon this blog post today. Is this for real??

Yes, it is.

Yes, the same statement without the barbs is up on the shop's own blog.

It is unfortunately. There are other related posts:

http://shoppingcartdisco.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/renderositycom-losing-content-to-sl-users-dozens-of-times-a-day/

http://shoppingcartdisco.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/minnu-palen-statement-regarding-renderosity/

Here, http://glamworldsl.com/blog/?p=7

it is much easier to read and form your own opinion.

Oh, please. You can form your own opinion. If you have trouble reading someone else's commentary and being able to disagree, you're not as objective as you thought.

People should remember that Blogs are subject to what the owner wishes to talk about.

I don't know Ten except from my old Second Citizen days and now from SLU, but she exposed the issue and really should not be crucified for attatching her own thoughts, theories, etc. It is her blog afterall. It is about fashions in SL, not so much a SLCNN site.

Definitely not SLCNN. I'm not out for a Pulitzer here.

Wow. Since my original post, I've done a lot of reading on this topic, both from fashion blogs AND the Minnu website, and I'm feeling pretty used here. I spent close to 10,000L on MMS skin, money that I had to save up for... and now I don't feel as though I can wear them in good conscience. For that matter, I'm not sure I even want to support the other merchants on the Glam World sim. I don't understand why the Generation 2, 3 & 4 skins were removed if nothing wrong was done in the first place. I for sure would never remove honest work that I had produced in SL. Does anyone know if any sort of refund is being offered to her customers.... for certain an apology wasn't.

The below is a direct quote from "Marija", a close personal friend and staunch supporter of Ms. Palen's I took off the original fashion blog (Shopping Cart Disco). This is beyond insulting to the countless other true creators in SL out there:

MARIJA: Please I am begging to you not to believe any of this untruths this people are telling you about Minnu. Okay she make a mistake by the misunderstanding the Renderosity terms. This is a normal human mistake anybody can make. Learn to have mercy and to be more better and stronger in mind and spirit. Let Minnu continue to make your dreams true in second life. She is the only talented designer in second life who can make the fantasy of haute couture and high class fashion model lifestyle possible for you in second life."

I have heard rumours that Redgrave skins are also phoney!
Not sure if thats true or not.

After getting caught on generation 5, my guess would be to prevent people from finding "borrowed" content in the earlier ones as well.

Hey Alanna,

I would take what "Marija" has to say with a major grain of salt. Every bit of data that comes from that commenter is made up. You might be talking to Minnu herself as "Marija", as far as I can tell.

Redgrave skins are photosourced. I don't think that the owner of Redgrave willingly participates in content theft on the scale of Minnu.

So someone posting a link to the actual statement without extraneous comments makes them not "objective"?

If you can't understand why someone would not be interested in your opinion, you're not as objective as you thought.

I've been watching this little fashionista squabble with some interest, but in all the thousands of words that have been said about it, I still don't understand something...

Danae sells skin templates for Poser figures, right? They are high resolution, and not something that's usable as a skin for an SL avatar "as is".

So along comes someone, call them "M". M buys the templates, and uses them to make a new product, an SL avatar skin.

How is this content theft? I read the license agreement, and although it's worded in a confusing fashion, it does seem to allow for the use of the material to create derivative works. What's prohibited is resale of the original textures *as textures*.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just trying to understand the argument here. If content theft there was, I'm all for seeing the thief get nailed. But is selling an avatar skin based on Danae's templates actually content theft? And if so, why?

What the original skin maker really had in mind was that the those skins would be worn by poser models, so the skins would be displayed as part of finished scenes. So, it would be roughly the same as an SL resident buying a finished skin from one of the many in-world sellers and wearing it around.

The license agreement text does fail to make that really clear, but I do think the SL seller did the right thing in taking the stuff down. Loopholes can be fun sometimes, but "what can i get away with?" doesn't need to rule everything.

I would need to read the license agreement but I think it's all down to the definition of "derivative work" I've looked into this with respect to open source software but I think the argument is more or less the same.

Danae, as the copyright holder has the right to "sell the right to modify" to anybody she chooses however she prohibits the resale of the original textures. Which is fair enough - however the "M" skins are textures *derived* from the original textures



Converting one file into another file format does not mean you now hold copyright in this context, therefore you cannot "sell" skins which are the same textures in another format.

If "M" had bought source files that explicitly permitted tis type of resale then no problem, AFAIK there are textures like this availble although they are understandibly quite expensive.


Added:
I just read through the other thread that analyses this - it seems that the license terms are quite wooly

Plainly speaking, Danae only intended for the skins/textures to be used within Poser, Maya, or another 3d modeling program for RENDERS ONLY (which means pictures basically. You can make art using these but not do anything else, certainly not resell) and M resold.

She also claimed that it was her own work for a long time before this "last statement".

Not to be an ass, but Plainly speaking, that's not what the license says. I checked into this curiosity back when it was still news, and the license clearly stated that reselling was allowed.

I agree that claiming the entirety of the art was her own was ethically irresponsible. However, if M's statement about only using the eyebrows, bellybutton, etc is true - then it is a derivative work and she has complete right to do what she did.

Now I'm getting the hell out of here before somebody comes after ME - seems to be the trend with the fashion world. Find somebody to pick on, then when they're no fun, pick on their supporters.

That was my impression, too, but I'm not a lawyer. I'm really not interested in spending my free time trying to interpret legal-ese, I get enough of that at work.

Good skins in SL cost roughly the same as lunch at McDonald's.

"Good skins in SL cost roughly the same as lunch at McDonald's."

Maybe so, but when I go to McDonald with my hard-earned dollars I don't want that fake McChicken stuff. I want the REAL white meat chicken made by Ronald McDonald himself. I don't like my lunch money stolen by bullies who use rendered chicken.. that stuff is nasty (although it DOES taste like chicken).

Ronald McDonald works at your local McD's?

you don't go to ronlald for chicken he is the big mac guy..you go to the colonels for chicken..*holds up the bag of KFC with her greased chicken eating face*

Tenshi,

Without me going back and re-reading all the posts, blogs, etc can you answer if Danae filed a DMCA with LL over this?

If so I am wondering if people will start having missing skins from the invo and "missing image" plastered all over them soon?