New Copyright Threat Warning

That sort of thing really isn't possible, Rudee. Anything that can be displayed on a monitor can be captured, period. Again, I won't get into specifics on how it's done, but it's somewhat analogous to recording a TV show on a VCR or DVR. Cable and satellite companies can scramble their signal to prevent unauthorized reception, of course, just as you're proposing SL could encrypt textures. But after a program has been received and decoded by the set-top box, it can be recorded just as easily as it can be displayed. As long as you put the VCR or DVR in between the box and the TV, you can record whatever you want.

By the same token, everything shown on your monitor has to be "unscrambled" by a certain component in your computer. Everything bit of information that comes out of that component can then be captured before it gets to the monitor. There's absolutely no way to prevent that.

I hear ya Chosen, and I do understand how it works. Just tossing out ideas off the top.

Exactly what I meant about keeping the discussion open.

I understand copyright better than most. I am a content creator myself, and I'm investigating SL mostly for the opportunity to sell my content here.

I also understand your RIAA/MPAA inspired propaganda.

As long as it's for my exclusive personal use, I have a fair use right to do whatever I damn well please. I can tear apart a TV for it's components, and for the my personal use of my own entertainment, I can tear apart any image I paid for the right to use.

You argument is like telling me I have no right to use a clip from a song I got from a CD I bought, as my ring tone.

I'm dying for that case to hit the courts. It never will because big media would loose. HARD. And the precedent would kill an otherwise profitable channel for those without the skills to make their own ringtones.

I do not have a right to DISTRIBUTE that ring tone it to any one else. I can't give them the ringtone I made, or sell it, but derivative work for personal use is completely within the terms of Fair Use.

There is also protection for tradesmen who will do that kind of work for you. It is legal for me to charge you for the time I spend ripping your CD, editing the audio file, and uploading it to your phone. I only run afoul of copyright if I KEEP any of the data.

The intent of "Copyright" is to prevent redistribution. If you really want to take your copyright THAT literally, you have to sue Linden Labs right now for letting any one see your "Copyrighted" material without your express permission.

Every time some one sees your texture on some on else, it's been copied from their server, and in point of fact... it is a modified derivative work due to the way the 3D elements distort your image to "fit" the figure.

The internet in general will not work without copying.

"Stealing" my right to Fair Use is IMHO far worse a crime than some one "stealing" your rights to control your copy.

The artist has no right to dictate how I may use the product I paid for.

As a texture artist, you must be aware of the right to patterns. Without copying the pattern it can not be repeated. Imagine if you had to pay for a virtual copy of a pattern every time you repeated it in a texture. Plaid would be the most expensive color on Earth.

Imagine if you could only use the letter in any given font once.

Lastly... if we EVER expect our customers to respect our rights as author/inventor/artist/creator... we MUST reciprocate and respect THEIR right to use what they purchase from us, or we will not only loose our rights legally, because they outnumber us, but morally as well, because WE attempted to force them to behave by our wishes simple because they GAVE us their business.

We are their servants. Not the other way around.

Mr JoeTom, you would really not believe how many times everyone here has heard all of that before. Blah blah the internet is all copying blah blah omg redistribution HA DIDN'T THINK OF THAT and so on and so on.

In addition to being an artist, I'm also a personal liberty and copyright reform activist.

It's ALL been heard before. It's all going to be heard again, and again, and again, until we hash out an acceptable compromise for everyone, or it just gets bloody.

I'm sorry if that bothers you. It bothers me just a much to have people claiming their rights to make money are more important than our personal liberty.

JoeTom,

In this world there's what we say... and what there is, and they're most often not the same thing.

In the 70's and 80's there was a group of people who felt similarly to you in this, said similar things. They were creators as well, some of them creating things that went on to make millions... then along came this guy named Bill Gates. He disagreed and fought for the rights on his intellectual property.

Now I hate to site Bill as an example, cause he was allegedly a pretty notorious "borrower of ideas" himself, and not the most popular person around, but the point is you know his name and his fortune, and probably have no idea of who the others I mention are, or the fact that for the most part they made little or nothing from their creations, even if the creations went on to rake in millions.

So despite their often misguided notions of decency and fairness, what people should be able to do with what you create, that's just what is.


And I still don't think you're quite "getting" it...


