Does this piss you off?....Texture makers who say you can't use their textures....

To say the least.

So the people who are creating content and preparing for an economic system on the OS grids are all sock puppets? The SL content creators saying they're currently setting up shop on one OS grid are lying?

It doesn't matter in that scenario whether you fail or not. The issues have nothing to do with whether you avoid the consequences of your action (succeed) or suffer them (fail), but with the fact that you're curtailing someone else's freedoms. There are definitely gray areas, but that's not even within rifle-shot of them.

And, no, I don't believe you were confused about whether that was part of "my definition of freedom or not". We're not 7 year olds playing "I can top that" in the schoolyard.

They aren't lying, but they're fairly quiet about it.



Ah, but now we're getting into the issue of whether freedom is defined by personal morality ("I will not do this because it would hurt somebody else" or whether it's defined by external influences. I'm well aware many people define their own freedom by personal morality, but when looking at the freedom of others we have to look at external influences. (If we don't, then I can answer your original question with "some people aren't free to create textures because they think that it is wrong". That would be a weird thing to think, but it doesn't mean people don't think it!)

Using your example....

If somebody uses the M&M logo without authorization, then they're in the wrong. If you take their texture and start using it however you want, distributing it across grids, sharing it with your alts, with your friends, with total strangers.... You may not be violating the rights of the person selling that texture in SL, because they actually have none. But you are just as guilty of violating the rights of the REAL owner as the person who first made it available in SL is. So you still have no right to distribute that texture, even if the person complaining about your use doesn't own any rights to it.

There's been 100 messages posted in this thread. There's thousands of content creators in SL, setting aside the people who are taking advantage of the perceived hostility to set up ahead of the pack in other grids. There will be PLENTY of people testing the waters, we don't have to worry about OS grids not building up a track record for a shortage of track.
No, you're getting into it, because you think it'll win you some kind of debating points. I'm not because I've made my point good and hard, I'm sure you get it no matter what you say, and I'm not interested in a schoolyard-level conversation on the subject.

I'm not getting into it because I want to win debating points, I'm getting into it because I want my freedom, too.

*giggles and laughs* ...sorry...I just find the subtleness of this exquisite in the stating.

"That word, you keep using that word, I do not think that word means what you think it means." -- Inigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride".

duh me, but will one be able to take a house that was made in Sl and then rez it in the other world and have the textures on it?..

I thought the textures are a separate asset and would need to live on their asset servers before they could be applied to a prim..

in which case one would have to have those textures on the new asset server somehow, with the same asset UUID..

blah..

and what happened to the other 30 Artists? I thought there were 70 +? haha

Well, then, I need someone to understand what I do mean.

Consider this:

If you should be able to take textures from grid to grid, then why not scripts? If you buy a script, why not be able to copy it and plunk it into a prim in some other grid?

If not scripts, then why not prims? You can certainly copy the prim attributes off a mod object, and just recreate on another grid, or use something like Second Inventory or even a copybot to transport the object attributes.

If you can take textures, then why not your avatar's skin, or clothing? There are, essentially textures laid over a mesh, after all.

My question is, where are the limits on ownership, or should there be limits at all?

Mari
(being a Devil's advocate)

And that's the problem, Marianne.

Some of us (myself included) are really hoping that we can bring our inventory with us to other worlds when interconnectivity comes to the main grid from the beta grid.

But at what cost? What limits? Should we be able to rez items we've bought that have copy perms 300 times on the new grid, or only in SL? Should we be allowed to apply textures that we've purchased in SL, to items we create on the new worlds? Lots of things to be sorted out here, it's going to require a complete rethinking of the entire permissions systems if our inventories are to be made available to us while we're on other grids.

Not going to be an easy answer no matter how you slice it, unfortunately.

Scripts are the biggest problem.

For things like builds and textures, the most obvious choice would be to send them directly from asset servers to clients (either because they bought them or because they need them to see something), and then they don't need to be shared with grids. They would need to be encrypted on the client, but there are methods that can do that; hopefully SL IP creators would be happy with encryption standards that Hollywood studios endorse

Scripts are the big problem though, because they _have_ to run on the sim. Only using some kind of obfuscated compiler could keep them fully secure, and that would lower performance (although if OpenGrid sims have higher performance that might be cancelled out).

I know what you mean. I just wish you'd quit trying to play word-games about it.

Scripts are not a problem because they're not portable between SL and OS anyway.

They would need to be for the ideal, of a globally transferable inventory, to work though.

I guess there's more problems with a globally transferrable inventory than just permissions.

Oh, don't forget the client incompatibilities between grids with different avatar meshes.

I'm fine with not using it.

Just don't tell me that I can't especially if whoever made the texture never had permission also, which I seriously doubt that M&M's did give their permission.

You can't. Nyah.

