"profesional Skin Ripper For Hire !"

I agree. We need to be very careful with *improvements* to the permissions system. As it currently is, it's a very good compromise between the different goals of functional power, simplicity, and intuitiveness.

It would be nice if we could use the tint sliders on more skins, though -- would that allow upload of texture? If so, that's an unfortunate loophole in the system.

If anyone sold full-perm skins, they'd put THEMSELVES out of business more quickly than the other skin vendors, because their skin would soon be available for free. The reason texture makers can do this is because textures are cheap per-unit, and we need lots of different textures. It's the opposite for skins.

I think I'd be the first one in line to vote for a different AV layer system...not to mention a REAL UV map and skirt mesh. At this point tho it seems the way things are are good enough for LL so I'm not holding my breathe.

I agree with the skin creators here that people shouldn't be nabbing their textures, and that nobody should be able to have a full perm set. That's a legitimate concern and I think it's probably the big reason most of them have objection to this guy offering this "service". Caught between not being able to offer modification themselves, and knowing that there IS a huge market for post alterations of all kinds, the rogue "rippers" who do this for joe public are a risk.

Would it be reasonable and feasible for skin makers to have/hire/elect/annoint someone trusted on the side who does this? It seems to me (being a creator myself) that having YOUR OWN go-to guy for these mods, someone implicitly trusted who does excellent work, would be the smartest choice in this situation. Whether as a group or individually, skinners could ONLY grant permission for mod work to this person(s), and since they have an authorized outlet for mods now, the side effects are hugely in their favor. It would minimize the risk of full-perm copying by diverting customers interested in this sort of thing to a trusted place of the creators own choosing, and away from being tempted by the "rogue rippers" because there is no other option. Call it "mediating and minimizing the risk of potentially large future losses" if you will...

That's the assertion, but I haven't seen any argument that really supports it.

Folks who want to rip skins and sell them can do so without offering a tattoo service.

Folks offering a tattoo service would generally only get a skin with a tattoo on it (that's what they'd rip in the first place, the customer wearing skin and tattoo).



That would be reasonable and feasible, if skin makers want the extra business and are willing to take the extra risk of trusting the contractor.

Tintable skins are actually a little more secure than opaque skins with regard to ripping. They lose the tintable functionality once ripped, and have to be tweaked to regain it.

This is so very true, although it wasn't always like this.

A couple years ago I started an interesting experiment with open sourcing skin textures inside the client. Some oldbies may remember it, "Second Skin Advanced". It was essentially an installer that overwrote the default client character textures with skin textures. I supported the hell out of it with a customer database and hired tech support. The huge attraction at the time was the ability to utilize the server side tattoo slots within a skin file for the actual layered tattoos. Back then many of the tattoo artists were selling their tattoos as raw textures, not as clothing outfits (because most people didn't wear skins!), so it was very easy for the customer to drop these tattoos into wherever. Added benefits included the ability to overlay all the slider effects like freckles, rouge', lip color, etc., over the skin and under a tattoo. It was fairly successful at the time, and I more than made up for the time I spent working on the skins through sales. I think I even helped bolster a few budding tattoo businesses with the skins because of their flexibility. That was then, and times have changed. Nowadays tattoo artists load their textures into clothing outfits to 'protect' their textures from theft (somewhat) and make them more compatible with the standard way skins are sold today. Too bad there are so many limiting factors associated with this method. We are stuck with them because LL holds the key to the "layered avatar texture" door. Like Chip said, someone would have to be "insane" to try open sourcing avatar textures now. I sometimes think I was nuts to try it back then, but I did it anyways. I don't regret it, but I will never do that again, and here's why:

Creators no longer have the trust in the permissions system they once used to. It isn't that the permissions system became any weaker - It's that more people became better informed and smarter at figuring out ways to circumvent the permissions system for their own interests. My interest was in filling a customer need while still keeping my business profitable through an EULA. At the time, it worked for a while, but eventually broke down because, out of the thousands of people that bought the skins, some chose to ignore the EULA and distribute the textures against my wishes. After that it didn't take long for the textures to saturate the "Freebie" circuit and completely kill sales. Ignorant people would come to my store wearing my skin and make fun of me for selling something that was offered for free. How's that for thanks from a customer with a WAY overinflated sense of entitlement? Once bit, shame on you. Twice bit, shame on me.