In this, you're partially right, you could purchase a VanGogh and wipe your butt with it, but if you decided to copy it by any process and sell the copies as originals you'll find out pretty fast just what the difference is.

That may be, as most people really don't understand it very well at all. But from everything you've said here, I can promise you you don't understand it nearly as well as you think you do. I encourage you to take that not as an insult (because it's not), but simply as an invitation to better educate yourself. I'm happy to help in any way I can in that regard, as long as you don't get defensive when I point out what you're currently misunderstanding.


Great! In that case, it's even more important that you develop a proper understanding of all this, both to protect your own work, and to make sure you don't infringe on anyone else's.


Uh, no you don't, because that's not what it is.


Again, there's a difference between physical property and intellectual property. Yes, you can tear apart a TV. And yes, you can tear apart an image. But what you can't do is copy the image without the permission of its (IP) owner, and you can't use the image as part of another.


Well, technically, you don't. It's highly unlikely anyone would ever make a stink over it, but if you want to talk strictly about rights, you don't have the right to do that unless the owner of the music grants you specific permission for it.


I'm confused. If you think the copyright owners would lose (which I don't think they would), how would the precedent then serve to stop people from making ring tones? Wouldn't "those without skills" be the ones to benefit from the loss by "those with skills"?


Right, you can't distribute it.

But whether you can do it in the first place, even for your own use, is highly debatable. By the strict letter of the law, you're not allowed to do it. You can make backup copies of media for your own use, but not derivative works. If you want a ring tone of a song, you should rightly buy it from whomever is licensed to sell copies of the music in that manner.

However, since no one would ever know you made an unauthorized ring tone for yourself if you don't share it, it's basically a tree falling in the woods. If no one was around to hear it, maybe it made a sound and maybe it didn't. But the fact that you can get away with it doesn't mean it's actually the right thing to do.

What the "personal use" part of Fair Use that I think you're probably thinking of actually regards is backup copies. You are allowed to make backups of media for yourself, in case something happens to the original. I very much doubt you could successfully claim a ring tone is a backup.


Have you ever dealt with someone who provides that sort of service? Usually they'll make you sign a waiver, saying you take full responsibility for any copyright issues that may arise. Why do they do this? Because they know they're not supposed to be copying the music in the first place. Whether or not they keep it is not relevant.


That would be why in Section 3.2 Paragraph 2 of the Terms of Service, it says that you grant LL the right to "use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service." Read it for yourself: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php

That paragraph exists for precisely the reason you just stated. Without it, SL wouldn't legally be able to work the way it does.



That copying is part of how SL ("the Service" works. You authorized it when you agreed to the TOS.

As for whether applying a skin to an avatar constitutes the creation of an unauthorized derivative work, the answer is no, it doesn't. If you put a skin up for sale, it is only reasonable to assume you intend for it to be used on an avatar. That's the whole point. But that doesn't mean you automatically grant anyone the right to capture the texture and apply it (modified or unmodified) to another skin. That, by definition, is copyright infringement.


Sure. In order to view a Web page, you need to download a copy of the page and all its contents to your local browser cache. But it's expected that that's as far as the copying will go, only so far as is necessary to make the system operate. What's not allowed is for anyone to extract imagery, text, or other media from any page and use it somewhere else. If you want to do that (legally), you need specific permission.


I won't argue with (or for) that. But again Fair Use is not what we're talking about here. Just because you happen to think something should be considered fair under the law doesn't mean it is. If you want to change how it works, write your congressman. But until and unless it changes, you have to abide by the law as it exists at present, just like everyone else.


If your use involves reproduction in any form, then the artist has every right to dictate what you can and can't do.


If you create your own plaid pattern, then it's yours, and you can do with it as you please. What you can't do is copy someone else's pattern without their permission.

That said, there are some reasonable exceptions. If you take a photograph, and there happens to be someone wearing a plaid shirt in it, the photo is yours, and you can reproduce it. But you can't extract the pattern of the plaid itself and apply it to other things.


Sorry, but that's a ridiculous analogy. It's perfectly obvious that for a font to be a font, its letters and symbols have to be re-usable. You're trying to make it sound like copying someone's unique calligraphy image of the alphabet would be the same thing as using a font. It's not.

In any case, when you acquire a font, it comes with a license that dictates what you can and can't do with it. Often you're not allowed to use free fonts for commercial purposes, for example.




