If you buy textures "in world" can you then use them?

Very probably a seemingly daft (on the face of it, obvious) question, but one I feel would be good to have answered.

Say myself (or anyone else) is wondering around SL, browsing shops, and comes across either:

A; A specialist texture shop.
B: A general shop that sells a box of textures.
C: A freebee place with "WOW Free textures in a crate"

You genuinly "Buy" these textures with your own hard earned RL money (or you take them from the freebee store)

You (possibly) unpack them when you get home, and start to build a few items, happily using the large selection of textures you have bought (or got for free)

Then you decide you might "try" to get a few L$ for some of your creations onto which you have used your bought textures.

Have you done anything wrong?

If so........ Why?

Sure thing! if you buy textures with full rights (copy, mod, transfer) you can start building your creations and sell them everywhere. If you buy regular textures from a regular seller who uploaded them, sorted them and sold them, you dont have the rights to resell the textures itself. But again. You can create a house or whatever using those textures and you can then sell this house without any troubles.

However, there are some professional textures designer on the internet such as professional 3D Game developer that protect their work with special rights and it is not allowed to use them for YOUR business. Those who upload any of this textures (black) go a criminal way.

To be on the save way I would "buy" high quality textures from any good seller here in SL who makes business with this. Search the SLX for those kind of business people and you will find a bunch that offers good quality.

Thanks for the reply..........

I know it seemed an "Obvious" question really.
Of course, most of use would like lot's of great quality textures to choose from with the minimum cost to ourselves/

Sure, if you are a professional builder with a whole string of houses that would build and make sales on almost daily, then perhaps paying a LOT for 1 particular texture to finish off your latest build may make sence.

But (I guess) for the "general hobbyiest" builders, who just practice and make a few items (noting special) from time to time and may be lucky to ever sell 1 thing, it's a bit different.
Someone like this would most probably just want a cheap general catalogue of textures to try on their project to just see how it looks.

For them, (and there must be 1000's) something like a "MEGA TEXTURE BUNDLE for L$499" would seem an ideal start.

Yes, they bought this MEGA BUNDLE quite legitamatly from a store, and have a nice lot of (on the face of it) cheap textures to experiment with.

But they have no idea where these textures originated from.
they just bought the "MEGA value bundle" and are happy they have a nice selection of general texutures to work with.

How this is supposed to be controlled I don't know.

And I guess the fear is that perhaps 1 or 2 years down the line someone might say, you are using their texture on say a piece of wall on your build, which you bought in the Mega Value Bundle a few years earlier.

Well, what would happen in RL if somebody stole your watch, sold it to a pawn shop, and then some customer bought it legitimately?

Well, I know what happens (I think) in the UK.

If you (customer) buy something quite honestly, and then the authorities find out it's stolen then they take the item away from you, so not only don't you have the item, but you don't get your money back either.

Personally I've never agreed with this concept and think if you can prove you legitamatly bought it (not under the counter) then you should be able to keep the goods and the person who sold it to you shoulbe the one that has to compensate the original owner.

But just my opinion.

In this SL texture context. If you buy a box of textures from someone, and it contains (unbeknown to you as you are not a mind reader) something it should not, then that should not be your problem as you purchased it honestly.

Ther person who sold the box of textures should be the one to have to compensate the original owner.

Yup. That's the way it works in the U.S. also. I'm not sure I like the idea of losing not only the item but the money I paid for it in good faith, but that's the way the "buck stops here" law is written. Ultimately, the idea is to protect the REAL owner of the item, who shouldn't lose out because of anything that the crook OR you did.

So, by extension, the answer to your question is that you're safe unless the person who made the purloined texture recognizes it in one of your builds and can prove that it was at one time stolen from her. That seems rather unlikely, since it is virtually impossible to trace the chain of purchases from you back to the creator.

All of this is rather moot, however. You are always free to use a copy/mod/transfer texture as part of a build. You only get into trouble if you sell a texture to someone else AS A TEXTURE. So, don't worry about the theoretical possibility that you have applied a stolen texture on your building. Not only is it impossible to trace as "stolen goods," you are not selling it as a texture.

