New Copyright Threat Warning

This is exactly how i feel.

Frankly I think it is an excellent service - you have paid for the skin and the tatts - you are not duplicating them for re-sale - as for the trust factor - I prefer to trust rather than distrust - if you are going to get upset about something you created getting copied and resold - don't create it in the first place because you will only loose sleep over it - either that or prove to the world you are not a one idea person and create something new.

Legally, I realise that this doesn't cross the 'T's and dot the 'i's but why not sell this guy a license to do it with your skins and use it as a market process - This is a marketing opportunity. Frankly I've been doing it for a long time but I develope my own skins and skin decorations.

That would work for those who sell skins copy/no-xfer only, with the understanding (and some way for the licensee to tell what brand skin it is) that the results be copy/no-xfer.

If it's easy for the licensee to identify the maker's skins (easily done with a watermark or logo on an unused area of the skin), and if the maker trusts the licensee to abide by the terms, this is a good model.

For skin makers who sell xfer/no-copy, it gives a way for the customer to make copies of their skin, which is obviously a non-starter.

Another idea might be that the service is offered through the skin designer (ie, the person who owns the rights becomes the middle man) that way they have some control - just a thought.

I must admit all this preciousness about copyright frustrates me. Put a product on the market and make a little, or a lot if greed is the motivator, but rather than cry foul everytime the inevitable happens keep one step ahead by upgrading to new models or creating something new - In SL, as in RL, most things have a limited lifespan - build that into your business/marketing plan - live with the fact.

If you estimate that a skin will last about 3 months before it is widely copied or reaches its sales peak - use this time to reap in the lindens, build up a brand, grow your group and be in an excelent position with a market base ready to offer your next upgrade or product etc. - let the original product gradually dissolve into the Ether - any you sell while it does so becomes cream on the cake.

The talk about the skin designers offering it as service or licensing it forgets the fact that there are two parts to it; skin and tattoo. Letting the skin designers control the licenses imply that their IP is somehow more important than the tattoo owners'. They may have the more expensive product and the clout to kick and scream about it, but that should *not* grant any special legal status.

-And, my usual repeat to avoid being quoted out of context: I *still* believe the merging should fall under normal consumer rights, but recognize that it is against DMCA.

just one question:

Isn't that quite simple?

According to the TOS you give others the right to use your content for all purposes within the service.
This means: You can do whatever you like, as long as the service allowes this, so you have to take a look at that DRM System in SL, that regulates the rights you grant to others.

IF the skin is sold mod -- you have been given the right to modify it.
IF the skin is sold copy -- you you have been given the right to copy it.
IF the skin is sold transfer -- you have been given the right to transfer or sell it to others.

IF it ist NOT -- you do not have that rights. Quite simple.

But if you want a tatoo baked on your skin, then both the original skin and that tatoo have to be mod.
And both have to be x-fer, because otherways you are not allowed to pass them over to the guy that bakes the new tattooed skin. Neither with texture ripping nor with any other means.

I do not know how exactly he does do that tattoed skin, I just can assume he uses a texture ripper, but if he just creates a copy of that skin, and may it be a modified one - he is not allowed to do this. All he may do is just modifying the existing skin.

And he may not use that skin or that tattoo outside SL.

And personally I cannot imagine, how that guy manages to bake that new tattoed skin unless both items are FullPerm.

So, unless both, the skin and the tattoo all full perms, there is a violation of TOS, and an AbuseReport should do it, no need for 14 pages of excursions into foreign copyrights and DMCA.

From my point of view I'm not sure baking textures together is part of 'the service'. Clients have to do it themselves and upload a new (temporary) texture. This seems like such a shaky foundation for rules :/

I'm always shocked at how often I encounter someone who fails to recognize this as reality that calls themselves a business owner. If your business model doesn't work, change it; don't complain that the market itself is broken. Anything in the digital world is infinitely reproducible in flawless form, so there is no natural scarcity (ie, potentially infinite supply). Think back to economics class in high school: What happens to products with no or low natural scarcity (high supply) hits a market where demand is relatively static? I hear too many people complaining about the high time requirements for vendor maintenance and the expense of leasing large enough spaces for retail space for me to believe expecting objects in SL to remain scarce actually makes anybody money.

