How to React to Texture Theft

Probably because both the entry in your blog and the one in Linden Lifestyles, that explain the reasoning behind it... are something like 1-2 weeks old, only ^^

and just for the record because doubt i'll have better opportunity of saying that... i didn't get to see the 'old' ETD hair, but current ones are one of few things in SL that make me wish i had some L$ to buy stuff. And these textures on it are large part of that.

Point taken lol...ya I've felt lately I've had to explain myself more about the change...I guess it was like a delayed reaction.

and thank you very much

So, the ETD texture theft, and the new ETD textures, are completely unrelated?

They are in a way...I was already planning on doing them...but like in 6 months or something like that. I wanted to take my time making them....cause I'm still a novice when it comes to PS. I also wanted to give more warning to my customers....But after my incident I decided to just go ahead and rush and get them done.

But the purpose wasn't to try and keep it from happening again...it was just something I felt I had to do for me. Cause I was really upset with the whole ordeal.

Actually, at the time I began redoing them, I was still under the naiive impression that something would be done about it...that someone would investigate my situation and remove the "stolen content" in question....if I proved I used it first.....but that didn't/won't happen. I thought my new ones would be protected. And I began the retexturing process for the principle of it all....to try and be original....(naiive again). But, after reality hit, I still went ahead with the retexturing cause I was already 50% into it....and I liked the new ones much better. So I really just said "screw it" to myself and released em, because I loved them and wanted this new updated look.

For the record, did you file a DMCA violation notice? Knowing that will help the rest of us plan, because if noting happens after a DMCA form is put in it's a pretty big problem, as that is the only recourse texture creators have at the moment in SL.

SL and Creative Commons actually is working together to stop this kind of fraud, create ndas and other methods of protections.

Check out the group Free Culture for more info...this has Larry Lessig (of Creative Commons fame) who is in SL and some members of his staff (also in-game) who are actually being proactive about incorporating protections that range from protecting against beta testers to stronger more iron-clad method for protecting a creation and a recourse against such theft that strengthens Sec. 5.1 of TOS in SL and even SLExchange.

Group is free to join. I hope anyone interested please do so.

Cheers. -Wain

This makes no sense. Most modern 3D engines have tools that pre-compute lighting from the same datasets they'll be using to render the graphics at runtime. Second Life has no such tools yet, and it should do. Exporting or recreating scenes in a pro modelling/raytracing package is nonsense, pre-computed shadowing can and should be done transparently in the background server side. It's not because, well, LL have a lot on their plate and right now getting the framerate high just with the features they've got is enough work.



No, it's because of people who like to rip every CD they buy and put them on Kazaa.

Or what, did you think the music industry is jumping for joy at the prospect of spending lots of money on awkward and flakey "protection" schemes? I think they were happier in the days when economics and the nature of technology stopped people (ie, the best you could do was make a tape for a friend).

At any rate, this is beside the point:

1. Second life is nothing without resident-created content.
   
2. Most residents do it on their own, for fun and maybe profit.
   
3. For some people, widespread violations of the permissions system take away the fun.
   
4. Without these people creating content, Second Life would be a less interesting place
   

This is not comparable to knockoff Prado handbags or whatever where the companies involved probably have the resources to take legal action (or just ignore it). There's a huge difference between 5 hours in Photoshop creating something and 5 minutes with a dumper, and it's that time/effort difference that is what people seem to dislike.

By all means, there needs to be a way to encourage content creation that doesn't rely on people controlling the replication of their work - a web like model where people create custom content on demand for instance. But until that model exists, I still think dumpers/debuggers can and should be blocked.

Wow Elika... I am a big fan of yours, but after reading this post and others that you have made in the forums in the past, it makes me wonder why...
Also if you make them for YOU, why are they for sale?
I am a bit speechless atm...

No, "most" doesn't. Pre-calculations of ambient lighting is something done by very small subset of existing engines, mostly due to work involved in coding it.

And since making baseless claims isn't going to take us anywhere one way or the other... 3d Engines Database. If you check for engines which support radiosity calculations, you'll find only ~10% of them, 25 out of nearly 250 listed, actually does it.


All points are correct on their own, but arranging them into line of reasoning breaks between steps 3 and 4. Because fact _some_ people are discouraged by seeing their work stolen to the point they'd stop creating content is by no means equal to "there will be no people creating content for SL, period" ... as some people don't care about their work being distributed by others, some treat it as extra advertisement if anything, and yet others include this as part of business cost. Just like RL manufacturers take into account cheap knock-offs eating part of their income.


This is very much like the RL rip-offs, actually. Or do you think the RL designer who spent hours and days to come up with new design for that handbag or whatever, feels any different about someone else stealing this design in 5 minutes it takes to remove trademark from the product so it can be 'legally' sent to production line...