Just don't put it in your own MEGAbundle for sale, whether you came by it legitimately or not.

(My opinion follows, others may well disagree.)

The assumption with freebie textures from reliable places (eg NCI, Free Dove, a few others) would be that the texture is free to use for personal things, free to use for sale objects, and free to give away (as a texture) but not to sell.

The assumption with purchased textures would be that the texture is free to use for personal things, free to use for sale objects unless stated otherwise, and NOT free to give away (or sell) as a texture.

The best thing to do, of course, is to check with the seller, and/or look for licencing notecards or signs.

I store my purchased textures in different organisers from my freebie textures. It's slightly more annoying to search through, but makes it much less likely that I'll accidentally give away a texture I had no right to give away.

(If it looks like you read this twice, that's okay - you did. The same question was asked in a different thread.)

Wrong, just because it is copy/mod/transfer does not mean you can use it in your own build.

If you bought a stolen wheel and put it on your own car, it is still stolen and can be taken away. Same with textures, the build may be yours but the texture is not, i suspect the build would not look as good as a set of plywood cubes, just as the car won't run as well on three wheels.

All images are protected under certain forms of international copyright laws, including textures.
Due to the way that SL is set up to handle textures it is necessary that they be full perms in order for them to be usable on prims that a person wants to sell as part of their creation.
So a full perms texture does not grant anyone any rights other than the first buyer of that texture
from the original creator or authorized reseller.

Copyright law states that any use of someone else's work must be with permission from the creator.
It is all about permissions from the creator. Legitimate texture sellers in SL are giving the buyer the right to use their images on prims only.
The right to distribute that texture beyond using them on prims is not conveyed in any way whatsoever. The Only right to Distribute belongs to the Creator and the Creator only unless
they specifically authorize someone else to distribute them.

This means that outside of using them on prims, every time someone gives you or you give a texture away, it is by definition a violation of copyright law. So a texture does not need to be Sold for a violation to take place.
You are absolutely correct to be concerned about this issue as a content creator.
While there are actual free textures out there donated by their original creators, most have been reboxed or included in these so called Mega Mix boxes which are totally and completely
illegal. Many of these textures have been bouncing around SL for quite awhile so while a new creator might find one that they like that is not totally low quality. Chances are that texture will be recognized if not by Creator then by others who recognize it as one of the textures included in one of those mega mix packs. A key indicator of such packs is that it will have a number of textures whose creators are listed as all kinds of different people usually none of which is the same as the Seller of that Mega Mix box.
Most people that engage in this form of lawbreaking are lazy so they do not take the time to
download and reupload all those textures so they show their own name. Which is not legal either but just a more devious way of going about it.

Every full perms store that I have come across are selling other people's things without permission from the owner. Stay away from these kinds of stores. Also the so called "Business in a Box" are 98% Scams. They are called this as they usually offer a number of Full Perms
items that are almost always a collection of items that were ripped or extracted by illegal means
to obtain full perms status. These are where those Full Perms stores come from.
Many people running such stores often do not even know they are breaking the law.

There are many examples of texture disputes on these issues right here in these forums past posts and archives. Search "texture rights, perms, disputes,..etc".

While it is possible to "get away" with these illegal activities for some amount of time. For the legitimate content creator just starting out, anyone that buys these illegal textures or items becomes the victim of that illegal seller. As even if they were bought in all innocence and with an honest intent, it doesnt change the fact that possesion is 9/10's of the law. If you are the
one caught in possession of the stolen goods then You are a person who gets cast under a cloud of suspicion along with anyone else that was involved in the transaction.

While many of these kinds of infractions do go unprosecuted as most people do not try to
use these things to build a huge thriving business, (those that do get anywhere doing this usually get found out and accused and often have their reputations tarnished beyone repair)
it is a good idea to consider what could happen if an Original Creator did take the time to
prosecute, or sue for damages etc.