If that's how you feel, then include a license that says that with all your products. You're perfectly free to grant whatever rights you want to your customers. Just don't expect that everyone else should surrender their copyrights just because you would.




Now why doesn't that surprise me? I figured as much. Again, if you want to reform the law, that's an option. Write your congressman. But in the here and now, the law is what it is. It doesn't cease to apply just because you want it to.


There's never any such thing as "an acceptable compromise for everyone". I think you know that it's impossible to please everyone in any situation. People will always disagree. But it doesn't have to get bloody. We can agree to disagree agreeably.


It's not all about money. Money is part of it for some, sure, but to me, it's much more fundamental than that. Part of my "personal liberty" is they ability to preserve the integrity of my work. The fact that I do make my living as a content creator obviously means I have a financial stake as well, but that's not what's at the root of all this, at least not for me. In a perfect world, I'd be able to do it all for free and still be able to put food on the table. But even if that were the case, I'd still want to ensure that my creations remain mine, and that they're not arbitrarily copied, altered, sourced for derivation, etc., without my express consent.

Well I guess I'm guilty of copyright infringement. You see, I make desktops for people's personal computers. I take their personal pictures that they send me via email and cut, hack out or whatever they wish done to put the pictures on a background of their choice. Sometimes is another picture from their personal stock (I have no way of knowing who took that picture or where it was obtained unless it's very obvious). Sometimes they ask me to search for something (I do stick with copyright regulations if I search for them). Sometimes they just want me to take some snapshot around SL to use for their desktops.......or they take the pictures themselves and send them to me. I combine the pictures and when they are satisfied I sell those pictures to them. Or I give them to them...makes no difference. Seems I'm afoul the law by a few of your interpetations.

Put me in jail.

No, the thing is, you are just repeating irrelevant points as if they meant anything and pertained to the actual issues. If you had paid any attention you might be able to say something useful regarding the interaction of copyright law with SL and virtual worlds, rather than just repeating your silly irrelevant tropes regarding internet content, but no, you're clearly just determined to carry on as if you're the only damn person who has ever heard of the EFF.

We're all about two years ahead of you, son. Read up or bugger off.

edit: overly aggressive of me really, I should steer well clear of these pointless back-and-forths to be frank

No, you're not. As I see it, there are three possible scenarios with what you're doing:

1. The customer provides their own original photography. In that case, your role is simply as a provider of "work for hire". The customer owns the copyright, from start to finish. Your use of the material during the work process was in full compliance with their wishes. So you've done nothing wrong.

2. The customer asks you to provide imagery. You've already said you respect copyright when searching for pre-existing images, so assuming you're being truthful about that, it's a non-issue. And of course, if you create the images yourself, you can do whatever you want with them. Again, nothing wrong.

3. SL snapshots. Here's where we get into a gray area. The issue of whether or not a virtual environment like SL can be considered a public space has not really been addressed by the courts, as far as I know. In RL, it's generally accepted that if something exists in a public space, it can be legally photographed. For example, if you take a picture of your friends standing in front of a statue in a public park, the photo is yours. The sculptor can't claim the photo is a derivative work. But in SL, it's more complicated. Is the "space" really a space? Or is it more like a canvas? And is it really public? If I put a texture on a wall, and you take a snapshot of your friends' avatars standing in front of the wall, is your snapshot a derivative work from my texture?

My feeling is no, it probably wouldn't be. I'd most likely consider your snapshot to be an original work, not a derivative, in the same way that a similar RL photo would be. But I also think the arguments that would go the other way are perfectly valid. It's a hard question to answer. Sooner or later this sort of thing will make its way to the courts, and then we'll have a precedent on which to base future judgment. But until then, it's open for interpretation.



In any case, Peggy, I'd suggest you have your customers sign a copyright waiver, if you're not doing that already. As you said, you have no way of knowing that the images they provide you really belong to them. It would behoove you to have it in writing that it's the customer's responsibility, not yours, to ensure that they're being truthful with you. If someone steals an image, and you work with it, you don't want to risk being held responsible.

You probably are.

And I'd hazard a guess that the reason you won't serve any jail time over this is that your customers asked you to do this for them, and that nobody cares. It's one person's desktop and as such unlikely to do any financial damage to anybody who's images you used in creating them.

