Copywright Infringement that threatens all SL builders

This is a link to a thread started by Tya Fallingbridge.

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=993252#post993252



I thought it was possibly as important a thread as I have ever seen in SL and you all need to know about it. I am posting this to the General Forum to reach as many people as possible and being that it is directly related to everyone in SL this needs to be discussed here.

Tya Fallingbridges club "Schmooze" was created in 2005, is extremely popular, well known and well liked by all. It has been blatantly ripped off and copied in one of the easiest copyright infringement cases I have ever seen. Reports have been filed now the question is what will LL do? Will they do the right thing and protect all of the builders in SL from this kind of BS or not? If this is allowed to stand, nothing you build is safe.

Show your support by viewing both builds for yourself and letting LL know what you think.


Coordinates of the stolen club: Pollyesther's, Ear (189, 79, 46)

Coordinates of the original club: Schmooze, Pixel Dreams (31, 233, 103)

<pedant mode> It's spelt: Copyright, Billy. </pedant mode>

But seriously, I doubt LL will do a thing so here's a possible suggestion:

1) Right-click on a prim in the rip-off version and get the builder's name.

2) Find some of that builder's products.

3) Clone them and distribute them as freebies thru an alt account.

The only problem with such a plan of action would be that certain freebie resellers would have a field day.

im not shure what the deal is

both clubs are your standard issue black boxes with catwalks and crap, theres probally a half dozen of these EXACT same clubs in your local city

the images hardly even look simmilar, in the provided examples this "copy" doesnt even display the same layout, textures size or overall theme (the copy looks like a chromy space disco the other is a pink and marble lounge look)

besides the Schmooze name is copyrited by a RL club in canada, so who is calling the kettle black?

hey guess what ive got a black box with a chrome bar in it above my land, DMCA me

anyways good luck with your witch hunt

yep. then. any club with a dj booth, bar, dark with black spotty walls will need to go.
oh an all avatars wearing nike trainers. oh and the starwars sims. and gor. oh dublin. and amsterdamn. erm hang on my club. well the name is copyrighted. but the contents are not.
what about stones. who invented glass.. omg i have trees, who owns copyright.
on and on and on... get on with it. ll wont do anything. and if they do they will have every man and his dog shouting for take downs.

Can you copyright an individual, private build that isn't being sold? Neither person is making profit off of the build itself - and while the layouts seem similar, I'm not sure that its so exact as to be a close enough clone to confuse people between the two. Tya's seems to be a much better execution.

I can understand being upset over it for a second or two, but it doesn't look like the second build is trying to pass itself off as the original at all.

I also probably wouldn't approach the situation by leaving prims all over the second build proclaiming it a copyright violation - among other things - Tya might want to rethink that approach.

And, again, its not LL's responsibility to remove builds/products that may or may not be duplications of other pre-existing builds unless its through the appropriate legal channels. Trying to function in an environment where anyone could petition LL to remove another build because they feel yours is too similar to theirs is a pretty scary prospect. Who's the final judge? Who is going to sit there and sort through the he said she said back and forth? How close is too close? Its the shoe drama all over again.

Prob you must get copyed to get the feeling that Tya has and others before her.. and others in the future to - and to understand it.. Its horrible..

I have been copyed IRL trwice.

ONCE by a huge well known fashion company - Next by a company that bill copyrights daily... The feeling are.. HUGE, hard and sad.. Your loose trust in other people..

I felt horrible and still does.. at this moment when i write this... Both shaked heads.. and pftt.. told ”try to sue us we are bigger than you”. And next ”dont you want more jobs?”

The feelings are.. no I cant write them.. I cant put words on them... and the ones that do it.. often regulary dont care at AL And thats even worse to know..

/Tina

correct me but this rl. which is tottally different as most times you can get the problem sorted out. but i dont sill see shops and clubs suing each other because you loosely look like my club.. " hey you cant have a bar in your club made of wood cos i got one".lol

I haven't logged in to compare the two so am not going to pass judgement, but I do believe this kind of thing needs to be handled carefully.