An original content creator could if they saw fit file a suit against not only the original violator but every person in possession of the illegally obtained materials. Not only that but violators could be held responsible for every single instance of use without permission. That means that
fines could be imposed on every single violation in addition to damages to the original creators
potential loss of income due to the violations. Which as you can see from the way things happen in SL such a suit penalities could easily run into the thousands of dollars.

Even if such a suit were not persued, what has often happened is the creator goes after the
violator in attempts to publically embarass or destroy the reputations of all those involved.
While such attempts usually achieve mixed results it is definately Not a pleasant experience for anyone involved.

A creator does not even have to inform you of your rights in a lic. agreement or a TOS.
The lack of inclusion of such a document in no way causes existing laws Not to apply.
The laws stay the same regardless of whether such an agreement is included with your purchase. Most content creators include something of this sort to educate and encourage users to comply with existing laws. And to bolster their cases in the event of legal action.

In addition people using materials obtained illegally run the risk of having all their hard work shut
down at a moments notice as a result of the DMCA process.

http://secondlife.com/corporate/dmca.php

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html
See the section on the bottom of this page link it is particularly applicable.

Quote-
"Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each work infringed and, if willful infringement is proven by the copyright owner, that amount may be increased up to $150,000 for each work infringed. In addition, an infringer of a work may also be liable for the attorney's fees incurred by the copyright owner to enforce his or her rights. "

This link is a page written with the intent for easy reading of copyright laws
http://www.whatiscopyright.org/

More info

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/intelprp/

Keep in mind that even if the violator resides in a country that does not honor the Berne Convention or the UCC, SL is governed by US law as it resides in the US thus violators
can be tossed from SL. See the DMCA policy link above.

So even if you only scanned a portion of these links you can see that what these people are doing is taken very very seriously in the eyes of the law.

So the next time someone tries to give you a texture that is not their own or sell you items of
a uncertain origin it is a good idea to reflect on this info.

I know at first as a creator it seems very hard to come up with ideas or materials that help a creator along the path to successful creations. But if you apply just a little bit of honest effort and research you will find that there are Many Many resources and inspiration that Are legally accessible. So much so that you will find yourself with too many options to persue.

That is the situation I currently find myself in, too many creative options.

For those interested in becoming creators or looking for resources this is a good recent thread here in the forums. Make sure to check the sites themselves for what kinds of use you may use also.
/109/ef/286583/1.html
This is of course just one of many.

Remember SL is not "Just a Game", All transactions on the main grid are Real!

After it all boils down the best reason to do things legally is the feeling of accomplishment you get from creating something that is all Your own.

This post is intended to helpfully inform especially newer users of their rights and responsibilities here in this virtual world we share.

So how does someone jump to an assumption that a texture in a build is stolen, the texture could be purchased, how do you prove it was stolen?

Not exactly sure in which perspective you mean on this one, if you mean how a person should evaluate whether the texture they are buying is legal or not, there are ways to go about it.
One is to ask the seller straight up if they created the textures. If the textures in the box have names indicating a number of different creators that is an obvious clue.

I think the issue is about people trying to make sure they are buying legitimate textures.
If you buy from a well known texture creator it is a very straight forward thing. The buyer
will have their name on the transaction record of the seller whose name is listed on the texture as the creator. In the case of authorized resellers the artists participating are usually mentioned
somewhere and if not they can be contacted and asked if that is a legit arrangement.

Sorry, but this is a bit of a ridiculous situation.

You download a "Game" (and I know we don't use that word, but I'm sure in a court of law that's what it would be referred to)

This is created by LL (who don't appear to police anything)

You create your Avatar, load up read money, go to a store "in game" purchase an item, but you better not use it, as it may have been taken from someone else without permission.

So basically, before you buy ANYTHING at al in SL from any retailer, youi must 1st contact them directly and ask if what you are buying is stolen or not.

You can't just assume as the "in world" building and layout looks flash and professional that thay are legitimate, or, come to that, you have no way of knowing if their answer to you "yes, they are original and not stolen" is to be believed or not.