Well, wouldn't it then be better to, rather than ask developers to spend their time on ways to both block the debugging tools and to re-invent the radiosity wheel in their rendering engine ... instead ask these developers to spend this time on developing such system to encourage content creation? Because since neither option exists at the moment, why focus on the work-around when you can address the real issue, with bonus of not affecting whatsoever people who use these tools for legitimate means...

Probably because when you do something mainly for yourself and enjoyment you get out of creation, being able to then sell copies of these things to others and make some money in the process... it's added bonus, so why not do it? ^^;;

Understandable... of course its a bonus to be able to make money off something you enjoy but if you dont care how your customers feel and think, you may want to post that in your store so they dont expect sympathy or recognition...

Hmm i don;t quite understand how it'd somehow mean one doesn't care about their customers. I mean, removing old product lines from sale and replacing them with new ones is regular part of business. While some might not like being unable to buy someting thats' no longer for sale, it may on the other hand make those who did get to buy these items feel quite special, as it gives them something exclusive in the world where perfect unlimited duplication is a norm...

Yes but there are issues with that approach, too.

Say for example I buy a couch, chair, coffee table and rug from a store, spending let's say $800L. Six months later, I move to a bigger plot with more prims, and return to the store to buy another chair, a chase and a sideboard to match the furniture I already own. If I can't buy those items because the seller is no longer selling them, I'm stuck with $800L worth of furniture I now need to entirely replace. That sucks.

In the case of hair, its a very very personal thing, and I think that for most female avs, even more than your clothing, your hair defines you. In my case, I bought HCT auburn faithfully for months and months - I bought no other reds, and I bought from no other hair vendors. My HCT addition is born of two things: a) the precise shade of color and streakiness of the texture, and b) the particular chunkiness of the prims used in HCT hair designs. HCT hair defines my look, and all of my skins (thousands of Lindens worth) and all of my clothes (tens of thousands of Lindens worth) are all picked because they go well with my hair - life as a redhead can be hard, so this is all a carefully accrued inventory of coordination.

HCT has no obligation to me as a customer. None. I'm not upset with Babyboo and Bailey for changing the textures - the textures are exactly 1/2 of what make their hair unique, and as a business, you need to hold on to your unique selling points. I completely understand that. I do not believe that means they don't care about their customers; they're people, too, and when their copyright is breeched, its not outlandish to assume they will react. (At least they didn't remove all their old styles with the original textures - that really *would* have been a catastrophe.)

That doesn't change the fact that texture theft not only effects the creator from whom the textures were stolen but has a knock-on effect for all of that creator's customers, too. By changing textures to remain unique, HCT and ETD may well lose customers. Personally, as a business owner, I think I would *not* have changed, simply because it makes my back catalogue of inventory incompatible with my new releases, which I'm not sure is a great business decision. But as a content creator, I also understand how wedded one can be to the uniqueness of one's creations, and their pleasure and happiness with their products is a critical factor as well. Good content creators are not factories just set up to serve the market; they're people with emotions attached to what they make, and at the end of the day, as a customer you have to respect that. It's what keeps the good stuff flowing.

I only got to page 2, but I am going to comment before I go to bed.

I would rather spend my time in a game with the freedom for people to do bad things, than have to waste my time dealing with moronic 'content developer' clubs. I know it sucks when your texture is stolen, or your primwork is ripped(happened to me a few times, but I got over it). If your feelings or your wallet are hurt than you shouldn't upload the textures in the first place, boo hoo if you lost it. You could always go to a place where your valuable photoshop skills are more appreciated, if there is such a magical place.

I know I'm gonna get flak for "discouraging people who create nice things" or whatever. I'd rather be in a game where everyone just enjoyed themselves and built what they liked instead of making a business out of it all. Everything I've ever sold was made for me or my friends at first, and some of the nicest things I have were made by friends of mine who had no intention of selling their stuff in the first place.

If you're really, truly hurt by having someone take your texture, if you're making a living off this place, than maybe you should move onto something more stable? If not, and you're just peeved your textures you worked so hard on were stolen, don't upload them, just let them sit on your hard drive so you can see how pretty they are.

Goodnight everyone.

I'm aware of the work involved in coding it. I meant "most" as in "the most commonly used" - if you look at the games people actually play, then they tend to be based off licensed engines or ones designed from scratch to be licensable. And "most modern" (note the modern) engines can do static lighting.



The line of reasoning is solid. Those who don't care about their work being redistributed can express that using the permissions system available today. Others, who do wish to treat their textures as "property" (using that term loosely), can state their intentions in the software, and the software should respect that and attempt to enforce their wishes.



