Proof of a design ripper.. also looking for some advice

How about you don't open your fat ass mouth for once, jesus, the person just got ripped off, the last thing she needs is an idiot like you to make it worse.

no body is denying the other guy has the right to make his OWN plane, but to blatantly rip off someone like explained here is really bad I really feel sorry for original builders who have to deal with this type of copying.

i usually love these threads, 99% of the time the biulds are sooooo generic that the entire point is laughable.. and yes i intended to come in here and tell the OP "STFU you made a black box with chome and called it a club"

but in this case i do honestly think this is a copy altho

the prims that make up the cockpit.. the chair wow ive never thought of that one (sarcasim) and the dashboard is a different shape (slightly) the "original" is longer, smoother and wider

below the canopy? that shape could be made by a flip of the cuts, the angle isnt exact (or atleast from what i can see in the snapshot) and really isnt that hard, you have a high point in the rear and a low point in the front, fiddle with prim untill the 2 meet

The canopy itself... half sphere hollowed out, the "copy" appears to be more hollowed, it sits abit higher on the plane and isnt the exact same arch(different sized prim), and it uses the same angle as above (please tell me how to make a dome without using this prim)

the upper and lower prims in the last picture are just standard issue cut and hollowed prims

THE ONLY THING that points me to think it is a copy is the nosecone

while ive personally have made that shape thousands of times theres a zillion different varaitions of it, depending on hollow shape cuts ect why the OP decided to use this exact shape is their biz, if the "original" wasnt being used as a model its unlikley that exact same shape would have resulted (ie i would have perosnally cut it back some more)

Lockheed Martin Corporation disagrees.

"Configurations and designs of aircraft and spacecraft may also be registered trademarks or are trademarks of Lockheed Martin Corporation, including without limitation, the configuration of certain fighter aircraft such as the configuration of the F-16 FIGHTING FALCON, JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER, F/A-22, and P-38 LIGHTNING aircraft."

Just because you *pay* someone to build something doesn't mean they don't retain copyright (or trademarks in this case) on their original work.

Hmm. It certainly looks like a blatant copy, Dustin. I feel for ya.
Please do post names somewhere and provide a link.

Hate to break it to you, but in most cases they do. I don't have a link to the section of copyright law, but there's a section on works for hire.
However, this doesn't preclude LhM from having another deal worked out with the US gov.

It's not hard to find:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ9.html

Work for hire in case of independent contractors rather that company's own emploees is specifically limited to: contributions to a collective work, parts of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, translations, supplementary works, compilations, instructional texts, tests, answer material for a test, or an atlas, and only if the parties expressly agree beforehand in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.

In other words no, i don't think you can consider weapons to fall under this clause. With maybe exception of situations where single item is assembled from contributions of multiple contractors. Perhaps there might be some other rule that works in this manner, but work for hire ain't it, i think o.O;

And well, since this particular situation *is* about design of Lockheed Martin which claims to have the design in question trademarked... the point is moot anyway. o.o;

Both partys or wrong this is a copy of a reallife jet which comes from the real world, soo both are worng cause the copy of a milltary/ airforce jet is against the Milltary law I am contacting the milltary on this issues, and I will let the airforce and SL deal with this ASAP.
Please read the law sections L546b2 in milltary law.

This is about the third thread in a row I've seen where some deskchair lawyer gets their panties in a bunch and threatens legal action over stupid BS in SL. Why the sudden influx of people who want to get the law involved in SL?

Oh, and there is no section L546b2 in Title 10 (Armed Forces) of the US Federal Code, nor does that numbering syntax match anything used by the US government, including DoD policies, Air Force policies, or US Patent & Trademark Office guidelines. And a search for the number itself in any search engine returns no hits whatsoever.

In response to the OP, that really blows that he ripped you off, and did it so blantantly. I really like the looks of your jet, I'll be contacting you in world about it, I love fighter jets.