The damage just doesn't amount to much. But is that a good reason to throw out the law as it applies to and protects others who might suffer financial damages.

There's always gonna be points you can make where it seems plain dumb. Like "Happy Birthday." As dumb as it seems, you will never see anybody singing "Happy Birthday" in a movie because its copyrighted and the movie makers wouldn't see the value in either paying for it or breaching the law, but the owners of the rights aren't gonna go chasing every Clown who sings the song at a party where they've been paid a few bucks to entertain to get their couple of cents royalties. Wouldn't make sense.

But again, if you use that argument to simply throw out the law then the people who do deserve to make money on their songs are left out in the cold.

This isn't about an emotional response.

Ah yes. The inevitable "You don't agree with my point of view, so shut up."

It's amazing that where ever I have this discussion, there is always the "artist" who goes straight to censoring my free speech.

That's what copyright really is in this century. Economic Censorship. NOTHING more.

You know what. Get your lawyer. Cause without him, none of us will ever be proven right or wrong. THAT...."son" is the law. If you can't afford to take your case to court, YOU LOOSE.

Until a court precedent proves otherwise, neither our P.O.V.'s has any weight.

I'll "bugger off" now. You "win".

(Edited to add that I'm talking about the personal case rather than offering the service for someone else which I would agree is illegal)

Layering clothing/skin layer textures and outputting a new texture is what the viewer does all the time.

1) regular SL
* wear the skin
* wear the tattoo

The viewer composes three (5 but only 3 apply in the case of skins) baked textures of the tattoo overlaying the skin and uploads them back to the sim as a (temporary) asset.

2) modified viewer "hacked" to add a new tattoo layer underneath "undershirt"/"underpants"
* wear the skin
* wear the tattoo

The viewer would compose three baked textures of the tattoo overlaying the skin and would upload them back to the sim as a (temporary) asset; exactly the same as the above.

3) modified viewer that dumps baked textures into a new skin on demand

First use:
* wear the skin
* wear the tattoo

The viewer would compose three baked textures of the tattoo overlaying the skin and would upload them back to the grid as a (permanent) asset and would create a new skin asset comprising of the three new UUIDs that make up the baked texture.

Second use:
* wear the composite skin

The viewer composes three baked textures of the composite skin and uploads them back to the sim as a (temporary) asset. End result would be *exactly* the same as 1) and 2).

---

You're assuming that at some point or another you would *have* to end up with the texture as a file on your hard disk or in your inventory, but that's not true. You *could* do it that way, but it wouldn't be a requirement since you could just use the viewer's own baking process.

Yes, everything will end up in your cache but that's true with general use as well. 1), 2) and 3) also produce the exact same output. Each and every time a composite "derived" textures will be created locally and reuploaded back to SL.

You want to argue that 1) and 2) would be legal but 3) is illegal even though all three are merely different ways of doing the exact same thing and I just don't see it. At no point does anything have to leave the viewer or would you end up with textures (either original or combined) or would you do anything that the viewer doesn't habitually do anyway (you would create a permanent asset rather than a temporary one).

I'd just argue that the illegal bit is not creating a "derivative" texture because the viewer does that; it would be rather pointless to buy clothes or skins in SL if you didn't have the explicit permission for the viewer to create and reupload composited textures.

---

I'd really just argue that the actual problem is that you'd end up with a full permission asset where before you had a NT or NC skin or tattoo which in essence is bypassing SL's DRM and illegal in and by itself in the US as far as I understand things.

Additionally, anything to do with SL's DRM also falls entirely within LL's realm and they can take actions there where they're incapable of taking any stand when it comes to alleged IP infringement other than respond to DMCAs or court orders so that's an added perk since it doesn't take a lawsuit but merely an AR to point out that the permissions are being subverted.

Okay, I've read Chosen's, Rudee's and JoeTom's least few comments. I'm still up in the air on this. Not that I'm up in the air about what I believe to be the truth in this discussion..........I know what I believe is true. I'm up in the air about how people interpete what is going on here. We have a very vocal group of "artists" (or content creators) shouting that "someone is ripping me off". We have a somewhat quieter voice expressing a different view. Both claim to be spouting RL law. The artists are saying that RL law does not apply as relevant in SL.........because it's virtual and not hard material matter. It's a "canvas", so to speak. I get lost there..........if it's not real and only virtual how can you quote copyright laws in your defense. Copyright pretains to real stuff.......not something that goes away with the interuption of electrical power. It's nothing but the representation of 0's and 1's to convey something to show on someone else's "canvas"...........yet they believe they have total control of that canvas. Pretty creative thinking, don't you think? And the creative thinkers tell the opposing poster to "bugger off"?