The amount of work involved in manufacturing cloned physical goods is high enough that:

a) Not many people do it

b) Those who do can be dealt with via the law in some meaningful way.

I don't think the law is going to be effective for one individual against another, especially not when it's so easy for people to do. Look at how effective the RIAAs lawsuits against individual filesharers has been.



Linden Lab are already looking at alternatives to the permissions system for a variety of reasons. This doesn't mean static lighting in the sims is a bad idea - the two are unrelated. This also doesn't mean that there will be a solution tomorrow: anything as fundamental as permissions isn't going to change radically overnight.

Aye, though i figure this effect can be to some degree limited if the items are made with transfer flag -- then, while you can no longer buy another pristine chair from the designer for your new large house to match existing set, you can always check out 'garage sales' or use whatever other ways are available, to hopefully find what you want. It'd perhaps enhance the SL on the whole, if anything, since it's much like things work outside of it.

Of course for items like hair which are made with copy flag rather than transfer, it can't ve quite resolved this way :<

The database i linked to does contain the "most commonly used", as well as the not commonly used licensable engines. If you checked it for details i mentioned, you'd find only one of these engines (Source) actually supports radiosity calculations (which shouldn't be confused with ability to use light maps)


How is this solid, when it jumps from "someone who would still create things even if they get stolen" to "such person would set their items to 'free copy for all'"? This makes zero sense -- it's like saying a software developer will never write anything new as soon as the first piece of commercial software they write gets stolen, because if this issue wasn't important to them, they'd make their creation freeware to begin with.

I think you make the mistake of presuming that everyone who does express the wish to have their creations treated as theirs (through the 'intentions in software' i.e. setting permission flags) ... actually treats it as such large issue that they'd cease to create things at all when they cannot have it their way 100% of time. Which is, if our world can be any indication, a false presumption. Yes, some people do treat it that seriously. But others figure they earn enough and get enough enjoyment out of the creation process itself, to continue even when it's not always smelling like roses. And it's these latter people that keep the overall economy going.


And probably not _that_ many people actually pirate textures etc, either. But it doesn't matter how many people do it, what matters is their production output (while i cannot make a ripoff bag on my own, i can sure as heck plain buy it from people who can make them) ... And that output can be in both cases significant.


They can't. If it was possible and what they're doing was actually illegal, they would've been dealt with. You don't think the original creators let them exist because they _like_ seeing part of their potential income go to someone else, do you? ^^;


Of course it's not a bad idea, but these things are actually related -- in the sense that both have to be coded in the system by the same people. Your programmers are the limited resource which need to be allocated to one of these tasks, or to both. Focusing on the one option takes away from the other.

Argh, you're the one who brought up the technical terms in the first place! You don't need a radiosity renderer for static shadows, there are other ways to do it, and that is what was being given as a "use case" for dumpers. So the original point stands - Second Life can and should pre-calculate shadows and other forms of lighting server side. Whether that's done using radiosity or another approach is irrelevant.



I think you'll find retail commercial software is often copy protected for exactly this reason. They don't want their software to be copied without their permission.

Anyway you're basically saying, "theft exists, people still make things, therefore we shouldn't try to stop it". That's a bizarre line of reasoning, why not simply make theft legal in real life too and save the police a lot of expense? Well ... because people make things under the assumption that theft is unlikely and if it does happen there is some way to deal with it! If everybody sat back and said "hey that's just how it is, suck it up" there'd suddenly be much less incentive to actually make things for a profit.

Allowing indiscriminate use of dumpers is effectively the same as not enforcing the permissions system at all. And at that point we're in the same situation we'd be as if the legal system stopped treating theft as a crime.



This is why I don't like the rip-off handbag analogy. You're conflating copyrighted works with physical goods which isn't a valid comparison.

There's nothing illegal about manufacturing your own product that's very similar to somebody elses, but it is normally illegal to make an exact duplicate (as you'd be be infringing trademarks or maybe design patents). If somebody did that then you could go after them in the courts.

Likewise nobody is claiming it's illegal or wrong to make something yourself that is _similar_ to somebody elses creation in SL. What is bad is when people make exact clones using dumpers - a technique that simply does not exist in RL for RL goods. If some kind of star trek replication/cloning device did exist then it'd certainly be illegal (for a while anyway), otherwise supply/demand would be totally messed up.

Check out this post at Linden Lifestyles:

http://lindenlifestyles.com/?p=129

Sabrina Doolittle found people selling the stolen textures. Check out those comparison screenshots.