Now, think about what you have in Second Life that actually does have natural scarcity: Time. Your labor is the only thing with natural scarcity in Second Life. If you sell your time as a creator, rather than your creations and expecting to make money on volume, you'll 1) not have to muck around maintaining vendors, 2) Your estate is much smaller, since your land requirements are going to be a small office or sandbox, and 3) because the number of hours you can spend time creating is limited, pricing per unit becomes easier: How many L$ per hour do you believe your customers think your time is worth?

Granted, this works for builders. Realtors have it a little bit easier since their product has scarcity. The realtors in SL seem to have a bit more of a hard time figuring out that land values do not remain static, though...

Good point.
I agree.

Correct, as pointed out many times above.

Actually, it's a DMCA violation, so a DMCA report is a better response than an abuse report. All DMCA abuses are TOS violations, but there's a special mechanism to enforce them.

In any case, a better response is to discuss it and resolve it without engaging abuse/DMCA mechanisms, as was done here, and I applaud them for doing just that.

Thanks for your contribution to the 14 pages, though!

SL does that; baked textures get ripped.

Lear, was it really necessary to go into that much detail? Could you please edit your post to make it less instructional? As I said in an early response to this thread, it's not as if the methods for ripping textures are exactly secrets, but there's no need to publicize them either. Many of us made a deliberate effort to discuss this subject without hinting at how the ripping is actually done, and we asked that others do the same.

Security through obscurity isn't security at all, though.

I agree Baloo, but I'll edit my post as requested.

There is a good point raised above about baked textures.

If GLI takes a baked texture that contains the skin and overlaid tattoo, it is also going to contain the copyright information from the skin maker and possibly from the tattoo maker. BUT, how can a skin maker have a copyright on an image that contains infromation that is also someone else's copyright. And vice versa for the tattoo maker.

In actuality, the process uses an already baked image produced by the viewer. This combines the copyrighted material of both the skin maker and tattoo maker into a new image, that neither can actually claim copyright over. They inherently agree to this when they sign up to use SL. It is this baked image that I understand would be the basis for the new skins.

Now, where does the DMCA fit into this? What are the permissions of a viewer baked image? The whole area is fraught with complexity. I agree with the comments made above by many. The process MAY be a violation of either copyright or DMCA, but it still seems to me to be a fair use of things that a user has paid for.

Callum, I disagree that this is fraught with complexity.

Anyone making a skin or tattoo in SL is making them for the purpose of being used as a skin or tatto in SL. Providing the item implies permission to use the item as intended, allowing the baked image to be used within the SL viewer. Ask any intellectual properties attorney.

LL has a mechanism to protect copyright holders' rights. It's the permissions system. Ripping textures thwarts this copyright protection mechanism. Thwarting a copyright protection mechanism is explicitly forbidden by DMCA.

It's cut and dried.

I agree that the *intent* of the service fits with the *intent* of the copy permissions systems, when used under circumstances that the contractor can't verify. I don't find it morally objectionable, and wish that LL would provide a better means to this ends.

They are finally looking into the JIRA to add more "tattoo" (skin) layers.

It's very simple, Callum. The baked image is a derivative work. The skin maker and the tattoo maker each own copyright on one component of the derivative. When someone makes an unauthorized copy of the baked texture, they're infringing on the copyrights of both artists. In the absence of permission from both contributors (not just one or the other, BOTH), the image cannot be copied.

Think of it kind of like an illustrated book. The illustrator owns the images, and the author owns the text. Neither owns the other's work, and neither owns the completed book outright. But both maintain full rights to their respective components, which means, among other things, that both have the right to stop the completed book from being copied at any time if they so choose (assuming the absence of any more explicit agreements between the two, of course). Anyone who wants to make a new copy of the book needs to obtain permission from both the author and the illustrator.

