"profesional Skin Ripper For Hire !"

[18:03] Raine Lykin: Hi *name removed*, I was looking around and noticed you had info on adding tattoos to skins I was wondering if you could give me some info on this. Thanks
[18:04] *name removed*: Hi Raine. I sure do. Basically the process is (TECHNICALLY) illegal becaue I rip the skin and the tatoo at the same time
[18:04] *name removed*: upload it as a skin
[18:04] *name removed*: but I give it to you Copy/Mod NO TRANS to keep it from getting flooded around and putting skin makers out of business
[18:04] *name removed*: No skin makers = no business for me
[18:05] Raine Lykin: Ah I see, thanks Now to find the tattoo I want.
[18:08] *name removed*: thats the old information sheet, but the prices are just about the same, depending.
[18:08] Raine Lykin: Cool, thanks
[18:09] *name removed*: No problem. It can usually be done within 10 minutes. The oily sheen takes about 15-20 because I have to upload your first skin with the tatoo, but on the oil then rip it again into one skin. Phew*** lots of work
[18:09] Raine Lykin: eeps, sounds like it.

Great huh?

Makes me sick. And the joke here is this person is protected legally regards her ID in this forum but is fine and dandy about TECHINALLY ripping other designers skin textures to make her a SL income.

Heres an idea, how about she makes her OWN line of skins and tattoos etc offering this service? Oh wait, that requires skill 'other' than using 3rd party texture ripping software.

Kind of them to sell them no transfer, not for the skin artists protection but for her own if you notice.

Pure class.

A fellow SL tattoo artist told me about this "service", I wonder if it`s the same individual.

Yes, it is sickening.

Edit: What do you mean by this? "And the joke here is this person is protected legally regards her ID in this forum " I`m not understanding...

Well that's damn unethical, ripping textures for financial gain without permission from all parties involved. And did I get that right: The person offering this service is a regular at the official forum?

Did you AR this person?

She means that "naming names" (posting info relating to another resident with their name attached) is against forum policy, and even a banning offense in some cases... so the rules protect the thief from being named, but not the content creators from being ripped off

I'd AR, include the chat log, and pray...

odds are LL will do nothing, since the thief is not reselling the items to the general population.

I'd even have respect for the person if they talked to the originators, and asked permission to do a custom one off for X av that had purchased the item assuming that creator didn't already offer such a service, as it stands, more than a little shady

Thanks for clarifying that. I'm bad at reading between the lines apparently.

Yep, have had this "service" offered to us as well. Have to say in some cases like this, I do feel we should be allowed to name and shame. How many newbies have been offered "services" like these and accepted not knowing it is wrong ?

Somehow professional and skin ripper don't belong together in the same sentence. This is in large part LL's fault for not giving us overlays. Skins are the most used, and most limited assets in SL. People don't have the amount of flexibility with them that they should. If the features were sufficiently flexible no one would even think to offer this "service." How bloody hard is it to add the ability for people to wear overlays over their skins, including the head, that are independent of the base skin and don't rely on it having mod permissions? It's such a no brainer, yet all these years later we still don't have it.

It wouldn't just help skinners and skin wearers. It would massively cut down on the number of assets that have to be uploaded. If I want to offer a makeup on twenty of my skins, that's twenty additional textures I have to upload to the asset server, and twenty additional skins I have to assemble. If I could do them as overlay objects it would be only one texture and one item.

I'm in no way condoning this person's activities, but LL seriously needs to get on the ball here. How many more years do we have to wait for what should have been a common sense feature to begin with?

i whole-heartedly agree that the very limited amount of 'layers' we get to play with is woefully limited and 'creates' this situation... although i loath to contemplate the 'upgrade' cycle(s) to do so... is there a roadmap already written for a future skinning/clothing engine?? i would be very interested to see one...

Well at one point the plan was the allow us to stack textures on each part of the body in any order, and using the existing UV mapping. That was being worked on by someone at LL and we were told here in the forums that it might even make the next release. That was two years ago or more now. It was shelved in favor of bug fixing, or so I was told. I was consulted about ideas for a new/upgraded permissions system maybe a year ago and took the opportunity to lobby for skin overlay objects, and I thought I'd made a lightbulb go on about how many assets it would save from being uploaded, but if it was ever discussed inside LL I have no idea. I know Chosen was consulted about an overhaul to avatars and seemed very excited about what was discussed, but I don't think he's ever been at liberty to spill the beans, and that was now quite a long time ago as well. Whatever happens, I'll believe it when I see it.

If a person wants to do this for their own uses - apply a tattoo to a skin they bought - I wouldn't say anything. It's a bit shady, but IMO no real harm is done.

A person advertising to do this for profit, however, is scum.

Also, I'm with Chip - easy fix to this is for LL to get off their ass and give us more layers, they've been promising it for ages.

A lot of people seem to agree that because of SL's limitations regarding tattoo/clothing layers, it's all right to rip and mod your own purchased skin for your own use. Folks also seem to agree that if you don't have the time or skill to do something, it's all right to hire someone to do it for you. Where does it become wrong and sickening to pay someone to perform this service that so many of us would do ourselves if we had the skill, tools, time?

My only concern here is that the person in question stays true to their word, never redistributing or reusing the skins downloaded. There's no way to police/enforce how a ripped texture is used. But the idea itself doesn't seem so bad to me- especially since I don't know too many skin designers who will do custom work anyway.

This is the question I suppose. Nobody is going to get very far trying to convince people that they shouldn't put the tattoos they want onto the skin they bought fair and square, that because LL haven't implemented a proper layers feature (which would solve all this I agree) and the original artist doesn't have the time they should "suck it up" on the basis of an abstract principle. And I would agree with that. I would say that it counts as fair use, even if the tools used to provide that outcome can also be used for blatant duplication for profit. On the other hand, everyone can accept that a skin ripper who then sells the skins on or distributes them is doing wrong.