Aye, saw that. tend to keep checking that page often since it has loads of nice finds that i can drool at ^^;

To be honest i'd be more comfortable with this article if someone actually bothered to ask these store owners if they were aware the textures were originally created by someone else. Just to know their take on the issue. It does look pretty damning as it is, but it kind of presumes there isn't anyone else involved, who say, actually captured these textures and then handed them out to others, these sellers included.

Wow...you mean SL can't include the frustrations of RL?

Hehe, these posts are kinda funny. I think the problem here is really a perspective issue. Most people just don't think about Second Life in its proper context, its a game. Even the market is just a game, and when you figure out how it works, you could function quite well regardless of idea theft.

For starters, you have to come up with a real tangible price for your time, just like any artist does. Factor in how much time it took you to make, setting a reasonable hourly rate for your labor that is relational to your skill and the quality of your product. Then if you wish, also figure out what it costs you in resources to play SL (isp, part of your electric bill. etc). Once you've got that price worked out as the minimum you would like to make off of a product you have developed, then figure out the rough currency exchange rate and estimate how many units you expect to move in the first month or so and use that information to decide upon a unit price. If this price turns out to look unreasonable, go back and consider why you are charging so much or so little and realistically adjust your opinion of yourself, lol.

Financial issues aside, the key to being successful at playing the SL market is being at least moderately intelligent about how you go about things. Don't share your ideas with anyone but close friends till your product is ready for release, this gives you a jump start on the copiers and rippers. Be free with sharing free samples with friends who are social butterflies, people who hang out in clubs or at the newbie welcome areas. Finally, and most importantly, be someone worth hanging out with, be open, friendly and personable. Be that person who is always willing to lend a hand or an ear for a friend, or even a random newbie trying to find their way.

That's really the key to being successful in this game and really in life. Why stress out over people who just want to steal ideas instead of coming up with their own. If you planned properly you would have made what you wanted out of the product anyway, why not let it go and move on to bigger and better projects that breath new life into your creativity and your wallet, haha.

Remember Second Life is just a game, the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll start to actually enjoy your time spent in it. =D

For some people Second Life is also their only source of income; there are plenty of people pulling in enough money to live on in RL from their SL work. For them theft is not just some noob cheating at a game; it's a threat to their livelyhood. To be overly dramatic, texture theft in SL can lead to starving children in RL. "Mommy can't by food because someone stole her textures and ruined her market share!"

I'm confused, and it's probably my lack of knowledge of how image manipulation programs work. I thought with every image that was saved from a professional style image manipulation program, like PhotoShop, and I have been told that is the benchmark of these professional programs, that information from the designer, about the designer, and the image could be stored with the image save. If so, then each image would have a more or less watermark stored with the image. This would at least be handy information that could be used as evidence of a stolen texture.

The other point I would like to make is, I agree with others that SL was originally created to have fun in a 3D world. It is more or less an open-ended program, and lends itself to the user being able to create different entities in this world. So, who's freakin' idea was it to add money to the whole thing. Money is the whole problem, and I think anyone that uses SL as a basis for making a RL income needs there head examined. My thoughts on that are, GET A REAL JOB. And as far as the question about stolen textures. If the community would stop being so money hungry, and be a little more will to help one another, we would see some really great things come about in this wonderful 3D world of ours. It would also stop the texture stealing. If you had textures that you thought weren't worth using in this open and sharing community, and you think they are worth money for the time spent on them, then those textures need to be placed on the real open market to be sold.

I build a little, and I haven't been here as long as some, but when I make things, and create textures, I approach the whole project with the idea that someone may take my idea, and make it better. Ok, so they may make a few bucks from it, but eventually they will loose that market share to longevity. I create things in hope that other will see what I have done, and get inspired to make something better. I wander through our world, and see all the many fantastic things that people have created, and wonder, how'd they do that, and can I do it to, and maybe make it better. Sharing is the key here I think.

There are many people who are in SL who have made some really awesome stuff who have never asked a Linden for their time. There are many people who spent there SL online time helping others, and haven't ask a Linden for their time. There are many who have created very useful tutorials, and never ask a Linden for their time. These folks are to be commended for being so unselfish, caring to give their time for the benefit of others. Ok, so you make this great time consuming texture, and it is really a selling point, isn't the idea of copying a form of flattery. Isn't the theft just saying, wow your work is so good I want it for myself. Any honorable person would share that texture at no profit, but the theft is actually advertising for you, in a way, especially if you have taken the time to add your copyright info to the image.

This world should be a sharing, and caring world, very much the opposite of our daily lives. Geez, I don't need more stress because someone stole my texture, I have enough stress in my life as it is. So, I say, POOH on your texture stealing accusization, and try sharing some of your knowhow with others instead of trying to be the richest person in SL.

Just my thoughts, oh we are allowed to have those, right?

HUGS, Barb

Who says you can't do both?