Now, as we can all see from the ongoing discussions in this thread, many other interests, both good and bad have taken on a life of their own, and become inextricably intertwined within one another, the weaknesses of open GL, and a crippled permissions system. Shortly after I became aware of a few of the worst ways textures could be ripped from SL, I tried to go up to bat for several content creators by sending in a lengthy report on all the ways the permissions system could be broken with suggestions on how to fix a few. The only reply I got was a "Thanks, It will be sent along to the appropriate person". No follow up. Nothing. That was about two years ago. To this day, little has changed much except for the size of the texture preview window. Linden Lab is slowly digging their own grave (inevitably, I think). I have no idea what goes through the minds of Phil, or Corey. I have never talked with them. I have talked directly with their "Angel" funding, and expressed my concerns precisely with the extra avatar texture layers that are needed. That was about six months ago. I still have my fingers crossed. LL's "hands off" approach to the point of innovative stagnation means possibly one of two things:

1. The creative energies that drive the SL economy will slowly rot from the inside out. The honest content creators will go elsewhere.

2. LL is pushing to open source the whole bag before it deflates.

Whatever LL is doing, I wish them luck because I know they don't want to fail. Maybe, just maybe they could hedge their bets on both sides of the fence and add a few extra texture layers to the avatar texture stack (especially the head). It would go a long, long way towards keeping creative interests (with regard to avatar customization) flowing in SL.

I keep hoping it's 3. LL has a super-duper everything you ever wanted in an avatar system 99% finished and will roll it out any day now.

Then I wake up and remember how many years it's been since I started hoping that.

Last year would have even been too late for a #3 like that! I think it's more likely to be a Google, or an IBM that fills that wish .

I agree ( of course ) and I'm sure your all sick of hearing me preach about how building texture creators ( who HAVE to sell txtrs with full perms because LL wont supply us one tiny addiction to the perm options such as " Transfer when rendered " thus disabling ppl from reselling or passing about freely our work because we have to sell transfer o commercial clients can sell things they texture using TRUs work ) have a tough time and unfair time.

Again I dont want to sound like ' Virtual Gods' but texture creators ( in the true sense of the word - not off the net freebie sellers ) provide a massive amount of difference to SL.
Without textures SL is plywood.

Most texture artists wont sell their work BECAUSE of this lack of LL's protection for us and so those that do are faced with countless numbers of DMCA files.

TRU and a few other stores pay 60K a month to copyright agents to go out and visit all Full Perm stores and respond to reports we recieve from customers.

The amount of real dollars we are loosing as ppl share our txtrs with friends/strangers is unaccountable and add to that the loss of income from ppl reselling our work without any EUAL to other ppl who buy them assuming they too can resell them makes our own work worthless in our own stores.

I know very few ppl have a sympathetic ear for this. Many ppl just think " so stop selling then " but seriously, take away all the original textures from SL i think you would agree it would be a drab place using LL's freebies or even freebies off the net

Texture artists NEED protection, the same as any other content creator gets. ( as much protection as one can expect anyway )

As for the ' tool ' well, TRU is working as I write this to put an end to that crap at least in the store and we have had to ban all no payment on file until this is done because we learnt ppl use alts to steal.

Not only that, but because textures are so open source due to the SL perms, I want my customers to be verified. They dont have to pay to upgrade their acct just add a Credit Card and/or address details. Then we're not selling to complete John Doe's

We issue a EUAL as soon as ppl land at the store, and its also supplied in all sets purchased as well as countless copyright signs around the store. And heres some positive news...

For the 1st time in alomst 4 yrs we get people asking us what they can and cant do with the textures.
And " can I buy a commercial license so I may share these textuers with my building team?"

Of course the fact they asked is good enough, and we allow them to do that freely if asked
We also allow prefab sellers to add the txtrs in the package as long as the transfer is unticked.

TRU and other stores support a LOT of business in SL you only need to goto SLX to see the prefabs that used our artists high end textures and I know at least a dozen clients who make a RL living from what they do in SL.

You comment about ppl making 70-300K a year USD.
Yes thats true but the % of ppl making more than 5K USD a year is minute.

147 out of 10 million per month make more than 5K USD ( excluding all the alts of course ) but its still a tiny minority and the problem lies with the fact that LL sell a dream
" come and make money in SL"
Then ppl log in and soon realise the world is already dominted and the odds are stacked up against them of ever making any real money.