And to anyone who says it's not a copy, keep this in mind. On a complex object like a fighter jet, if you ask 6 builders to make one, you'll get 12 completely different models. I discovered this first-hand when I was new and commissioned a police cruiser to be built. The shapes required to make something like this are pretty complex, and while there are differences between the two, the underlying structure is a perfect replica. There are some slight differences between them at first glance, but keep in mind that the pictures were taken at different angles for each comparison. You'd have better odds of winning the lottery twice while getting struck by lightning in a tornado in West Virginia* than getting a coincidence like that.



(* = West Virginia is an extremely mountainous state, and has a tornado rate of almost zero)

Last time I checked YOU were human. LOLZ.

So you make yourself sick?

I haven't bothered to read any of the follow-up posts, but from the images it appears to me that the shapes are slightly different. For example, the cockpit profile curvature is fast on one and slow on the other.

I'd venture that someone saw someone else's build process, but didn't copy exact numbers. Nothing illegal about that when the design itself belongs to a RW company. Now had you designed your *own* jet...

{adding image showing what I mean



}

I see what you're pointing out in that picture. The curvature does look a bit different. I went back and looked at the originally posted pictures and I still think it's obviously a by-the-numbers copy. Perhaps, the curvature difference is explained by slightly different camera angles or maybe that was the one prim in the object that the copier thought they could actually make themselves.

But Csven, look at the wheels in the picture you posted. The picture on the left was taken at a higher angle than the one on the right, giving the illusion of a more bubbly cockpit. If you look at this picture, you can see that the canopy prim is nearly identical in both.

The copier probably changed some of the prims very slightly, enough to shake accusations of copying by numbers while still retaining the same design.

Which is why I said "but from the images". The picture to which you're linking is equally screwy - note the intake perspective. The problem is that these images aren't sufficient to render judgement. We should have orthographics, not perspectives taken from differing angles.

The core problem here, imo, is that the original itself is a copy of a design to which neither party has any rights. iirc there was some discussion of the legality in copying military hardware in the semi-infamous Trademark thread from last year. I'll confess to having been on the "if it's funded by the gov't then it's okay" side, but believe that the issue is more complex than that as evidenced by GM winning a trademark(?) dispute with a toy company making toy Hummer knockoffs (not called Hummers and not exactly the same shape).

If people want to ensure they have a leg to stand on, they should create their own designs from the start.

VW's point is valid. Why?

Design specs for the F-16 are widely available, including length and dimension ratios and placement.

There's also only so many ways you can draw a ghost ^W^W^W^W make a design decision on a shape.

Pictures showing similarities - interesting enough to warrant a read, but not concretely convincing.

Picture overlays showing exact same proportions and placing of exact same prims - a bit more convincing.

Screenshots demonstrating that a complex/tortured prim used in the design-in-question has exact same dimensions/scaling/hole size/hollow/cut as one you made/used - fairly clinching proof.

Which is not to say that I don't sympathise. I am not a lawyer, but my opinion is that if the person did rip off your design, you have legal rights under copyright (your expression of a model of an F-16 is copyrightable, I believe). Proving infringement to a court or to LL under a DMCA takedown - is going to require extensive documentation with convincing details.

I'm not a lawyer. However - I believe that copyright covers the OP's work because what he has produced is not actual military hardware, but a model of military hardware - a creative effort. If he'd actually built an F-16, or built an actual airplane by closely copying publicly available details of the f-16 to the point of interoperability of key systems, copyright would not cover his work - my opinion, but that's how I've read it.

To me, even taking that into account, the prims are way too similar to be mere coincidence.



The fact that they're both based on an F-16 doesn't explain why the one appears to be a copy of the other. If you ask 10 different people to build an F-16 in SL, you're going to get 10 different versions of the plane. 10 different prim counts. 10 different sizes. 10 different sets of prims and prim attributes.

Here, the one is clearly copied from the other.



I'm not sure if it's legal or not, but I just can't bring myself to care about the IP theft (or whatever) involved in someone building an F-16 in SL. People want to fly realistic (looking at least) military jets in SL. I don't see anything wrong with that.

The issue is not necessarily copyright. Shapes can be patented and trademarked. That toy company didn't make a real Hummer either. They didn't even make a miniature replica. They didn't call it a "Hummer". They did however make the association to the real thing sufficiently obvious to lose their case.

