Question re: 'acquiring' textures from the internet...

My question concerns exactly what is an acceptable source for acquiring textures.

Joe wants to create a brick wall texture using a crop of 2 to 8 bricks, which of the following is an acceptable source?

a) take a photograph of his own house wall

b) take a photograph of a random brick wall, not his own

c) take a photo of his neighbours wall

d) use a photograph of a random brick wall from a web site

e) use a photograph from a builders site that illustrates their bricks

The reason I am asking this question is that I have seen in various texture selections for sale in SL, textures that are lifted straight from a basic google search. I have seen whole selections of doors lifted directly from door catalogues! Is this theft?

I can buy works of art that are obviously lifted directly from www.easyart.com or similar! I could have several great masters works on my walls for a few L$

Just interested in where people consider the line should be drawn...

Cat x

A, B and C are all good since its your original artwork.

D and E are only ok if the websites states that you can use the artwork on the site or you have the creators permission, perhaps by paying a royalty.

Anything else is likely copyright infringement.

Many older works (early 1900's and older) do not fall under copyright protection, this is a subject Carl Metropolitan is well versed in and reading some of his treads on this issue would be more informative and correct than what I can tell you.

It is also not for us to consider where the line should be drawn. It has been drawn by copyright law in the real world, which applies in SL. Many people just ignore it.

Great question. Dnel answered it quite well.

I would completely agree that A, B, and C are perfectly acceptable, as would be creating your own brick wall image from scratch in Photoshop, which is pretty easy to do, and is what I would recommend (only because I'm an artist, not a photographer, myself). D and E, while unfortunately common, are illegal and unethical without the express permission of the owner.

One thing you CAN do in regard to D and E is to use such photos as reference material for creating your own work. Take a look at the bricks in an image you like, and then paint your own similar-looking texture. There's certainly nothing wrong with that. It's your own work, so the copyright is yours, and it's also a fantastic way to learn techniques for realism as you go.

Of course you do need to be careful. The closer your painting is to the original photo, the closer it gets to becoming a "copy". It is possible in Photoshop to create a painting that looks EXACTLY like the original photograph. That's not what you want to do. Make sure to use the original only as a reference, not as a source, and make sure that yours has your own flair, your own style. Make sure yours is an original in its own right, not something that could be construed as a derivative work.

A through C are OK, as you do own the copyright on photos that you create.

D depends on the website and the re-use permissions. In general, you can't use it as-is. However there are several possibilities...

D.1 If there is no indication of re-use permissions at all, one must assume that copyright applies, and using the texture as-is for resale would be a violation of that copyright.

D.2 Photo-sampling a small portion of that wall and doing your own manipulation in Photoshop to create a seamless, tilable texture from something that was neither seamless nor tilable could be considered a valid re-use. Making a derrivitive work is the big grey area. My rule of thumb is that if the original picture and the derrivitive work are different in several ways, and required some effort to make into the new texture, you're probably OK.

D.3 If the site says anything at all about re-use permissions, that is the driving consideration. Most sources that allow free re-use, specify it is allowed only to create derrivitive works, but don't allow resale as raw textures. So it would be OK to use such textures yourself to build an object or a skin or a more complex texture for sale iin SL. But just copying the texture and reselling it would be forbidden.

D.4 Some websites say that it's open for re-use in any fashhion. SO that would be OK to re-use as-is. But bear in mind that ANYONE ELSE can also download and r-use that same texture, so I would not, myself, resell them, as their presence in a body of work dillutes your claim that your own work is original and copyrighted. One could not claim exclusve rights to anything ontained from an Internet source like these and used as-is, as the rights still remain with the creator.

D.5 Some websites allow you to license the textures for re-use, either as-is, or to make deriffitive works. A good example of this are the "Merchant Resource Kits" that are for sale for use in making skins for Poser-type figures. It still takes a LOT of work to slap those photosourced elements together and make a usable skin for use in Poser or in SL, so if you pay for that license, and if the license says derrivitive texture resales are OK, then you're good. I know LillyBeth licensed a bunch of material like that to get TRU started, though these days most of our work is hand-created, by artists like myself.