So they take short cuts, piggy back off the work of others by doing the kind of thing this thread is about or open a BIB store ( ack yard sales were bad enough for stolen work being resold now these horrible stores that sell stolen skins, clothing, hair, textures )

Add to that an increase of countries that are plagued by poverty parts of Asia, Brazil and so on were $10 USD buys them food for a week and were stealing from ppl just to survive is kinda the 'norm' Russia and China dont HAVE a copyright law. They are free to copy and steal and will face no criminal charges.

Thats have a deadly combination for SL. These cultures have a different way of looking at life. Its dog eat dog, simple.

They dont care or understand the ethics because ethics are for those that can afford to be ethical.

When you need food and money is tight in RL , then SL is a beautiful opportunity and these ppl dont have the time to be learning to make skins and so was born The Full Perm Stores.

FP stores are also born from more ethical designers who also realise they cant 'make it' in SL so sell out. Take what they can when they can on a " selling everything full perms" sale.

And as long as designers keep releasing stuff like that FP stores will have a constant supply of stock. No harm in that, but they do tend to take things too far by getting greedy.

They homed in on skins because skins were once the most desired and most expensive item to buy in SL as well as the hardest and most time consuming thing to make.

Thats why skins were homed in on by thieves.

Its effected the skin economy big time. I can walk into many FP stores and buy beautiful skins for next to nothing. ( not that I would! but Ive seen them when dealing with my own DMCA issues )

People are modifying ripped skins by changing the make up adding some freckles and releasing their own line of skins but the base was never theirs to begin with and thats the hardest part to make.

I know because I paid 3K USD for some-one to make me a range to sell only to be issued with a DMCA from a skin designer claiming the base was hers. ( we worked it out later and she said I was ok to sell them )

I dont know how much of this is paranoia brought on by skin theft were it makes all and any new skin designer look suspicious but I know its hit the market genre hard.

OK thats all I got lol

PS

Please do not reply with accusations of racism etc. I am old enough and wise enough to know there are always exceptions and I dont blame these cultures I am mearly pointing out they live by their own code of ehics because of the poverty they endure. Doesnt make it right but its real none the less.

I never did see the point to 'pointless' posts. Seriously, what 'is' the point?
You dont understand what were talking about (in your own words ) so move along.
Thats what ppl do if the topic is of no interest or concern to them

Though I think that, if I own the skin and I own the tattoo, I have the right to combine the two myself, I don't think that's the same as letting (paying) a third party do it for me.

The picture files that represent the skin and tattoo only exist digitally, they are not tangible. Transferring digital data necessarily includes copying that data.

It's not like a sweater. If I have a sweater, and I hire a tailor to sew the button on it, when I give the sweater to the tailor, I don't have it any more. There remains only one sweater. When the tailor returns the sweater to me, the tailor no longer has the sweater. I can be assured that she does not have a copy of the sweater herself. (We don't yet have those Star Trek devices that can create duplicates of physical objects).

When I transfer my skin file to the third party, however, I am not just passing one, physical object from me to the third party. The third party gets a copy of the data. Of course, after transferring the data to the third party, I could always destroy the copy remaining on my hard drive. However, when that third party transfers the file back to me, I have absolutely no assurance that the third party has destroyed all copies of the file from his computer.

That's what makes it different from copying a DVD as a backup. When I copy the DVD, creating a new physical DVD with the digital content of the old copied onto it, I have physical possession of both DVDs. No other third party does. Any sort of files created in the process of copying the DVD are on my computer or other equipment, under my complete control.

That does not happen when I give the digital data to a third party. I am releasing the data from my control, and I have no way to assure that the third party does not have a copy when whatever work is finished. When the tailor gives me my sweater back, I know the tailor does not have a copy of the sweater- because there is only one sweater, and it is in my hands.

Now, under a theory of agency, you could say that anything I can do for myself, an agent can do for me. It is also true, however, that you are liable for the acts of your agent. If you want to hire that third party to put the tattoo on the skin, do you want to be legally responsible if he mishandles the data, or does not delete the data from his computer when done? If you hire an agent to do it for you, you are also assuming the risk of the agent harming someone else during the course of acting as your agent (the harm in this case being the illegal redistribution of someone else's intellectual property).

"Fair Use" is something of a misnomer, because "Fair Use" deals with copying, not use, and should probably be called "Fair Copying." "Fair Use" deals with situations in which someone can legally copy another's work without the creator's prior consent. However, when it comes to use, if you own a piece of property, you can use it any way you want, including destroying it, modifying it, etc. (as long as the use does not include the act of copying or distributing). I think that I can modify the skin that I own not because modifying it comes into Fair Use, but modifying it comes with ownership rights.

