Legal Animations Campaign to protect Customers,

(Preamble: This post is inspired by the topic of the pirated animation kit thread here: /327/c9/264963/1.html . This pirated animation kit includes the outdated MLP 1.2 scripts. The scripts are not an issue; they are public domain. It is instead the accompanying animations which are an issue. Here is a list of those animations. http://slfreebieslist.xonat-qayos.com/2008/09/20/how-can-i-tell-pirated-animations/ )

Action was taken against this pirated kit at the start of summer this year (June 2008, but it is now re-emerging as a big problem. I'm even seeing it for sale again on SLX by several people for as low as L$199.

And, I'm coming across as much, if not more, furniture than ever that uses the pirated kit. When I alert the furniture makers that the animations are illegal, most shrug their shoulders and go, "oh well. I paid someone for it, so I think I'm fine", or they go, "oh well, tough on them. I don't care" , and continue using the stolen product. Many of these furniture makers present themselves as reputable business people and would have a cardiac arrest if someone copied and pirated their stuff.

I know there are honest furniture makers, and no doubt there may be a follow-up posting to this reminding me of that. I know many, and work with them closely. They aren't the issue though. But it seems that the problem isn't just the people selling these pirated full-perm kits; it's also the willing market they have in the not-so-honest furniture makers.

Why is this a problem? It makes it darned hard for those of us, and there are many, who only use legal animations. Our costs are higher, because we actually compensate the creator of the animations for his / her time in creating them.

And, consumers are being ripped off. They are being re-sold pirated animations, which are increasingly dated, run by the outdated MLP v 1.2 package. And, they are being sold these at prices vastly inflated above the costs that the furniture maker incurred. Customers are being price-gouged, basically.

What can be done about the pirated kit itself? Nothing basically I suppose. The only thing that will make it go away is time, as the animations in it become embarrassingly dated or people become sick of them because they are *everywhere* now.

But there is an admittedly small step that can be done which might achieve some good. Which is, an education campaign.

First, the campaign must include an aspect that lets people know what the pirated package looks like. Then.

A. Furniture Maker Side of the Campaign.

We can let furniture makers looking to procure animations that should they come across this package (see point 1 above) on offer, that it is pirated, illegal and should be reported. And, that they should not buy it not only because it is stolen goods, but also because they would be offering their customer dated goods.

This part of the campaign would help to knee-cap the market for the sale of these full-perm stolen kits. (Note: I'm a realist, I say "would help", by letting honest furniture makers know to avoid it at the start. There will always be people for as long as humanity around who won't care if it's stolen, and don't care what they sell their customers.)

B. Consumer Side of the Campaign

1. We can let customers know how to identify whether furniture on offer uses this stolen kit, and that if the furniture does, it is poor value for their money.

2. We can let customers know the reverse: how to verify whether a furniture maker uses legally-licenced animations or not. And explain that someone who does use legally-licenced animations is more likely to offer quality, state-of-the-art animations. And that their prices are more likely to include fair compensation for all suppliers involved, rather than wild price-gouging on the part of the furniture maker.

How can customers verify? By looking at the animations inside, bringing up properties on them, and IM'ing the animation creator to ask if the furniture maker is on their purchase records. (Yes, it would be nicer if there were another way, but this simple method is hack-proof.)

The consumer side of the campaign would help to knee-cap the market for furniture made with the pirated kit. (Yes, I also realize some customers won't care, but many will, and would appreciate the information so they don't get duped.)

__________________________

To this end, I have initiated such a minor campaign. I call it minor because I am aware of how little it may achieve. But I'm the type of person who would rather at least try to make an effort.

I have created a sign, available for free here on SLX:

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=905046

Reputable furniture makers put it in their stores. It says you are reputable, that you support SL's animators, and that customers should beware of being sold stolen goods. It invites them to click on the sign, and gives them a short notecard when they do. The notecard tells them exactly how to identify the pirated kit, why the pirated kit is a bad deal for them, and how to verify that you use legally-licenced animations.