I DO agree that there is a line where something stops being "influenced" by another build, which is fine, and crosses over into actually "copying" that build, but the bar should be set quite high not least because so many people work off the same texture sets and the same history/base of architectural styles.

Imagine if juro started claiming that every alpine house was a copy of his alpine house... it would be like someone creating a black dress in SL and then claiming that all other black dresses were copies... oh wait, someone probably did make that accusation already

Again, I'm not going to weigh in on this particular case.

I just feel that it's important to reiterate that we need to handle these things with caution and the awareness that in ALL of the creative fields people have been influencing and borrowing from each other for thousands of years. Or is one going to say that there was really only one true impressionist and accuse all the other painters of theft? Yeah Pissarro and Sisley and Seurat were bastards!

I ustand that.. but LL maybe want to make something to take care of it a its very important that we that live on designing are close to helpless in SL.. and myabe a day leave if there another software (Company) that take care of... it a day... greener gras on the other side... )

BUT I wanted to try to explain the FEELING you get ... when you are copyed in SL or IRL...

Its a deep feeling.. hard... AS if you get betrayed by and old close friend.. or lover.. You feel helpless.... I am sure that people that copy dont ustand them at al... or want... IF they have feelings..

/Tina

Al we that have been educated at art schools ustand the word copy (others to - its built in us to not steal ) - as we are copying old master to learn why they did that or that or.. BUT we dont sell or make money on our copies.. as we often after some months / years start to try to fly.. using our own style...

BTW I looked close to one of Juros spotlights inmy early time in SL.. I still remeber it (its plain and great done).. I learned a lot from that small one.. texture, scripting, form, prims use - I did my own.. I saw it was to close to be mine.. so I never put it up in my store.. but I did others.. Thats learning... not copying... and most of us that design have a spirit.. a soul and dont do copys.. we should never do it.. BUT influenses yes! AL the time! Always..

And Juro are still one of my idol builder in SL... I have more))

I myself was once asked to do a magazine.. with a lowbudget.. we where at first meeting told to steal as much as we could.. I at that time was a poor student.. BUT I walked out of the room and still dont get close to that company.. at that time it got me to eat daily at my GM and GF place in 2 months but NO WAY I dont do such...

I obviously agree that there is a difference between influence and copying. My point is that there isn't a distinct line between the two -- it is messy and gray, not black and white. Furthermore, because so many things in SL are based off of RL inspirations, it is not uncommon for two people in a growing world to build similar things entirely separate from each other. And the first person to port something from RL into a virtual world doesn't have the right to claim originality on that concept, since they got it from RL.

the funny thing about SL is that I've seen some pretty blatant ripoffs done -- probably the copy of one of fallingwater's belt was one of the more appalling examples I've seen recently -- but I've also had a lot of people come to me and show me examples where they think it's blatant and I say, well, no, not really... these issues are messy

in any case, i hope that tya doesn't remain upset over this... she's done some cool work on that sim, and I hope she continues. Her work stands on its own two feet, no matter what anyone else does.

RL are ONE of many influences - YES... *smiles*

Grey zoones - YES they exsists... OF course they do... and more in SL as we dont have the huge amount of material that exsists IRL.. look at diff qualitys of leather,,, wallpapers.. wood, steel and other products...

You can of course find close to same shoe in a Chanel Store as in a Rizzo (miidle quatlty shops in Sweden) one or at a really cheap store at a side location... BUT the qualty of the skin and parts in the shoe makes it clear it not the ”same” shoe... IN SL we cant use diff skins.. so.. we have a ”problem”...

You and I use same prims (material) .. but we use diff texturing, and style... I can probably (hmm? not sure of that.. ) copy your houses.. BUT I dont do that. its more fun to do an own one.. use own choises.. own...

Why copy if you are a good creator...