Consider what you like. MY experiences with content theft have one and all been with OS fanatics of the 'Information wants to be free' variety. hence, I have no real use for them and the fancy words they use to cloak their thievery.

Considering the original poster's attempt to use his 'belief' the textures weren't original to
justify his desire to steal them, I have little use for the geek mindset. He and others can weasel-word it as they like...if they did not create it, they have NO right to override the creators wishes. If (as he believes) it is a stolen texture, he STILL has no right to use it as he wishes without asking the TRUE owner for permission. No amount of weaseling and what-if or personal belief modifies this.

My experience has been that crooks of all stripes are happy to pretend to be any kind of fanatic if they think it will deflect your attention ("it's hard to get a refund when the salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon". The REAL free software fanatics are so paranoid about inadvertently violating a copyright they bully OTHER free and open source software developers into changing their licenses to fit their policies.

I don't know exactly how these supposed handmade textures are made, but if it's just from photographs, I'd say most likely they are public domain. It's just a texture. I saw one recently made from a paper doily, and the paper doily was not hand made by the texture maker.

Also, if you're downloading free music, that is what's really copyrighted and a sad reflection of OUR CURRENT I COULD CARE LESS society, but that's all over SL?????

Also, in the art world, if you change something 25% or more, the copyright is over ridden as a general rule.

It's a lot harder to copyright something than you think, not to mention costly to even try, and the lawyer would probably laugh at you. Copyright laws are very lax in reality. Also, if someone changes it 25% or more, copyright gone.

Woops. I see several misconceptions here, Avawyn.

First, a texture made by photographing something that is in the public domain is not, as a result, in the public domain. Copyrightable material is any original creation expressed in words, music, or still or moving images. That "original creation" can include material taken from the public domain. For example, I take a photo of the Grand Canyon with a guy in a furry suit in the foreground. This is an original image. Or how about all those photos of Space Shuttle launches taken by visitors to Cape Canaveral? The Shuttle and the whole facility is owned by the Government and is, arguably, in the public domain. Nevertheless, every single one of those millions of tourist-made snapshots is an image subject to copyright law. (Whether Joe Tourist chooses to defend that right is, of course, another matter.)

Second, it's not hard at all to copyright something. In fact, you don't have to do anything at all except create it. Your copyright is inherent in the creation of the work itself. It exists. You made it. You have the rights to your own work, period. Now, PROVING that you are the original creator might be tough, if it comes to a fight between you and someone else who ripped off your work. This is why the Copyrights Office has a registration process. Registering your work with them provides prima facie evidence that you are in fact the creator. Registration is not a complicated process at all. It's not terribly expensive either, in RL terms. However, in terms of registering a texture that will sell for a nickel to maybe 50 customers in SL, it's not cost effective.

It is incorrect to say that "copyright laws are lax". Laws are neither lax nor strict, it is the enforcement of the laws. In fact, enforcement of copyright is often very strict. It depends on the owner of the right, and how vigorously she wishes to defend her right. Disney, for example, is notoriously zealous in defending their copyrighted material. If you meant that "copyright is routinely and widely ignored, especially by the online community", then I have to agree with you. The younger generation, in particular, has grown up with the idea of easily making and distributing exact digital copies of words, images, and music, and the majority of them do not understand or care about copyright, in my experience.

Hi Qie, I have been involved in these tests.

I have my own grid of 25 regions. I can connect it to the OSGrid, but I choose not to, and run it independently.

With Hypergrid, my world map now show my 25 regions, and 1 other region called OSGrid Gateway. I can now tp to OSGrid. When i arrive, my appearance is the same, including all attachments, and all my inventory is available to me, as it is all held on my own asset server.

If I buy something in the OSGrid, it goes into my asset server, so when I return home, they are there.

Of course, being in my asset server (a MySQl database) I can simply go into the database and change the permissions on any object to full, and change the creator's name, if I wish, (of course, I don't). This is one of the fundamental problems with assets and opensims.

Some grids can choose to hold all the region owners' assets centrally, and ring-fence them as SL does, but not many are doing that.

I fear that a whole new business model will need to be developed, as the push for a single Metaverse, with intergrid travel being thought of as normal, has achieved unstoppable momentum.

Rock

That doesn't copyright photos. Or hold up for much?

We don't even have tort law in California. It's been done away with in most areas. Let me clarify: We have replaced tort law in California with arbitration. We have cap limits on what one can receive for certain and/or most injuries/damages and a simple cap limit list for the injury is read at arbitration. Most contractors also need signed papers or agreement to the TOS to set up agreement to the cap limits one can receive if damage or injury should occur upon purchase or agreement to services. So cap limits are agreed when you say "yes" to most terms of service in California and often papers to agree to the caps are signed. On the net, better read what you're agreeing too also. But, with differing laws, internet law is pretty messed up and most lawyers don't want to be involved because these can differ from state to state, country to country. They'd laugh about a 25 linden item.