(The sign is pretty plain, if anyone wants to make a better looking one, whoo-hoo! I'm not a graphic artist!)

__________________________

I invite all reputable makers of animated furniture makers to take part in this campaign, to fight back against the unreputable makers, to protect our customers, and to protect SL's animators.

I also invite animation creators to distribute this sign in their own stores for people who licence their stuff to use.

Yes, I'm aware how little this campaign may achieve, yes I'm aware that some people won't care (which is why we have this problem in the first place), and yes I'm aware there'll be lots of "why bother" or "it won't achieve much" responses to this. But if I let such negativity always hold me back, I'd never have started in business in the first place! I believe in doing something, even a small step. And this is largely a education campaign. Education for instance won't step everyone from smoking, but it will stop a lot, and really that's the most you can hope for in life.

p.s for those furniture makers who may say that they can't afford legal animations, in fact, they can: There is a list of genuinely free, public domain animations on the newly formed SL Freebies list.

http://slfreebieslist.xonat-qayos.com/2008/09/15/animations-which-are-public-domain-which-are-not/

...but first let me say it's a great idea Chaz, even though I feel it's a little unworkable simply because it's not only the sellers of the furniture using the pirated animations but the majority of buyers who really don't care one way or another where the animations came from. Bottom line for them will always be the cost of the item not where it came from.

Now the slightly off topic comment/question.

Why do you state MLP 1.2 is outdated? Simply because there is an MLP 2.xxx?

I personally will continue to use MLP1.2 in my products until such time as I stop receiving 'fixes' for MLP2. I'm afraid updating my many products with a system that still requires such fixes is bad business as far as I'm concerned. I don't mean patches, I don't mean updates. I mean fixes which are still coming through on a regular basis.

Far as I'm concerned any business owner who's offering products using a system that is still being fixed is offering their customers products with potential problems.

/me shrugs.

~B

Here's another bottom line, though :} If you are using these pirated animations, you owe someone a lot of money, and if you are caught, you can be shut down.

As i said educating people about smoking doesn't stop everyone from smoking, but the people that it does stop, makes it worth it. Plus this campaign requires a heck of a lot less tax-payer funding :}

"And, consumers are being ripped off. They are being re-sold pirated animations, which are increasingly dated, run by the outdated MLP v 1.2 package. And, they are being sold these at prices vastly inflated above the costs that the furniture maker incurred. Customers are being price-gouged, basically.

What can be done about the pirated kit itself? Nothing basically I suppose. The only thing that will make it go away is time, as the animations in it become embarrassingly dated or people become sick of them because they are *everywhere* now."

If this is true the market will solve your problem. The best thing that could happen is for the entire concept of IP rights to be scrapped.

In an ideal world, none of us would need money to pay tier, taxes, rent, electricity, phone bills, and, groceries would be free. Sadly, though, none of those are free, sadly, the taxman is not an idealist, and sadly, not many of us seem to have independent trust funds to pay for everything for us. If you can afford to work for free, my hat is off to you!

Not to mention that it is difficult if not impossible for the consumer to know if the animations in the bed they just bought are stolen or legitimate content. At least until LL pulls the content and they are left with useless furniture.

While I think it is a great idea, all those other furniture makers are going to put your sign in their stores and the consumer still won't know who the good guys are.

Kathy, I not sure you grokked the gist of the campaign. Please refer to the first post where I covered your point in advance, in detail.

Can you offer any proof that IP rights make you money? Can you offer any proof that IP rights lead to innovation? All IP rights do is infringe up on real property rights.

To educate yourself on the subject, try reading some of these articles:
http://www.stephankinsella.com/ip/#Kinsella-ip

I do hope Chaz that you're not implying I use illegal animations simply because I didn't rush to get on the bandwagon.