Argh. *mind boggles*

For me, the difference is that, no matter how ethical they may be regarding giving the skin they ripped out to others, they now personally have it. I don't limit that to SL, either... apply it to DVDs, for example. Make a backup of a DVD you own? That's fair use, go for it. Don't give it to your friend to have him make a copy for you, just because you don't know how. Because for all you know he kept an "extra" copy of it for his own use too.

It all comes down to a question of risk. For every person that has a copy of a skin's textures that they ripped, there's that much more risk of those textures leaking out into the general population stripped of their permissions. When that can potentially cost an artist hundreds or even thousands of dollars (real dollars) in lost revenues it's pretty hard to have a cavalier attitude about it, even if you agree with the fair use argument in principle.

Somebody providing a tattoo-adding service doesn't add to the risk there. They can use (the appropriate tool) with or without permission.

Actually I would say that there was less risk from someone operating that sort of service, as clearly they can be identified if they turn up as the originator.

Ordinal, would you mind editing that name out of your post? Thanks. There's no need to advertise it here.

Well, okay, why not, but it isn't exactly going to change anything - the tools are out there, anyone with the slightest urge to steal skins can find out how to do with with five minutes' Googling.

People who are using the tools to offer reasonable services and not - as far as has been indicated - reselling other people's work as their own, aren't the enemy here, or shouldn't be.

Hmm, to me it sounds like they just modify your original skin for you to add the tatoo, much the same as the skin designer might for you. Now if the skin designer can charge for that why not a 3rd party. If they were reselling/giving away the skins then that would be wrong of course. There are probablbly people doing so and they should be your target more than this person just making a living from providing a service some skin makers would deny their customers.
To me this person is doing no more to skin designers than a person adding decals and racing stripes to new cars in RL.
They said themselves they don't want to destroy the skin market.
Perhaps if the skinmakers are so concerned they should provice their skins on sale with all the tatoos available in SL?

Well I sort of have to disagree with you there, a bit.

Lets say I were inclined to steal skins. I'd like to point out, for the record, that I absolutely am NOT, but lets say I was. I could wander around, try to find someone with a skin I liked, then hoped they held still while I logged out, swapped in the intercept dlls, and log back in, and hope they were still there, and stayed put long enough for the final resolution of the texture to load again. Or I could ask people to come to me and stay put, making my job a lot easier.

As Chip says, *every* time someone rips a texture, it's a risk that the texture will get out. But who do I trust more... someone doing it once, on their own "persona" copy of a skin, or someone who does it time and time again, on other people's skins, for profit, and (completely incidentally, I'm sure) gaining mint-condition, full-permission copies of the skin in question?

But the skin designer has a legitimate reason to have unaltered, full-permission copies of the textures. RandomSally Skinbuyer arguably has fair-use rights to do it herself... that's a whole 'nother debate. But RandomJoe Skinripper has no business having unaltered, full-permission copies of the textures that he can do with as he pleases, nor does RandomSally have any right to sell such permission to RandomJoe.

<<spittakes>>

Is this real life person in a position to clone and sell (or giveaway) infinite copies of the car after he's applied the spray paint?

Reitsuki, I don't know the skin-ripping tool in question, but I doubt it requires any cooperation on the part of the av whose skin is ripped. They simply have to show up in range of the tool. A guy with this tool could sit around and rip skins to his heart's content. That has little to do with the validity of the service being provided here.

IMHO, this is a case where there is a LEGAL liability, but as long as the person providing the service deletes the skin after delivering the tattooed version, it's morally and ethically fine. A case where the laws overprotect.

The person is providing a service of applying a tattoo to a skin that you own. True, you don't own all intellectual rights to that skin, just to YOUR use of it.

There are difficulties. If your skin is xfer, you could get a tattood copy and sell your unmodified original, and that would be a clear violation.

I say this is a simple workaround for the lack of a "tattoo" layer in SL. It also makes changing outfits a lot simpler, if you always keep the same tattoos. With the minor exception of the tattoo buyer selling their xferrable skin, nobody is harmed (unless the skin merchant wants a monopoly on all tattoos for their skin).

Why shouldn't the guy be entitled to a profit for his efforts?

However, legally, it's a DCMA violation. So there's no argument there. Laws are not always moral imperatives. Prior to DCMA, this could easily be considered fair personal use.

For example, can I take a CD that I own, and loan it to a friend who records his voice singing along with the CD, returning me (a) my CD and (b) a copy with his singing for MY use alone? (Assuming he deletes all copies of the original and the modified CD, of course.) That is a technical violation of DCMA. It's no different than what is going on here. But I don't see it as a moral wrong, even if he charges me for it?

Or, well, you could just buy a copy of the skin for yourself, the profits would be more than the cost.

I don't trust any of them; I don't trust anyone with my prims or my scripts, which is why I generally have both no-mod unless there's some pressing issue, they are meant to be freebies or I am working under contract and don't own the results. But then, I can modify scripts so that people can alter their behaviour themselves. If it turns out that people regularly want to be able, say, to draw a gun from the right side as well as the left, I can add that option in, and I would.

Adding to and modifying skins is a skilled job that is hard to automate and most people will not be able to do it on their own; they would have to go to a professional. I certainly couldn't do it properly, even if I had a mind to. They don't have any alternative if they are going to have the modification made, as skin designers don't tend to be available for custom changes. (For my own skin I was lucky enough to obtain it from Robin Sojourner who was quite happy to change things to my picky specifications, but in many cases this is not what occurs.)

I would trust somebody who makes it quite clear exactly what they are doing, and is traceable should skins emerge under their name, more than I would trust someone random.