E. Almost certainly the photo itself is copyrighted, and couldn't be used as-is. But see answer D.2, above. Making a derrivitive work that is noticably different than the original texture is another matter. A case like you cite, where someone just cropped pictures of a manufacturer's door catalog, would, in most cases, be a violation of the manufacturers copyright. While it is possible that an SL texture artist might make an arrangement with someone like Pella Wnidows to use images of their windows for SL textures, it is unlikely that the small images used for websites would be the approved source for those licensed images.

Some applications and resource bundles are sold under terms of service that allow re-use for derrivitive work. For example, I use DAZ|Studio (similar to Poser) and a content bundle caller "Room Creator" to make 3D rendered wall textures, with windows in them. The license for both allows me to sell images rendered with those purchased products. But I could not resell the raw resource textures that the Room Creator uses to make the walls. I have to render it through my application, making my own choices for lighting and other aspects of presentation. Just like a photographer taking their pown pictures.

Unfortunately, a lot of texture shops in SL get started without a clear understanding of copyright laws or without any consideration for the IP rights of the source material's creators. Some intentionally steal textures and resell them in flagrant violation of copyright or terms of use agreements.

Even TRU, where I sell textures, probably still has some textures for sale that were initially uploaded in good faith, without realizing that a copyright was being violated in regards to the source. We are agressively weeding out any clear violations, as we identify them. But most of what we have was created in-house by our staff artists, or was from sources which we either licensed the content from or which we have other reasons to believe we are legally clear to use.

It's pretty easy to recognize a freebie texture ripped from some game system and dumped em-masse to a website. Most of those are pretty lousy examples of textures, compared to much of what is available for use in SL.

Relating to this thread:

A friend of mine works for a company in India that helps disadvantaged people to handloom their own fabrics. She has bought and owns several of the actual fabrics herself, in addition to a bunch of sari silks, etc from India.

I would like to use digital photos of her fabrics in my SL clothes. She's agreed to sell me the photos. Should I pay her:

a) a set amount for each image, say, L$1000 or L$5000 as a one time fee?

b) a percentage of each sale that uses that image, say 5% or 10%?

Obviously, she's done the work in taking the photo one time, which might take her half an hour to get the lighting right, etc. And I obviously do the work to USE the photo, which will probably take me many more hours to tweak it into an outfit. I want to be fair to both of us.

Help!

O

O,

Thanks for bringing this topic up on the forum.

In this sort of bargain - where the texturing links up to popularizing the RL handloom fabric - I think what needs to be part of the bargain is also a stipulation that anyone who buys the fabric - either exclusively or otherwise - should always display the origin story of the texture....


I will have more as I think this through.

r

I must admit I am not sure about D - if I use a random picture of a brick wall from the web I am going to sample a small area of it, presuming it is not 'dead square' I am then going to 'straighten' it in Photoshop and modify the edges to make them match - I will be left with a realistic texture but the process of stretching and distorting will make it a diffrent image will it not?

One of my favourite artists is Roy Lichenstein and pride of place in my bedroom is 'Girl with Hair Ribbon' 1965 - the image in question was 'copied' by the artist, almost exactly, from a frame in an American comic (DC Romance one I believe). Opinions of the intrinsic value of this 'priceless' work of art aside, how do people feel about this? I don't know if the original comic book artist recieved any payment from Roy Lichenstein but I would guess not... Is this similar to an SL resident using an image of a door from a catalogue and using it in an intrinsically different way?

Another artist I love is Banksy (UK street artist - not graffiti in the usual sense www.banksy.co.uk ) - his artwork is by it's very nature illegal, if I use one of his images on an SL building is that wrong?

Cat x

PS - should I/we/someone whistle-blow about all the images for sale at texture stores, particulary the doors I mentioned, that are a direct lift from online door catalogues?

PPS - I must add that my suggestion above is purely theoretical - for the sake of discussion...

Cat, I brought up a similar question a while ago and got some good/sometimes conflicting information. You might want to check it out.

Previous Thread

In the meantime I'm opting for doing all original work, using the library or just referring to multiple photos to cobble together my own version of things. I'm assuming the color and shape of arthropods isn't copyrighted.