I appreciate the thoughts behind make sure it's legit before you buy, but in the world of SL this is not often a realistic option.

People TP to a store, see things they like and buy them, that's that.

I cna't think of anyone who in all honesty would always IM or sent the seller of every item a notecard asking if they are the true owners and the items are not taken from elsewhere.

My opinion is still, it's not the buyers that are responsible here. It's LL who should police this if anyone. Or course I guess this is unworkable. Opening up every container in every free-bee / low cost place to check it's contents, and then then trying to trace the original author of every item in the box.

I guess, I feel it comes down to how you use the items you buy (be they legit, or unknown to you of suspect origin) If you just wear a freebee pair of shoes, or make a bird table with a wood texture, perhaps even sell 10 of them and make US$ 10 in total. then that's one thing and does not mater.

If however you have a whole estate of houses using these "freebee" textures, making (potentially) a few US$100 a month or more from sales (not sure if that's a realistic amount) then that's a different issue.

Or course, only my opinion

ok I was looking at this from a different perspective, for a long time I used textures from freebie boxes and I still do, however I do make a lot of my own now.

I have always assumed that usage of textures from freebie boxes isn't breaking any laws, even selling textures from a freebie box doesn't break any laws, it's cheap & scummy and should be discouraged yes.

Now I have around 20,000 freebie textures, one box from a reputable person/place had 10,000 in it, how the hell am I suppose to know if they are stolen or not?

I had land once, and I did put out around twenty boxes of 'freebie' textures for people to take, I had spent a week collating the textures into sets, ie metals, woods etc, so the boxes were set out for sale 50% @ L$0 and the other 50% @ L$1, I never felt bad about that, because those little L$1 sales stopped me from having to use camp places and encouraged me to stay in SL.

One box I did get a IM about saying the textures were stolen and these textures had come from the 'reputable person/place' mentioned above, so I did take it off the land and I did send a IM and a notecard to the creator explaining which textures I had and where they had come from, they didn't reply, so 3 weeks later I put them out again.

In my freebie boxes I have on average 100 textures so I have never sold a texture on for more than L$0.01. Mostly all I have ever done is use them in builds, 99.9% of which have never been offered for sale, I have only ever had 17 products up for sale in nearly 2 years and most use the bog standard Linden textures or more recently my own textures.

I am however aware that some of the texture companies in SL that made big profits from textures have in the (recent) past and I am sure still do, use textures ripped from google and free texture sites who state that textures should NOT be resold. It's ironic that it is these same texture companies that make the biggest noise about texture theft, even though they are on the whole responsible for uploading them and selling them illegally in SL in the very first place.

Ok I know this doesn't apply to all texture companies, but I bet all texture companies have one or two textures in their stock they feel a little guilty about.

So who is guilty?

Sorry this goes off in tangents too much, I just don't have time to go into detail with each point, but I am sure you see what I'm trying to say.

Edit: Yeah what Piggie Paule says too.

Perhaps LL needs to take the responsibility here?

After all, if I opened a real life shopping mall, took money from retailers who opened up stores & started selling good in my mall, opened it up to the public.

Then IMHO, the ownus should not fall upon the general public to have to check everything they purchased "in-store" was 100% legit. It should be me, as the Lardlord (if you like) to make sure everything was correct, and deal with anyone I found was not acting legally.



"Is the the right room for an argument?"
"I've told you one"
"no you didn't"
"yes you did"
"I'm sorry is this a 5 minute argument, or did you pay for the full half hour?"

Hi Dekka, Piggie,

Your right it is a frustrating situation not only for texture sellers who sell their own all original creations as well as people who want to sell other people's textures. We all have preconceptions
as to the way things should be. And these viewpoints shift depending on which side of the fence we happen to be standing on at any given point of time.

Piggie I understood your opening post to mean that you wanted to know how to go about making sure that You are behaving in a legal manner concerning textures. For that purpose you have Full Control over your own behavior. The laws are very clear, read my rather long post above and check out some of the links there, all the information is right there.

