another ethical question

To mock another in this fashion for referring to their talent and hard work as "art" is just rude. Fact is anyone who spends time hand painting/creating anything in SL or out absolutely has the right to consider it ther artisitic expression. Hobby, craft whatever you wish to call it..

Can I have some of your .tga files?

Why not just ask the creator for permission?

My answer - the short version - is 'no - it's not'

But eh, everyone has already made their mind up - this is just a thread for support on the decision.

Well, this actually _is_ my point ^^ so i'd have to say, i have no problem with idea of base skin being modified --also permanently-- because that's what it is to me, a base that then gets optionally altered to taste of person wearing it, to allow them express _themselves_ ... instead of them becoming some run-of-mill walking posters for my artistic vision.

I realize for some skin makers it's different and what they want _is_ precisely that, having people as walking advertisement of their artistic skills... but then i think it would be nice to have this spelt out in advance, just so the buyer is fully aware what exactly they are getting into, literally.


Certainly, which is additional argument to have such kind of limitation spelt out in advance by the artist. Because if it's part of contract between the seller and the buyer, then it should indeed be listed in the contract. Just to give potential buyer a chance to maybe take their money to less restrictive business... double so when there's typically no refunds due to no return ability.

It's easy to explain Chosen...she's not getting the answer she wants so she'll keep twisting it until maybe someone says ohhh...well in that case. It's stealing, no matter how you want to process it away Kyrah.

as long as you follow the same line of ethic as the one i exposed.

Am sorry, but i didn't put selective brackets around term art, you did. I may feel the overall attitude towards alteration of work is perhaps unreasonable due to argument used, but it doesn't diminish value of work itself. This is just your (over)interpretation of what i said...

edit: re-reading i can see it could be taken wrongly like that. Am sorry and would like to apologize for it, it wasn't mean to specifically diminish weight of work put into creation in the first place. >.<

I don't, and I think that's the problem. We don't have the same line of ethic at all.

Like I said, I understand the problem with your customers not being able to use your product on other people's skins, but the way you are choosing to go about "solving" it is not right. And until LL adds additional tattoo/clothing texture layers, if you can't get the skin maker's approval, I think you're out of luck.

Chip Midnight used to add other creator's makeups to his skins, and I know he didn't go around stealing their makeup texture files so he could do so. Maybe you should ask him how he managed to forge relationships with the makeup artists so that they trusted him with their files.

hm good point, so how do you think i should solve this? exepted putting my items back in inventory for one more year?

wait that LL do something?

If I were you, I wouldn't be asking creators for their skin files - you already know they're very protective of their work and unwilling to give up their files. I'd ask them if they could add your texture to their skin texture, and build whatever fee they might charge you into the price of your product. I'd also try and push the envelope on the additional tattoo/clothing layer with LL, in whatever ways you could.

Yup. i figure either contacting them personally, or by doing some kind of announcement in the 'products wanted' forum it could be possible to find some skin makers interested in this sort of joint-venture. Although can see potential payment issues becoming a problem :/

so that mean its me that have to trust them? ^^

You're the one who created a product that wouldn't work on resident-created skins, and you're the one with the need to offer your product to your customers. So yes, that means you'd have to trust them. Just like we all trust that the products we put out there won't be stolen. Kinda sucks, huh?

well actually it would work if the skins where not using the tatoo layer, second skin used (or still do?) to provide the tga files so you could override the client files

its what i do for myself, but most peoples in SL have tatoo skins so what work on a few don't work on most

Kyrah, if you want to do a custom mod for someone for their skin then make the tattoo as your normally would (with an alpha channel, NOT with the ripped head texture as a base) and then give it to the skin creator with full permissions so they can add it on for your friend. That's the only way I personally would accept it and I wouldn't be at all happy if I found out you ripped my textures.

I agree that it's a shame that LL has dragged their feet for so long on giving us more texture layers for skins and making the tattoo market viable again, but their failure to do so thus far isn't justification to modify the work of others without their express consent. If they say no then accept it.

We need to lobby LL to address the tattoo issue and until they do we have to be patient and accept the limitations. I won't accept modification of my work without my permission.

Kyrah, a suggestion. Why not see if you can partner with skin makers to provide tattoos. You could provide for them something extra they can offer potential customers. They can bring you business and, you can go to sleep at night in your SL home and not worry about the SL mafia showing up to seize your computer or worse.

Also, I have a Namssor Daquerre skin. When I order makeup for the face or even tan lines for the body, I get a new skin. There is no swapping of the skin or texture back and forth. I even forgot to order something I wanted, once. When I realized it, I contacted Nam’s artist and, she sent me another complete skin with the addition. After, I paid for it along with the L$100 set up charge.

Jen

I currently sell makeups by two creators besides myself and am definitely open to adding more. I sell makeups (which are full versions of the skin with the makeup already applied and only available to those who already own the base skin) for $500. $400 goes directly the the tattoo maker at time of sale (which is typically more than they'd have asked for it themselves). If you're interested in selling makeups or head tattoos I'd be open to adding some of your stuff into my vendors. I do all the work (compositing them on all my head textures and filling all the orders). You just sit back and collect sales. It's good for me and my customers and for the tattoo/makeup artist, and in the long run it's much more profitable for the tattoo/makeup artist than doing one-offs with stolen textures and likely burning bridges in the process.

Yay!

While I understand how much people have at stake here and how strongly they feel about it, I was getting a big headache reading through this thread. I'm really glad to see a few people step up with positive suggestions on how people could collaborate to make a better experience for everyone, rather than people just arguing over what should not be done.

Chip, you are always my hero.

Kyrah, let's turn this around.

Say that someone bought your tattoo, and then went to a skin designer and had them use GLIntercept to take that texture, and apply it to a skin for them.