/Tina - now lunch... time!

oh i beg to differ on this point! textures... not only the textures themselves but how they are applied to the prims... are the key to separating a great build from the rest. That's one big reason why i learned photoshop, because as I tried to improve my quality I wanted more control over such an important part of a build. Still learning and improving of course, but it has helped me immensely to be able to make my own textures or edit/improve existing ones.

as for the "on topic" issue, I don't think we're disagreeing

*smiles*... so true.. to ad a texture are someties.. .arghhhhhhh myy

BUT skin (have scent to) or metal and more are things you can touch. Touch by hand by your own hand with nerws and sensors.. IRL are not a feeling that exists in SL)

And - but - yes texture are important,, maybe we shall compare good quality texture with qualty RL skins and similar.. hmm you have a point there,,

BUT (again) IRL material - texture also age - changes over time.. nothing that we have in SL.. Patina.. are missing.,.

New thread maybe..

/Tina - that know that I have plenty to do/learn now and in the furure of SL... or in another a day coming software...

Well I had a look and it is a copy but a really poor copy so I wouldn't be worried.

For some reason all of Ear is group access too which doesn't make much sense for a retail location...

Agreed. It's a laughable build at best, terribly textured, poorly lit, with no sense of style or polish.

All the marks of a lazy, unskilled builder who didn't want to take the effort or time to do a proper job. The exact same type of individual who would copy a design in the first place.

But it's still a copy. They just didn't clean the glass on the xerox machine particularly well.

To be clear the textures are all different, that is not what was copied. The structure and layout is EXACTLY the same down to the triangle windows, 3 cages, dj booth, bar, circular stairs going upstairs to VIP rooms, even the chairs are the same and in the same place. It is EXACTLY the same layout as Schmooze. There is no way possible that this was not a copy. A poor one, yes. The textures chosen were poor and it looks like crap if you ask me.

But, Tya spent months working on her build. She is the creator, it came from her alone and to have the structure and layout copied is appalling. It is not a question of whether this club will be successful or any kind of threat, SL is plenty big for everyone, it is a question of someone's hard work being blatantly copied and a question of the rights of the original creator.

This is a term that art people live by.....If there was no masters to learn from we would not have any art as we have it today.
Copying to the basic man "stealing term" But to those that eith made or have made art is a referance tolearn from or study from. Havin a backgroung from in Interior and Art forms i understand waht petgirl is getting at.

Selling stolen images as patters on object to sl is just wrong! i have found resently on sl is getting too much on sl. grant you LLabs is doing some sort of control but not close enough in my eyes.
Making your own style as a randition of a patterned art for is how we learn to create but selling it in the intension to made money is just plain stealing.

Copyright doesn't actually provide much, if any, protection from "lookalike" products or models. So long as they're not using any trademarked logos or designs, and so long as they implemented their version from scratch, there's pretty much nothing you can do about lookalikes.

And you can get pretty damn close even with trademarks. There's a coffee shop down teh street from here called "Doubleshots" that has a logo that's obviously based on the Starbucks logo, and the name is taken from a Starbucks product, but I would be surprised to find that it was a trademark infringement any more than the "Stardocks" bar in Hollywood or the "Dwellget" department store in Taco are.

Copyrights? If copyright protected an overall design nobody but Frazetta would be allowed to draw barbarian heroes.

I saw someone in a club hawking his art..I quote: 'buy this self drawn art not from the theives'

The art was given a copyright symbol with 2006, in the vas first name and a rl last name..but the piece itself I've seen online since 2 years ago.

Lesson: don't trust anyone selling 'original' art.

Whether something is sold or not has no bearing on copyright. You gain copyright by the act of creating itself.


Kyushu

Since we're talking about copyrights, I ran my coffee shop in progress's name through Google.

The top link = My post on SLDevs.com
And, well, at least Google is reading my blog.

As for the layout, anyone caught copying it will be caught by an avalanche of 'WTF, It's not that great of a design" by my army of subverted newbs.

What, you thought I joined Live Help for money?

We might not be able to copyright, but we can trademark, and more importantly, patent the living hell out of something.

I already applied for a patent on abusive patents!