My products have been around for years. I have quite a collection of legally bought animations.

Seems to me in the many threads and posts I've read of yours, you assume too much in this regard.

~B

Do you want to know why? It's analagous to a sensationalized news piece about "the legal drug you can trip on!!" A few years ago, it was all over the news that there was a dangerous drug kids could get legally and get high off of.

Guess what started selling at head shops all over the place? A drug that hardly anyone knew about until the boob tube starting telling everyone about it.

Sera, a lot of the pirated anims seem to be in your furniture. You are probably not aware of their status, which is another good reason for the education campaign. Or, you may have contacted Johan Durant and Parsalin Gulwing directly to licence the animations, as they generally do not licence their stuff.

Oh Chaz... you really need to check your facts before you speak. Here you are, directly accusing me of using pirated anims.. Animations that i HAVE paid for, and a pretty price at that. Your list of pirated animations have also been bought legally by large numbers of honest furniture makers, but you are lumping us all together...

So, speaking for all the furniture makers that do use the "pirated" animations that are *NOT* pirated, and have LEGALLY paid for them, whose name you are dragging through the mud for no good reason other than your own ego... Please stop labeling people as guilty before you know all the facts.

This is a witch hunt, are you familiar with that term? Are you going to burn me up now because YOU are assuming too much? Yes, just throw all of us in the flames, including the ones who paid for the animations they use. Thanks for your blanket assumptions and also, from the bottom of my heart... thanks for your direct, unfounded accusation that I use illegal animations. THANKS!

I agree with a couple of points raised here:-

1. MLP 1.2 is not outdated, and nobody is receiving inferior products because of using it. Even when MLP 2 requires no more fixes, MLP 1.2 won't be outdated in terms of it being inferior. It does the job required for the piece of furniture it is used in, and nothing can be better than that.

2. Sera pointed out that many (maybe even all) the animations in the pirated set were also acquired perfectly legally, and any campaign to inform people that furniture containing any of them is illegal, is most definitely out of order.


And a point of my own:-
Imo, a list of freebie animations will almost certainly contain poor animations, so what's the point of it? Decent animations tend not to 'officially' make the freebie market.

Phil, I can tell you what motivated ME to provide space for the list. I wanted to make some furniture as an experiment. It's pretty well worthless without animations, but I don't want to spend lots of money obtaining licensed animations until I know I've got a chance of making something good enough to sell. I don't care if the animations are poor - they're what I have to work with while I learn.

Then we had the flap about stolen animations a while back, and it seemed to me that I'd like to know whether or not the "freebies" I had collected were actually legitimate.

Not just animations, but everything. We know that textures and skins get dumped into boxes without the creators' consent. Wouldn't anyone who is concerned about ethics want to be sure they aren't using stolen property?

I'm aware that many people buy animations legally. It would be good for people to also know whether or not a particular content creator licenses his work for resale in finished products. That's one of the things Chaz has on the list.

One can purchase animations for one's own use without necessarily being granted a license to include them in products to be sold or given away. Yes, the permissions should be set to "no transfer", but if that's left off by mistake, it doesn't mean it's licensed for resale.

As for whether A or B is using stolen anims, thinks s/he has a license to sell, or is actually licensed to resell, that's not my bailiwick. Chaz is doing the legwork on this.

For myself, I'd just rather have an idea of whether the reeely kewl thing I just finished is going to stop working in the event of another DCMA takedown, or if I'm using someone else's hard work without compensating him.

Yes...and judging by his accuracy so far in this matter and others, he's doing one hell of a job at it as well. (For the sarcasm impaired I'll note that this is entirely sarcastic as he's running around accusing people of using "pirated" anims without a shred of proof as to whether they were legally acquired or not and doesn't even know which version of MLP v2 is final although he's on the DEV TEAM. God!)