Assuming that they weren't going to keep your texture, and that the person they were doing the custom work for already owned your piece, would you be happy when you found out what they had done?

How about having them apply it to lots of different skins? If there were multiple layers, they would be able to wear it with all kinds of different skins, so it wouldn't bother you if they had the skin designer place it on a few dozen, right?

I also find it interesting that you expect the skin designers to trust you with their textures, but you don't trust them with yours.

Not to mention the fact that a whole lot of skin designers, myself included, do modifications to skins for a price. By taking the skin, and modifying it, you are stealing that income from them.

You also seem to think that people buy skins. But they don't, any more than they buy software. As Chosen has said several times, all you really buy is a license to use the skin on your avatar in this game. Nothing more.

I'm guessing that you suspected this was shaky ground, to say the least, before you posted. I'm guessing that you were hoping that people would give you permission to do it. But the fact remains that this is wrong. Even if you can find people who do tell you that it's okay, that doesn't make it okay, as you already know.

I'm very sorry that multiple tattoo layers aren't allowed on skins. I really, really wish that they were. It would solve all kinds of problems, and make my life much easier as well.

But, as Chosen has said over and over, things are what they are. We can petition the Lindens to add this, and we have, and they have said that they will. But they haven't said when. So we wait, and live within the limitations until they do.

And we keep our honor, and know that we don't do things that are on shaky ground.

Because we know that our honor is not for sale, at any price.

In the meantime, have you tried putting your textures on transparent prims that people can wear on their heads? That might solve your problems, and keep you on firm ethical ground.

Now that's mentioned, there's Anisa Naumova's "blusher" avatar add-on that works in similar way (pair of prims attached to avatar head placed over cheeks, think with blush texture applied to it and showing in response to defined keywords) ... pretty unusual approach but overall maybe indeed doable

wellthat wouldnt work it is not really a tatoo, more like clothes

(nice to see so many familiar faces on this thread!)

I can understand the pro-mod point of view, but this is yet one more point at which comparing SL to RL just doesn't help.

If we look at Real Life:

Say I buy designer suit... or have a wrist bracelet tattooed on.

I can (and will) take my arm or my armani to whomever I darned well please to have alterations, additions or removals done. And I won't be asking for original artist's consent to do so.

Skins and Clothing are different in SecondLife. They're visual images that could (and should be) considered Copyrighted by the original artist. Violating that copyright by reproducing the work (modified) but in it's entirety is certainly far more than just "fair use", (which allows for, what, 20% of the original work?)

I'm not sure where and how copyright law comes into play with regards to RL tattoos... When the you are the canvas, does that trump the ownership of the ink? I think it'd be hard to consider a tattoo as anything but "for personal use only" regardless of the copyright issues that may arise.


In any case, I think anything that relies on backdoor exploits can't be considered an ethical pratice. It's just better if those exploits are closed instead.

What was once a good idea (for presumably a majority of ethical people) got spoiled by a few bad apples. Here are the main reasons I no longer sell client side skins in order of importance.

1. The overhead was too steep. It required a full time employee besides myself to fill requests and provide customer assistance. I paid the bills for the FTP transfers and wrote the custom installers.

2. More than just a few customers chose to ignore the license agreement they accepted, and they distributed free full permissions copies of my work back into SL (just because they could).

3. I lost most of my sales because of #2. Without the support of a loyal customer base, it just doesn't work. Sorry!

This doesn't mean I no longer support my old product. Quite the opposite. Just today I answered a technical question about them, and I also give old customers in good standing one time backups of the previous skins. People are highly encouraged to make a single backup onto CD ROM for themselves.



Jen brings me to my second point - What does one do in the face of almost certain IP theft? With GL Intercept being a household name thanks to a few people who are unable to justify thier actions any better than a cat that scratches the rug after pooping on it, we are left with few options.

One such option, without the support of LL and extra texture layers (GTL's) is the word it's self - "options, options, options". All I ask is that people buy my base skin just ONCE. After that, they are golden. They can mix, match, and buy the optional custom textures for a fraction of the skin cost for as long as SL lasts, or as long as I last in SL, whichever is longer. I've been involved with SL for 2.5 years, so it's probably a good risk . BTW, my employee, Cierrah Blair, currently takes 100% of the profits for the custom makeover orders. I've known her personally for 3 years, and she is currently the only one I trust with my layered skin files and makeover textures. She has already done numerous custom orders involving tattoo overlays, so it's not a far stretch to form partnerships with the RIGHT PEOPLE as Chip, Jen and others have suggested.

I'd like to applaud Chosen, Chip, Sezmra and others for thier voices in helping people understand IP rights. Ripping textures out of SL and modifying them without the permission of the original IP holder is just plain illegal, period.

Contrary to popular belief, GL Intercept is not capable of giving any would be thief the exact same texture that the original IP holder has. There is compounded artifacting because of lossy compression, and there is no alpha information (that has to be reconstructed). It behooves the discerning customer to get it from the original source no matter what.

If we do get GTL's the options for all skin owners (and people who want to develop add-on products) will expand exponentially. I think it would be a great thing for everyone, designers and end-users alike. I hope LL decides to leak some details about the avatar enhancements they're working on soon (preferably before it shows up in the release notes). I think we all want our customers to have as many options as possible, beyond what any one of us can create alone, and to bring back the makeup and tattoo markets which thrived before custom skins came along and stole those texture slots.

Just wanted to pipe in with a "Wow! great discussion!" As a designer in SL that creates her own textures it has been an increasing worry on how to protect myself. I am here to have fun and relax and enjoy the creative outlet it provides for me, not worry about my artwork being stolen.

I have even been looking into copyrighting but it irks me to think I even have to consider it.

To see so much community gathered on the side of integrity, ethics and just plain doing what''s right warms my heart!

<3