There is a distinction between using the property and copying it. Digital property presents special problems, because copying it is so easy, and a lot of common uses require copying as well.

If you're a content creator, and you want to sell your content on a theory that the buyer is actually just buying a license to use that content in certain ways, be sure that your buyers are seeing that license and agreeing to it prior to the sale. Otherwise, the default rule applies- the owner can use the property however he or she wants. You're not protecting yourself if your intent to sell a license is merely in your mind, but you are not clearly communicating it to the buyer before the buyer purchases the item.

I do agree that it would be nice for Second Life to provide a way to do an overlay on the skin to make it easy for non-technical users to apply tattoos to their skins themselves. I'd like to think that most people aren't looking to cheat content creators, and if they take shortcuts (such as hiring the "tattoo applier", they do so without realizing the potential ramifications to the content creators.

Making a nice skin for Second Life is pretty damn hard to do. I've made two. I spent a ton of time doing them. They are not 'nice,' but okay. They are good enough for me to use myself, but I'd feel embarassed trying to sell them, because they would just look sad compared to what is offered for sale by the established skin designers. Based on that little bit of experience, I would expect the creation of nice skin for Second Life to just disappear, if not well-protected. Seems too darn hard and tedious to do if one isn't going to get a reward for it.

Lillibeth, I agree 100% that there should be an extension to the permissions scheme for textures, to allow texture makers to sell textures that their customers could NOT distribute, but could apply to objects and transfer the objects. "transfer only when rendered", as you put it. I don't think this would need to apply to any other kind of asset, but I'm interested in hearing if there are.

Texture upload would only be allowed when Transfer, Copy, and Modify are all checked. "Transfer only when rendered" should appear as an option only if Transfer is not checked. When Transfer is checked, you should see an unselectable checked box for "Transfer only when rendered".

It might be unfortunate technically (or esthetically to some programmer) that only one asset type has 4 checkboxes rather than 3. Pfft.

Is there a Jira entry for this that I could vote for? I'm not and never hope to be a texture maker, but this makes perfect sense to me.

It does require a little bit of cooperation; the avatar wearing the skin has to show up NAKED. That's because your viewer only receives the baked textures for other avatars (the composited textures including clothing); it only receives the component textures (skin and clothing) for your own avatar.

So, in lieu of cooperation a ripper could go to a nude beach. (BTW, your assertion about baked textures doesn't seem to always be the case, but I think that's beside the point. I made the same assertion and someone disputed it.)

Mypoint is that anyone ripping skins has no need to hide behind a pretext of offering tattoos.

The contrary point that someone who starts with good intentions might not withstand the temptation is valid, though I think it's a bit marginal and speculative.

I have a question for Namssor... is your installer still available? I make my own skins and would love to use it for myself. Name your price...

Even better than the installers (which I designed for customers with little to no computer graphics knowledge) are the action sets within Photoshop. Simply create a set of actions that overwrite the color layers in the character folder with your skin textures. Tastes great for previews. Less filling on upload costs (L$0). In fact, I never upload any of the skins I wear. They are much more functional for me when I can update them instantly, client side, within Photoshop and be wearing them seconds later for everyone to see inside SL.

A full explanation can be found here:

/109/5e/168956/1.html

Oh you Soooooo rock! Thanks very much for that. Never even looked in that folder before.. I wonder if anyone has hacked into the .llm character mesh files lol.

The variables in some of those files are fairly easy to change (fold your eyes back into your skull, and stuff like that), but what you change in your client stays in your client (sort of like Vegas ). It does not propagate to the servers like some avatar textures do. You will only see the effects of the changes and no one else will unless you personally give them the updated files. If you want to make changes like that, it will need to be on a platform other than that of Linden Lab's. For that, you need an open source platform similar to the way Mozilla works.

Wont this make the skin blotchy? I purchased the skin i use almost a year ago and decided to go back to the original seller to get a version with different facial hair. The one I purchased was obviously re-uploaded because it had jpg blotching. I checked the creator tag on my skin and yes it was the right person. So I can't see a good skin coming out of this. Especially if he has to do it several times for skin, tat, oil etc

Even better than (well potentially anyway) Nams technique is the new capabilities in photoshop CS4 Extended with the one exception that there isn't a duplication of SL's lighting. If you can afford it, it is one of the biggest baddest and best additions to a designers arsenal. I can't believe the amount of work that I no longer need to do!