Impinging on the thoroughness of Chaz's efforts is pretty unfair, given that he is going to great lengths on this issue. For example, he regularly IMs me about furniture makers he's noticed using the disputed animations, to check if they purchased a license. In the specific case of Sera he didn't think to check (incidentally, where is the post she quoted anyway? did a bunch of posts get deleted from this thread?) but he did realize his mistake and contact me earlier today to check.*

It's pretty easy to understand why he would just assume she didn't know/hadn't licensed the animations since she is one of maybe 5 people who've purchased licenses since I offered legal licenses when the MLP takedown happened a few months ago. Out of all the times he's contacted me to check if the person had purchased a license, today was the first time that yes the person he's inquiring about had purchased a license.

That's the thing: despite people here suggesting that lots of furniture makers own the animations legally, I as the creator of (some of) those animations can tell you that the number of people legally licensed to sell those animations I can count on my fingers. Clearly the vast majority of people using those animations in their products are, some maliciously but most unwittingly, benefiting from theft.



*Incidentally, Sera didn't just pay the license fee I was asking, but actually paid 50% extra just as a 'thank you' to me. So thanks Sera!

Unfortunately, Chaz didn't delete his post (I have to assume that he deleted it) soon enough for me to miss seeing it.

When I wrote my response to Chaz's now deleted reply, I was very upset and responded immediately. I realize in a more reasonable mood that he may not have been *directly* accusing me of using what we now all seem to be calling pirated animations. Perhaps he deleted his post when he realized his mistake.. ty for your post, Johan.

It just irks me that some are judged unfairly by some people in this forum because of this "campaign." It makes me wonder about people's intentions. And how fully thought out this is, and to whose benefit is it?

I respect Chaz's intentions. I just don't want to see people accused, even implicated, simply because they post something in a forum that disagrees with what Chaz says and happens to have a furniture store (who was at my store hours after my post checking my stuff.)

All I'm asking for is some moderation of what increasingly feels like a crusade, and the ceasing of blanket implications that everyone who uses certain anims *must* be doing something wrong.

I wish that I had never seen Chaz's post, because it only made a stressful morning.
FWIW, I am sorry for letting my emotions get the best of me in a forum. -shrug, that's life- and i'm going to get back to mine.

One idea to help customers know if a furniture manufacturer is using licenced animations is for when you buy the licence you get a copyable no transfer prim or texture made by the animator showing the logo of the animator and saying your use of his animations is licenced.
You could then display it in your shop.

If it were a no transfer prim, customers could even check the creator to know it was made by the animator so copybots copies of that prim would easily be spotted.

FWIW, I am not sorry that you let your emotions spell it out. I did need pointing out.

I don't see the point of the 'campaign' at all. If it had any chance of success, I'd see the point, but I don't believe it does. If some stores are persuaded to go along with it, and some residents are persuaded of it, then it disadvantages the rest of the stores, which would be right out of order for the simple reason that Joe Resident isn't going to understand everything about it, and may assume that stores that do not go along with it are using pirated animations.

The animations were not generally dealt with when LL cocked up, so to be brutally honest, I think the best that can be done is for the creators of those animations to write them off as having escaped. The damage is too widespread to be undone. I understand Chaz's thinking, but I don't see any way that the damage can be undone, and I do see ways how the 'campaign' can do even more damage.


I thought this bit was interesting:-

What's poor value? The animations?

Given that he essentially posted that Sera was using pirated anims /before/ he even bothered to check with you and then quickly tried to cover up his mistake by deleting his post (too late) and has yet to even do the right thing and apologize for his error, I stand by my assessment of his "thoroughness." If he is going to run around playing anim license cop and claim people are thieves, damaging their rep and business in the process, he'd damn well better actually have proof that what he's saying is true before he says it, which he obviously didn't in this case and I find that utterly unacceptable, especially when you read his classifieds inworld and see that he's using this whole thing as a selling point for his own competing products.

I am getting a package ready to be released and am considering offering it as full perm to furniture makers. I think I will take your advice, Cortex.