It's either a violation of RL law or not.........not some "yeah, but". I happen to lean toward JoeTom............at least he has not resorted to some impossibly abstract comparison that any content created in SL is just the creator's canvas. Sorry, guys but you are wrong. My Viewsonic VA912b monitor does not belong to you.

What you guys seem to be saying about content creation is more in line with what the RIAA has been saying about the rights of individuals who copy songs (or art?) for their personal use.........that copying has been upheld in the courts. You want everything you think you deserve for you work..............and more. You actually go so far as to say that snapshot from SL is borderline illegal........because the snapshot may contain copyright protected textures. You are insane if you think that will work in anyway, shape or fashion in a court or law (which, by the way is RL........so real life will be used in any determination. Not that "SL is a canvas" thing).

I also create content for SL.......in both building textures and clothing textures. I'm not that bad at it either. But, will you ever see me lean on that "I'm an artist" thing? Not on your life...........I make things for people to use. I might be compensated for it or I might not. It matters not one bit............it's because I like (love?) what I do.

Sometimes I think about these creators constantly telling us they are artist is just them trying to convince me. Hell, maybe I'm an artist and you are just greety business people.

Sorry, that's the way you come across. "Give me my cut, or I'll bury you".

Take care..............I'll "bugger off" now too.

Ok all of this bickering hasn't addressed US copyright law..

Specifically http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

Section 107 covers Fair Use.

Specifically
"4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

So if you went to court with this you'd have to prove to the judge on paper that you were financially harmed.

Now my opinion on this is that it falls under fair use, but I think the guy is an asshole for charging and making a business out of it. I also am of the opinion that it's only copyright infringement if the person infringing is causing material harm to the copyright holder.

EDIT:
May I also add that the vast majority of tattoos in SL are full-opacity horrid stencil looking things that have no resemblance to a real tattoo because the makers don't (for whatever reason) fill the opaque part of the alpha channel with a little grey. Real tats don't look like they were drawn on with a magic marker.

Peggy

I'm a bit confused by your use of the word "Artist" in this derogatory manner. I've gone through the thread and the people who've used the term most are yourself and JoeTom. Neither Chosen or I have used it once, or referred to ourselves as such or anyone else for that matter. And frankly I'm mystified at how it's an insult.

I just don't understand why you are reacting so emotionally to this, and so confused.

If you made something, you own it and have every right to have a say in how it's used. If you love making things and wish to give them away, that's your right. More power to you. If you make something of value, great or small, its your right to ask what you feel is fair for it. You can lend it to someone, you can allow them to use it for different things, you can give it to them for free and watch gleefully as they burn it, or agree that they can look at it on their computer monitor. Its your right as the creator. The thing you create can be an idea, like a song, or something more "real" and solid. like a spice rack, the same rules apply, your rights as the creator and owner to say how it's used. It seems pretty clear.

Once you sell the spice rack, you've usually sold your rights to it as well including how its used and that's understood and accepted, but if you rent the spice rack you have a right to set terms.

You seemed pretty possessive about your monitor there, and rightly so, its yours and no one has made a claim on it or has any right to do so. You are arguing that if you own a radio, you own the songs played on it, and that is clearly not the case. Does someone's rights to be fairly paid for creating music disappear - vaporize - because you argue that you turned off your radio so the song ceased to exist? That would be news to the radio station owners who had to pay for the rights to play the songs whether your radio or anybody else's is on or not.

If its your song, or your car, or your home, in RL or virtual, the same applies. Your property, your rules, and you have every right to say how its used. If someone takes your car, or song and you have a problem with that it seems pretty obvious that whether they feel you're just greedy or not is irrelevant.

By putting our work up on SL we are agreeing to the terms of its usage as laid out by Second Life and Linden Labs, and international copyright law, and those are clear, no matter how you choose to argue them.