Interestingly, back in the thread that discusses the Hummer issue, people said it made no sense because GM didn't make toy Hummers. In case anyone missed it, McDonald's now has toy Hummers in Happy Meals. Turns out that the timing is pretty good since it would take about a year for this to be implemented from my experience, and was doubtlessly something on GM's mind prior to that. So they had good reason to protect their IP. Now we know why (and I also caught a story over the weekend about GM desperately looking to other sources of income from leveraging their IP; they're desperate).

I could take your model and duplicate it without using some hack to "copy" it. There's nothing wrong with that in this case. And given that possibility, rushing to judgement seems premature.



There you have it. I similarly "can't bring myself to care about the IP theft (or whatever) involved in someone building an F-16 in SL".

Why then are you complaining? Case solved.

True. I am unaware of whether the F-16's shape was ever patented or trademarked - though it may have been classified or national-security-trade-secreted - or whether if it ever was, if it would lie in the public domain at present. The background legal work that any good model company that's ever produced a model of the F-16 would be enlightening.

I didn't rush to my judgement. I looked at the pictures carefully to see if the OP wasn't just whining that someone made something similar to his. I came to the conclusion that it's not just similiar, it's exactly the same with only color/texture changes.



I don't care about someone starting their project by looking at a real-world F16 and using their building, scripting, and texturing talents to recreate one in Second Life. That doesn't seem like all that big of a deal to me.

I do care when someone makes a prim-for-prim by-the-numbers copy. While I think it's ok to be inspired by someone else's ideas, making an exact copy of an object and then only changing some colors/textures doesn't seem right to me.

Didn't say you did. I was referring to the thread title ("Proof". {edit - just noticed that I used "your" instead of "his". I understand the confusion there. Apologies for that}



And again, I don't see an unauthorized copy using a hack. I see at worst someone who might have purchased an item and recreated it prim by prim. Now if the purchased piece was an original design and not derivative of a RL design, I'd take issue with it. But it's not. The design belongs to neither and imo both should be removed until it's clear that they don't infringe on the RW company's trademark. If they don't, then afaic they can create their versions using whatever method they please so long as they don't make a digital copy.

The F-16 design may not belong to either, but there was creative talent and effort that brought that design into SL, and that was stolen. That doesn't seem right to me.

As far as removing these items from SL until some trademark research is done, I know there are some people that will say "It doesn't matter that the original designer is a big corporation. It doesn't matter that they aren't being hurt in any way. It doesn't matter what other excuses someone may bring up about how it's ok to steal their design and bring it into SL. Theft is theft and that's wrong." I get that and it's hard to argue against that.

But, I just take a step back and say "The guy made a 3D virtual representation of an F-16 in SL and is selling it for a couple bucks (or whatever it is, I don't know). Big deal."

If he weren't selling it, then I'd argue that it should be legal.

The problem exists that - if the design/shape/outline/whatever is trademarked/copyrighted/protected under intellectual property law - then the holder of the intellectual property has to take legal action to defend their intellectual property if they become aware of /any/ infringement, or they risk losing their copyright/whatever due to failing to exercise their rights - I think.

I am not a lawyer.

IP laws don't protect technical proficiency. And I personally don't agree that there is "protected creativity" in creating a prim knock-off of someone else's design. Look at it this way, if a toy company makes a miniature replica of a Me-109 (old German a/c with no IP protection afaik) and then another company comes along, buys that toy, takes measurements but crafts their own from scratch, there's nothing anyone can do about it. Reverse engineering happens all the time. Companies routinely buy competitive product, tear it apart, and use what they can from what they learn. But to avoid infringement they don't duplicate the IP-protected elements. If, however, they see a nice set of generic gears being used, nothing stops them from using the same set.



My primary argument has always been that illegally using RW brands gives unfair advantage in a virtual world competitive environment. Between two competing virtual world businesses, most seem to agree the one leveraging RW tradenames will get the business. It's why some companies - after bankruptcy - have little more than their name to trade in.

It is legal as I understand Fair Use.