need a straight answer on "copyrighting creations"

within the last few days i have been seeing newbies coming to where i create my cars and objects and seeing them siting on prims takeing snapshots right next to some of my cars that i have been making and well, i belive some might be trying to copy the car or its textures, ive looking around the forums for a wile now trying to figure out how to copyright some of mystuff. and well..... ya i dont wont some of my stuff to get copyed and everything one of my friends had this problem a long time ago and ya... got him so pissed off he completly quit with sl

The textures you create are automatically protected by copyright laws, without requiring you to do anything in addition.

If you want to do the best you can to protect your work from easy rip-off, look for some scripts that prevent easy means of copying. There are anti-copybot scripts, and I've heard of anti-snapshot scripts. There's no perfect way, though, to prevent being ripped off; you can just try to deter as much as you can.

If you created the textures, you've automatically got the copyright. Unfortunately, copyrights and patents are only worth as much as you are willing to spend to defend them. To really put a stop to it, you'll have to track down the violaters and file the necessary DMCA papers to take care of it.

The sure fire way to protect your stuff is to never rez it. But, seriously, it's really difficult to protect your things from being copied, but, after it is copied, it's easier to have it removed, and the offender banned (although that's not entirely 100 percent either.



http://www.secondscripter.com/

3 worlds GET THE LINDENS XD

have them hit them with the all mighty ban stick hehe

Assuming you`ve used "legal" photos to create the textures out of.

Safest way is to hand draw or takt the RL photo yourself, i`ve found.

90% of what i do is all done by hand, rest i use random snapshots get get a shape then hand do everything else

There is devices too that will change things that modifiable to full permissions and change creator...some one showed me a "legal" copybot last month.
But he said he never do skins because it was unethical.
Bit scary.

If the anti-copybot script relies on the !quit message then it is 100% useless and it is actually a significant spammy menace to all around it. If its not the one you were thinking of then disregard this message.

what the hell dose that do anyway, ive seen them all over sl walk about get a mass spamm message every 2 seconds what do those even do? or how are they saposed to work XD

Once upon a time there was a variant of copybot that use to stop working if it encountered the !quit message. That variant has long since gone and the new variants to my knowledge do not have any equivalent to replace it. The variant it did work on died quickly because it was easy to make a version and take out that failsafe backdoor. Therefore buying any copybot Mark III Low Spam !quit type device is a waste of money.
However people don't always know this or bother to find out and blindly buy it and put it out or left it there for at least several years annoying people. Sadly its all over mainland and is a huge nuisance.

ya, some of the older looking plots had them so maybe they didnt get the memo hehe

Sorry, I know this is going to sound Trite, and I don't mean to be rude... but this really has to be said.

If you want advice on legal matters, you should really consult with an attourney. Very very very few people in these forums know ANYTHING about the current state of International Copyright and Trademark and Patent law..

And those few that do, can't actually give you an answer without reviewing the specifics in your case.

A lot has changed in the last 12 years. Copyright law of 1996 is completely different than Copyright law after Bush and the RIAA/MPAA. Not to mention how those laws relate to the international digital landscape, and the issue of "making something similar" versus "using your textures without a license"

Best defense against people clipping your creations, is to be ahead of them and keep making better new things that nobody else has. It takes time to copy and then market somebodies creations. Sometimes you want to hold out with your best stuff for later so you always have an edge if you need to draw attention back to your skills or brand name.

As to the whole copyright issue, there is no way that you will ever be able to stop people from knocking off your work, specially in a place where there are no raw material restrictions. So talking about laws is a waste of energy.

It may be easier for someone to copy if they can see you putting it together or can see a partial build.

Move your manufacturing spot way up in the sky.
Set up a security orb to boot the uninvited.
Unrezz the stuff when you are away, or fill the space with plywood cubes to make camming in impossible.

Ripping other people's work seems to be common and LL are no help.

Perhaps in those circumstances the most cost-effective move is to create some difficulty for people in copying and also to continue developing better products.

I just want to again warn against any such scripts. It's not just the spammy old anti-copybot thing, but *anything* like this is totally bogus. How would one possibly know if it was working? You can't know, and they don't (and can't) work. Do not waste your L$s nor a single cycle of sim CPU on them.

To address a couple of points:

The rules for derivative works and fair use may shift, but that still doesn't change that you do not need to do anything to copyright your things. If it qualifies as an original work, you automatically own the copyright for it.
(Registration or explicit copyright notices may possibly help you in a later lawsuit, if nothing else at least to shoot down any "in good faith" defense, but it is *not* required to own the actual rights).
Trademarks and patents, on the other hand, need to be registered (and defended).

As for scripts to block snapshots and copybots: Just not possible (despite what some snake-oil salesmen try to tell you). Both work entirely client-side, using the data already sent to the viewer. If it can be seen, the data is there, and no script back on the server can affect that.

But, all the way back to the original issue: Taking pictures to use for reference and inspiration is highly unlikely to actually be an infringement. Indeed, studying in detail how a good content creator puts together the prims to get certain shapes and looks is only the sane thing to do.
And even if they *do* plagiarize you, you may find it difficult to defend the shape of a car as your own original creation in the first place, if it is in turn inspired by a real-life car, but then we're back to Winter's "You need a lawyer for this".

I really wouldn't worry about people taking snapshots, most likely they just like the car and want to show people. If someone really wanted to copy it, they would likely buy one, take it back to their chop shop and dissect it there. (really, not joking)