Fair use is extremely limited as described in US copyright law and is intended primarily to cover excerpting works for journalistic, educational, and archival use. Fair use as interpreted by the courts is far more nebulous, and as already pointed out, is generally determined by financial gain or loss. If someone bought a skin and a tattoo and then did what this guy is doing themselves they would likely be covered by fair use (but I wouldn't count on it). This guy has not bought any of the items he's copying and he's making a profit by creating these derivative works. No matter how good his intentions may be, that would be a no brainer for the courts. He would not be covered under fair use.

People who'd like to see a more flexible avatar system in SL (and who wouldn't?) should point their ire at LL where it belongs, for creating such a limited system and never addressing it. That ire should not be directed at people who simply want their legal rights respected and don't want to see their hard work available for free all over the grid and their primary or secondary incomes destroyed. Skin and tattoo makers hate the limitations of the SL system every bit as much as end users (and probably more).

Amen brother!! You simply wouldn't believe if I told you how much time in my day is taken up by answering the same questions on the subject over and over and explaining to customers why I can't do what they request.

Head Tattoos, Head Tattoos. I'm loosing my RL hair over head tattoos! lmao

Like yourself, I have petitioned LL for one more full avi tattoo layer to make up for the one that the skin industry has (happily, I like my skin too) filled, just so I can fulfill my customers requests.

P.S. OK Chip, well maybe you would believe it. Thanks for the templates btw. I use them every day.

I'm not at all confused by my use of the word "artist". And if it sounded derogatory, I guess that sort of makes my point. I know what a real artist is. I also know what a psuedo artist is. Did Van Gough copyright his paintings? Michelangelo? Rembrandt? Mozart his music? I'm not at all confused, thank you. I'm not talking about artists.....I'm talking about people who wear that title so "proudly" that they insist what is theirs is solely theirs......no one can have it unless they say so. Get it now? I'm afraid I would not consider you or your friends that argue so loudly about "artists" to be a real artist. No confusion what so ever on my part. Perhaps I would accept the word "mechanic" but not artist.

Sure, artists should get their due for there work.......and they do for true art. But I've never known a true artist to scream "pay me, you son of a bitch or I'll take you to court and ruin you". Much like the RIAA. If someone takes your work and puts his/her name on it as the "artist" then we are talking about something completely different. The "third party" everyone is so down on is not taking your work and putting his/her name on it. They are taking your work and "improving" it......for someone who wants it improved. No claim to your work at all.......just doing what many do with songs recorded for their personal use (put it in a play list different than the album it was copied from, etc). If they claimed the music to be theirs (they created it) then they are liable for legal action. If they created it to play at their DJ job at the local club they are not. By your interpetation they would have to pay you royalties.......at least that is what RIAA says. And like I said earlier.......you guys sounds very much like that organiization to me.

On my monitor. Sorry, Rudee, I'm not all that possessive about my monitor.....actually going to replace it soon. But someone said (he knows who he is) said the "art" in SL is a canvas. A canvas cannot be on and off switches in some processor........it's the monitor that is the canvas. He said that he owns the pictures on my canvas......sorry, that's not true. I own that picture.....it's my canvas. That's what I meant by "creative thinking".......takes an agile mind to comprehend that concept. I guess my mind is not that agile.

You compare my "property" with me having rights to it....real life things. Then you say you say virtual things are different........it's "intellectual". Which is it? Your texture on my canvas? Or your "on" and "off" swithches generated by Linden Lab servers? You are trying to tell me it's yours from your hard drive to my monitor. I say it ends at you hard drive.

Dammit, I said was "bugging off" too.............LOL.

Peggy, people are simply trying to explain their understanding of the law, and what their rights are under it, and whether or not what this guy is doing is legal. If you don't like the law, take it up with your congressman. If you don't like the limitations of the avatar system that cause this to be an issue, take it up with Linden Lab. This isn't an emotional issue, or about class, or about whether or not putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa is art. If you think people should be expected to surrender rights afforded to them under the law simply because you think they should, or for your personal convenience, or because you don't think 3D texture artists are artists, those are your opinions and you're certainly entitled to them, but they don't change the law.

Whatever other pros and cons there are to your posts, you are definitely using this term incorrectly:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

You seem to think that the term "Fair Use" refers to what is fair for the purchaser of an item to do with it, and that is not correct. Read this article, or Chosen's post (you pretty obviously didn't bother to read it) for the correct explanation of that term. You will notice that it makes no reference to the rights of the purchaser, it is simply about a different set of issues than that.