I am also considering putting serial numbers on every copy/transfer animation so that I can track them back to the purchaser. This would only require that the animations be no-modify. What do the furniture makers reading this think of this idea?

As a designer when I purchase stuff I do my research (I would never buy anims/scripts from an unverified source).

For example the Rosse animinations I use require the designer to be in his closed group to prove they are verified to use them, you can see people like myself, Sera Lok, Cory Edo etc are listed so anybody buying furniture with Rosse's anims in has a method to verify they are genuine as the designer would be listed.

The issue is most of the general public buying would never know to check such a thing (and in some cases dare I say, not really care to check - they are buying something in good faith at the end of the day in most cases).

With regards to the MLP I use actually XPOSE which requires authorisation by Miffy Fluffy and direct hook up to her servers to monitor usage and license with payments to her. Again it means I know I am legal, but again the general public is likely to have no clue on the difference of Xpose versus the "stuff that is out there".

I won't deny it's a ethical/political and somewhat emotional subject for many, without even touching on whether IP rights are the "right" thing. Many content creators do make a living from it, so as things stand they want to revenue protect.

Anyway, I half forgot what the point of my post was - but as creators the best we can do is ensure we are confident on any element we introduce to our builds is legal and follow due process to establish that.

This can limit the use of such animations in objects with multiple animations, because if it's no-mod, it's impossible to rename it. In some primitive multi-anim scripts this made the menus ugly, but even with good scripts, there's always a risk of name collision with somebody else's anim. I suppose if some creator-specific tag (like a trademark) were part of the anim name, such a problem should only arise when there's a much larger issue anyway.

To the larger topic: as much as I think animators deserve to get paid for what they do, and as much as I would really hope they'd feel encouraged to sell full perm animations for resale... for all that, I'm deeply cynical these days about any prospects for protecting IP, for a couple of reasons.

First, the history of this very issue shows how dreadfully ill-equipped LL is to deal with IP infringement. I don't think we ever got a straight story from them--the blog post was laughably vague--but it certainly appeared that they errantly blacklisted certain MLP scripts, trying to clean-up after a blatant copyright violator, and left the illicit animations completely intact. And now, again, we have a rash of lost content (textures--including Library textures--gone missing, along with yet another MLP 1.2 script, and god only knows what else). I very much doubt if we'll ever really know if this was the result of another botched enforcement attempt, or just a coincidental snafu.

And second, whatever risks we face on LL's grid is nothing compared to some of the alternatives getting serious consideration for inter-grid Inventory permissions. There's a camp that is arguing that existing permissions mean nothing about the intended use of content, with the corollary that anything not accompanied by explicit terms of a license grant was implicitly licensed for use anywhere there's grid connectivity. Combine that with the fact that all content (including scripts) sent to a "trusted" grid is fully visible to anyone with the right access to the individual sim on which the content appears, and the fact that "trusted" grids may come to be sold to anybody at any time. And the response to any objections about this: Oh, well, just file a DMCA takedown against each individual violator--if you had the right language in your license. Yeah, right.

I don't mean to get all "sky is falling" about this, but right now, fretting over compromised animations feels a bit like a finger in the dike while a hurricane approaches.

On the other hand... peering hard for silver linings here: if cooler heads prevail in this inter-grid permissions thing, it may be an opportunity to actually introduce some "reseller permissions" that could clean up some of the current stickiness. But it's pretty damned difficult to figure out where to even suggest such sanity; or, at least, I've not had any success.

The problem I see is that, once you have let a full perm set go, it is 'out there' and you are relying on someone else not to make a mistake. If a mistake is made, it's too late to shut the door, and being able to see who made the mistake won't help because the animations have bolted and they can't be recovered.

I've been asked to let mine go in a builder's package, but I'm loathe to do it for that very reason.

And I'm very sad to hear that it has come to this.