Dekka if you buy a box with 10,000 textures in it, it is Extremely unlikely that these are being legally sold. If you are assuming that these 10,000 textures are all from the original creator it would be much more likely that there would be a Great deal more effort put into the marketing
and label art of such a thing, rather than "Wow Mass textures for Cheap". And if all these textures have different creators names on them it is almost always a dead givaway that these textures are NOT Legit.

The law states that you may not Give, Sell, Share, or use derivatives of a copyrightable work
without Explicit Permission from the Creator.

Yes there are free textures out there that were given by generous texture creators. Unfortunately if that creator did put a notecard stating that written permission, most often
less scrupulous people will rebox them without it in order to sell or take credit for giving them away themselves.

It is all about distribution rights and permissions from the actual creator if your honest about
wanting to do things legally. It is not that hard to buy from a reputable texture dealer.
Most texture houses that try to sell illegal textures dont last unless they are some little place that stays under the radar and keeps moving around.

Textures and animations are very different from prim based sales items. In most cases you can go by the permissions on that prim based item. Textures and animations due to the way that
SL is set up with its permissions systems Have to be Full Perms for them to be fully functional for creators. The people that sell these items are taking more risk than anyone else.
And all they ask is that the buyers abide by copyright laws.

SL is not a separate island or context separate from rl laws. The same laws apply to copyright images in SL as they do "out there".

If you want to be legal you should never sell or give away a texture that You did not make.
I know that sounds a bit harsh, inconvenient or unfriendly, but That is the Law.

Quite often posts on the forums here make it sound like it is ok to give or sell them, but Legally
it just is Not the case.
Again the laws are easily accessible it is not hard to know what is what.
After knowing what the laws are the choice is up to you.
All you need to do is ask around for reputable texture dealers.

If you really want to give away or sell other peoples textures and you want to be legal about it
then it is in your best interest to possess written permission from the legal creators of those materials whether they are textures, artworks, anims, scripts, or anything else of a creative work or art nature. And even if you do aquire that permission it can be revoked at anytime
by the creator themselves unless you outright buy those rights. In which case you would again
need written documentation of that sales agreement.

As far as policing these issues outside of a new permissions system, things are probably best the way they are now. I have read about other virtual worlds that required that each and every texture upload had to go through an extensive vetting process that delayed those uploads by days? maybe a week. That would slow production to a crawl. There probably is a happy medium in there somewhere but it is a tough nut to crack. For now it is the creators responsibility to go after offenders. Although I have heard that LL is getting a bit tougher on serious violators.

As to whose responsibility it is to check on the legitimacy of products for sale, the onus is on both the seller and the buyer. The seller can either choose to do things legally or not. The ones that choose to conduct business illegally usually do not last. And for the amount of time that they do they are usually pretty flaky places that often sell all manner of full perms goods.
The ones that have been around for quite awhile are usually pretty reputable dealers.

One thing that is very similar in SL to RL is that Certainty is a very elusive commodity. The best most ideal arrangement is for both the sellers and the buyers to behave in a legal manner.
Quite often just as in RL you have to use your best judgement. The signs once you educate yourself are usually very clear. "Mass textues for Cheap" hardly ever happens in a legitimate way. And if and when it is offered that way from legitimate creators that is BIG NEWS!
Instead of trying to think that you need to check the ownership of each and every item for legitimacy just sample one or two, if anything looks flaky just get the heck out of there.
It is not that hard to identify "those kinds of places". As far as choosing to do things legally yourself, it really isnt that hard.

Some people confuse the issue by saying that the laws do not apply in all the different countries. For the most part that is false. As most textures sold in SL are not intended to be taken and and used outside of SL. And even tho most of the countries in the world ascribe to the UCC or the Berne Convention on copyrights, it is true that some do not. As far as SL is concerned the ones that do not, do not matter as SL itself is in the US and therefore defaults
to US law for activities within SL. Once the textures are taken outside of SL then those
countries individual laws apply.