Or for a closer example, remember those magazine photo collages we all had to make in kindergarten, with our safety scissors and our flour paste? It's perfectly fine to take all those photos and mash them together, since the process does not involve making a new copy of anything. However, if one were then to take the completed collage and photocopy it, that would be a in infringement on the copyrights of every magazine (and likely every individual photographer) whose images were taken to make the collage. Without the express permission of every single contributor, copying the derivative composition is not allowed.

Make sense?

There is a fundemental misunderstanding as to what constitutes copyright infringement. Under US and international copyright law the infringing act is the COPYING, thus the term, copyrights. Yes, there are certain "fair use" exceptions in making copies, such as, copying to a different configuration (ie vinyl to tape or cd to use in a different type of devise). However, the scope of these "fair use" exceptions is quite narrow. Someone can absolutely infringe on copyrights whether or not they ever sell or distribute the work containing copyrights works. The selling or distribution of a copyright work goes to damages, not infringement.

The law provides for "derivative works" where a new work contains previously created copyright works. Generally, the original copyrights owner will own the derivative work entirely, unless prior written agreement has been given to create the derivative work. So, for the tattoo/skin derivative works would be an undivided ownership between the creator of the skin and tattoo.

There is one more concept that is honored by most country, mainly in Europe but is ignored in the US, is "Droid Moral" where an artist has non-pecuniary rights into what is done with their creation, that is, adding a tattoo to a skin may be offensive to the skin creator or visa-versa. What if a tattoo artist does exceptionally first-class work, and if her tattoo was derivatively added to a skin that was of inferior quality. The tattoo artist would be understandably upset that her first-class work now is diminished and not representative of skill and creativity of the tattoo artist. This can damaging to the reputation of the tattoo artist as a first-class creator.

In the case presented in this thread were these derivatives are not be resold or distributed, the damages are not in direct pecuniary sale of a derivative work, but in the damage to the original creators' reputations as artists which may lead to the potential reduction in demand for those particular artists' work.

That's the way I would argue an infringement claim.

"What if a tattoo artist does exceptionally first-class work, and if her tattoo was derivatively added to a skin that was of inferior quality. The tattoo artist would be understandably upset that her first-class work now is diminished and not representative of skill and creativity of the tattoo artist. This can damaging to the reputation of the tattoo artist as a first-class creator."


Treat says: But she wouldnt mind u wearing her tattoo as a clothing..along with an inferior quality skin or so called generic skin

And I would argue that collapsing the skin and tattoo is certainly nothing more than a different configuration, *especially* since that is exactly what SL itself is already doing.
Also, droit moral makes *absolutely no sense* when selling items meant to enhance and personalize your avatar. Clothing, tattoos and all kinds of avatar accessories are by their very nature meant to be mixed and matched, making any claim to droit moral flat out absurd.

ETA: Just to clarify, this is not meant to reopen the original debate, only as a comment specifically on the "That's the way I would argue an infringement claim", to point out the other side of that claim.

I agree with Treat and Tali. "Droit Moral", which in the US is covered 17 U.S.C. §106A, known as the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 or "VARA", doesn't apply here because it would apply equally to the customer wearing the tattoo over a bad skin. (In the EU, Droit Moral is not limited to visual arts, whereas it is in the US, but since we're talking about visual arts here, that's a moot point.)

But, as I have to keep repeating ...

It IS an explicit violation of DMCA, because the contractor used methods to circumvent copy protection. I agree with Phat that it's not the fact of copying itself, nor is it due to sales or distribution (though these factors can influence "damages" claims that are relevant in the case that copyrights are found to be violated).

I think we've had enough armchair-lawyering here. If someone with significant experience as a coprights lawyer wants to opine, I'd be interested to hear it. The rest of us are just guys in a diner, with a bit of help from Google.

In any case, it's moot because this specific case has been resolved. For anyone considering doing this, be forewarned that many find it objectionable, and I'm confident that a DCMA claim would be upheld -- since the *means* involved using special techniques whose only purpose was circumventing copy protection mechanims. For DMCA purposes, it doesn't matter whether the original intent of the copyrights are maintained. (IMHO, for moral and ethical purposes it does, but laws are laws, morals are morals, and SL can ban you and unless you have the funds and grounds to sue them, you're S.O.L.)