Again, I'm not arguing about the pros and cons of your overall point, I'm correcting you specifically on your misuse of the term "Fair Use." Considering you describe yourself as a copyright reform activist, it should be very important to you to be using the terms correctly, as that has a big effect on your credibility in arguing about copyright.



Actually, those questions make it pretty clear that you are rather confused. Classical artist didn't copyright their work (incidentally, by "copyright their work" I'm assuming you mean registering the work with the Copyright Office, since copyright is automatic) for the obvious reason that copyright didn't exist back then.

This clearly comes from someone that does not or has not had to deal with content theft in SL as in his own stuff.
Ignorance is bliss I guess.
And learn a little about copyright before you make a remarlk like that, you only make yourself look foolish.

"Fairuse" NEVER applies when commercial interest is involved. PERIOD.

Its well known the skin industry has taken a HUGE kick in the stones from the theft by "rippers" you only have to look at full perm stores to see the high quality skins made by someone who has spent months and years learning the trade and then $$$ on the software further $$$$ on the photo materials and then even more time creating that skin.

Skins arent sold as "textures" If the creator wanted you to add tattoos or modify them they would sell them as "textures"
The fact there NOT sold as textures but as an avatar componant means you have to use dodgy means to extract it as a texture...which I believe MOST skin designers clearly state in their EUAL is prohiibited.

That argument works both ways. Just because you (general case you) feel you should be able to take away rights from consumers doesn't mean you can.

I still can't see how this is any bit about copyright/IP .

You can't argue noone has the explicit permission to layer clothing/skin textures to produce a "derived" texture and upload it back with the purpose to apply it to an avie because that's just how baked textures work. Clothing/skins that you're explicitly forbidden from using to create a composite texture would be utterly useless, you can't wear it without creating a composite.

(And again: someone offering the service for others runs foul of usage and there is a definite DRM violation whether you do it for yourself or others but that's not about copyright/IP it's a violation of the part of the TOS where everyone agreed to abide by the permissions system)

Hello.

I am "the guy" that is providing this service, and I thought it woul be useful to respond to a few points here.

1. I did not give Rudee permission to post our private conversation on the forum. I merely said he could report it to LL if he so wished. But no matter.

2. My principal aim here is to provide a service that enhances people's SL experience. Everyone hates the trouble of juggling their tattoo layers. Yes, I charge for that service, but the fee, 300L (about a buck!), is purely to cover my costs (premises, advertising etc...) and the time I spend carrying out the process. I'm not trying "to make a quick buck".

3. I try to carry out my service in a responsible manner. I have no desire to leech off the work of others. I recognise the hard work that tattoo and skin makers put in to their products. I am very clear in my shop and in all my literature that I NEVER copy and sell skins. That all skins I produce are for PERSONAL USE only and are non-transferrable, and that the customer must have already BOUGHT and OWN the skin and the layers combined. I NEVER provide layers for people to use (unless they request a custom tattoo that I might make myself).

4. Also as part of that, I do dlete and purge all the skins and textutres from my SL account after I have made the skins. I also delete the textures from my hard drive. This is because I don't want to retain copyrighted material. My use is transient and I seek to keep it that way.

5. I understand Rudee's concern, but as I also said to him in the chat we had, my process makes skins and tattoos more flexible and user friendly and should mean that they are more desirable. Thi should have a positive effect on his business. Having said that, I am trying to address his concerns and I now ask all my potential customers if their tattoo is one of his. If it is, I will not perform the procedure.

6. I also understand Rudee's issue about hi right to make and sell combined versions of his own works. My process does not stop him doing this. If he creates skins and tattoos, then he can easily sell both together as a combined version by using the process I use, and that he says he understands. If he wants to add a premium price to the combined skin over and above the 300L I charge for the service, that's again a choice he makes as to the value he provides to his customers.

7. I am in the process of seeking legal advice as to whether my system is in breach of US copyright law. I am not in the US, and copyright law regarding personal use of items you have bought is a little different here. However, I recognise that SL is governed by US law and will look to abide by that. If my advice is that I am in breach, then I will be ceasing my trading in it's current form and will be looking to perhaps build up relationships with the skin and tattoo nakers instead.

As I stated, my main aim is to help people enjoy SL more, not to make a quick buck on the backs of other perople. I try to do this responsibly.