I am not trying to come across as a know it all or some kind of jerk in this post. I do intend to try to do my part to inform new users of SL of laws they may not know about. A general complacency or knowledge can lead people to misinform others and it falls upon the legitimate
content creators to help to inform new people about the laws. As most of us did'nt know everything about it ourselves when we first started out. I have learned a massive amount on these subjects since I joined SL. So dont feel bad if you didnt know.

Infiniview, I fail to see how you can justify the idea that people who believe that they are buying legitimate textures not for resale but to use on their own creations then either get caught up in a bad situation or more often never realize that they are using stolen textures and are never caught up in it are at fault. If LL can't/won't give the consumers the tools they need to deal with this then it seems illogical to hold them responsible. I agree with the person above incidentally that stated that it is asking too much for consumers to communicate via notecards back and forth each time they want to buy something before they buy it, especially since in terms of "responsibility" even having a traceable line of communication means nothing if the shit hits the fan. A "trusted" texture retailer isn't enough anymore either because look at TRU (Textures R' Us) they were one of the most trusted texture retailers before a scandal (or was it series of scandals?) got them into a huge amount of PR hot water and decimated pretty much all trust in them.

Hello Gordon,

I am not trying to place fault or blame on anyone in particular whatsoever. I am simply motivated to speak up when I see posts that appear to nullify or equivocate actual laws of copyright to something less than they really are. The OP sounded like she wanted to know how to go about obtaining and handling textures in a legal manner. And I know for a fact that many new and existing members of SL come to the forums for honest, straightforward, factual answers to their questions. The copyright laws are what they are, mostly they are straightforward and factual.
I did'nt make them but I do my best to abide by them. And I beleive that Most people want to do the same. All anyone can be expected to do in SL or in RL is to make their best effort.

I was probably a bit too wordy in my above posts, the points I am attempting to make are to
help clarify the actual laws.

Explain why textures need to have full perms in order to be functional in SL even though texture sellers do not want people to resell them or give them away. And as images are not created in SL but are uploaded to SL they are governed by copyright laws as opposed to the SL permission system.

And to try to describe the obvious examples of theft that occur in SL , Business in a box,
mass textures for cheap with all sorts of artists creators names on them. Full Perms Stores
etc.

Generally if honest people accidently buy illegal textures and use them on their creations most likely nothing is going to happen. Unless their creations become some huge sellers using textures that belong to another inworld texture creator who never got paid for them.

The people that textures sellers and content creators want to place blame on is the ones who are selling or obtaining them illegally in the first place.

I am all for better tools for dealing with textures inworld. But the fact that we dont have them
does not change copyright law does it? I am not sure what tools that LL could provide that would help us out outside of a new permissions system that addresses textures specifically.
Please make suggestions if you have some good ideas.

By the way what is your policy regarding textures?

I actually said freebie textures, not bought textures, I am pretty sure that most textures I have are copyright free, and I have seen most of them offered as freebies by reputable persons in many places and I do see the textures used all over SL.

I have seen textures for sale by 'reputable' big texture sellers who make massive amounts of money from texture sales that I see are free textures ripped from free texture sites and googled searches.

I do agree with everything you say about ripped/stolen textures and something should be done about it.

I do find it really bloody annoying though that it seems that the large companies making the big money selling free or stolen textures are the ones making the big noise about a few vendors making a little money using the same practice, I am sure that some of these large textures companies feel that because they uploaded them no one else is suppose to.

Also, this message only goes out to those who read the forums, so how are you going to inform the other 98% of Linden residents that they should only buy textures (and/or make their own) and not use freebies?

Who's going to check every prim for stolen usage, who cross checks if the prim texture is actually stolen or bought.

The only solution is when LL gives use a viable copyright system, and until then the situation just continues to get worse on a daily basis.

I've thought about the textures I have uploaded, I doubt I will ever sell them on, or at most I may put them in a freebie box, but if I saw one of my textures ripped off in the meantime I seriously believe I would be annoyed but think it amusing at the same time, I may even IM the culprit about it but I wouldn't take it any further than that.

Damn now I know why Infiniview's posts are so long, it's a real immersive subject with many tangents.