I was being "Ivory Tower" on what I was saying and the use of the tattoo/skin example came from the current discussion. I know that the intent of a tattoo is to layer it on something else. My point was the creation of an entirely new image, and that artists need to respect other artists' work; how it may effect them beyond the linear thinking of, "I didn't sell it.".

In RL I am in the label end of the music industry and we have major concerns about "sampling", taking a piece of a master recording and working it into a new recording. Imagine how Disney's head would explode if The Red Hot Chili Peppers sampled Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) onto a record that needed an "Explicit Lyrics" label.

For myself, I am not a fan of Droit Moral, because it ties the hands of people/companies who have expended tremendous amounts of money on a recording to have a recording artist not be able to deliver a good mix, arrangement parts, etc. The record company should have unfettered leeway in remixing rearranging and sweetening a recording to make it commercially viable. If I took delivery of a bad record in France and the recording artist thinks it is just fine, I'd have to throw the recordings in the trash can and write-off $150k in production costs. In the US, the company can fix it.

You wrote a short novel basically bashing the rights of the consumer, elitist.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Without consumers you're a failure as a business.

Better start giving some rights to them and give them some room to err, especially when it comes to baking together skins and tats, otherwise they might just stop wearing ink at all.

So Im assuming then this guy wouldnt mind if I opened a shop right next door to his offering to sell a Noteacard describing the process so people can do it themselves for 0L? Maybe a wiki page can be created too?

Or maybe I can stick the notecard in the freebie pack I give away to as many people as possible.

Wow, this thread is still going on?


That would be no one except the law makers in the United States Congress, and in like-minded government bodies all around the world. If you don't count them and their constituents, then sure, go ahead and say no one agrees.

In any case, your "quote" here is a cop-out at best, or a reactionary, ill-thought-out tantrum at worst. If you'd care to debate the merit or validity of specific points, go a head and cite them. That's what discussion is for, and I would enthusiastically welcome the debate. But lumping the whole thing together as you did, and calling it stuff "no one listens to or agrees with" just makes you look silly and uneducated on the subject.

I only wish I'd noticed your post sooner, so there'd be a better chance we could have transformed it into an intelligent discussion. But at this point, it's a weeks after the fact, and your post count is still at 1, so I'm guessing you've left the forums. If you're still reading, I invite you to respond to respond with facts (if you can), not just emotional outbursts and name-calling.



No, I didn't bash anyone's rights. I simply explained what the law says. You're welcome to look it up yourself if you don't believe me. And if you don't understand what you're reading, you're welcome to consult an attorney.



No, I shouldn't. I hate to play the "rubber vs. glue" game, but if anyone should be "ashamed", it's you for not bothering to educate yourself before you posted. Again, I invite you to read the law for yourself.



Sure, but that doesn't have anything to do with anything I wrote. It also doesn't mean every consumer should be able to do every last thing they please, as you seem to be implying. I could turn your statement right around to say that without providers, consumers would have nothing to consume. The interests of both parties depend on mutual respect. Laws exist to define how each party should conduct itself, and in this case, copyright law clearly serves to prevent the practices discussed in the beginning of this thread.

None of that, however, means that there shouldn't be better systems in place to allow consumers more freedom to meet their desires without violating the rights of the content providers. There absolutely should. One such solution, the advent of a more flexible layering system for avatar texturing, has been suggested and discussed at length on this forum and elsewhere. Were that to exist, debates like this would become entirely moot. Consumers would have the flexibility they need without violating the law, and content creators wouldn't have to worry as much about unauthorized copying. Everyone would win.

But in the here and now, the only system we have is the one we've got, flawed as it is. And no one has the right to break the law just because they don't like how a computer program is set up.


Again, I could turn that right around to say "Better start respecting content creators' copyrights, especially when it comes to not making unauthorized copies of skins and tats, or they might just stop providing ink at all".

Obviously, either statement is fairly ridiculous, and pretty unlikely. Extremist viewpoints always are. The failing is that both statements fail to acknowledge the interests of all stakeholders. It's the old "I'm taking my toys and going home" argument, which carries even less weight in the adult world than it does on the playground.