Notice regarding my Textures. Please Read.

All textures I have displayed in the objects I am selling, and will sell in the future, are fully licensed by me & only me. This means I purchased, with real world money, both the textures themselves and a license for their usage.

You in turn may only use the entity I create with the textures solely in the manner intended by me, and in accordance with the company and/or artist's allowances.

To be very, very specific: if you take any of my textures, whether in or out of an object, and with or without modifying the texture, you give or sell it to anyone, whether in-world or out, you are in violation of the license agreement. This is because you don't even hold a usage license. This applies to duplicates of the texture or its image generated by any means. And note whether you give/sell the texture, or buy/hold in your possession the texture, you are in violation of the license agreement - because you have no legal vehicle that allows you to have or use the textures.

Additionally, be advised that all the textures and their images are copyrighted. So if you modify them, you're also in violation of the copyright, in addition to violating the usage license.

Upon encountering this situation, I will provide Linden with a copy of my license agreement and full contact information for the company/artist. I will also contact the company/artist, and provide them with the details of the situation, as well as details on how they can access Second Life, and the exact location at which they can find the license and copyright violations. I will further provide the company/artist with Linden's information on copyright violations, and contact information for Linden Lab.

Thanks,
Candie Apple

Does your liscense agreement include the right to resell or distribute the works of these other copyright owners? It does not appear so from what you have said, and yet that is what you appear to be doing / preparing to do.

So, wait a minute. You put a large texture board up over your house which is free to copy in all respects, and now you're saying you didn't want people to use them? Or am I missing something else here?

Beware with the 'intended use' clause. You certainly must realize that every item you bring into SL you have the ability to flag in ways which present your absolute intended use for that item. If you have incorrectly flagged an item as modifyable, copyable, etc, then it is your intended use which is in error, not the end user. Second Life provides very appropriate systems for controlling just that, and i'd imagine it's not on accident.

Not trying to flame you or anything, I've flown by your house a few times and there's some great textures on that board, I just don't understand where this is suddenly coming from.

I sympathize with your plight Candie. Since SL really doesn't give us a way to lock down textures here's what I do. If I sell and object that I intend to leave modifiable I won't use any textures on it that I don't want getting freely distributed. Any texture that I want to be soley unique to me I only use on non-modifiable things.

I've also taken to naming my textures with (do not reuse or distribute) or (distribute freely) tacked on. When you've got a hundred or so textures it becomes impossible to remember where they came from or if I was told it was okay to reuse it or not. That way if someone copies it off an object and wants to use it or give it away, they will know beyond any doubt that I don't want them to do it. They probably will anyway of course ;P

If selling textures is your primary money maker... good luck. Until they add in texture permissions it's really not a very viable way to make money because once they're out there people WILL give them away.

Ama -

I'm sorry you don't understand what I wrote.

Thanks,
Candie

hrmmmm....

I think we have to add a "I found it first" clause to the community standards... o.O

si -

No, I'm not referring to the textures you're referring to.

No, I didn't say I don't want people to use the free textures.

Yes, all my items are appropriately flagged.

Thanks,
Candie

Chip -

- None of my wings are modifiable, specifically to protect the textures.

- I don't sell textures.

Thanks,
Candie

I have no problem whatever with someone their own license and using the same textures as mine.

Thanks for your support,
Candie

I have re-read your post. And still here is what I see. It seems you are taking copyrighted material that you have a usage liscense for and selling it.

If you do indeed have the liscense etc to resell or redistribute the materials then anyone who buys or gains it from you inherently gains a usage liscense. Any one who buys or legitimatly acquires copyrighted materials is able to expect to have a usage liscense.

What you are saying is basicaly like this: Some artist sells me a bunch of their paintings but only gives me the usage liscense, non transferable. I then go and sell the pieces of art. Anyone who buys from me should be able to use it. It is expected. You are saying no, even though I sold it or gave it to you, you do not even have a usage liscense and can not use or distribute it.

I dunno this all just doesn't make sense to me. Especially why you are posting it on the forums and not just giving it via notecard to potential buyers of your stuff, or including it with your stuff.

Interesting, so by implication one must be wary to even take a snapshot/screenshot of any object with a licensed texture from you on it. Because if we accidentally gave it to someone else, we would be in violation.

Update:



Thought of something further while rereading your post...

Taking a snapshot could be considered a form of modification because I am adding your texture in an arrangement with other textures and digitally storing it. I'm not actually doing it, the SL client is, but I'm deciding that the snapshot should be taken. Thus I am using a tool to modify your texture. By that argument taking a snapshot/screenshot is a violation.

Coming soon in version 1.1 of SL, mandatory clickthrough EULAs for object purchase that are overly long and unreadable, with large portions of it IN CAPS.
Why do people confuse work with play?
I come here every night to relax, meet new and exciting people, not to build an empire. If I had the knowledge and ability to build an empire I would do it in my FL :|
Everything I make is free to copy and my sole regret is that I can't set a flag forbidding people from selling it.
Long live the gift culture. If I wanted to be surrounded by conflict, legalese and capitalist greed I wouldn't be looking for a second life in the first place.
Please, if you have issues with someone or some people adress them directly and let the rest of us keep pretending that the world is a happy place.

I'm not trying to stir the post more but....


If I buy a music cd I get a user license, to be able to play listen and so forth. If you read the fine print on any cd that is commercially backed by a record company it says that you can use for private use, not for public presentations. Also movie tapes and DvD's say this too.

Now I don't know what you license says but...I find it common practice that public useage or display is not allowed. Unless you have a redistribution claus in you agreement. In which case each person has the right to use in manners they see fit, with the exception of public display.

If you have a usage License, you could be violating it just by uploading it to a public forum such as SL. As you are putting the textures on Linden Lab servers. Thereby "shareing" the content. In Linden Labs Policy it states all materials uploaded become property of Linden Labs right?

My suggestion is send a copy of you original agreement to Linden Labs and let them see the legalities of having it on their servers. You could be inadvertantly be subjecting Linden Labs to violations if what you say is true in your agreement.

Also each state has different varying laws on this subject.
In which case LL could be held accountable do to you uploading and people even viewing your uploaded licensed textures across state lines.

I do not want LL do fall do to some legal blunder from any user's indescretion. Plz privatly discuss this with Linden Labs.

<<<shakes head ---mutters incoherently and saunders out of the thread....

Did you/the artist take a look at this clause of the Terms of Servcie for Second Life?


5.3 Participant Content. Participants can create Content on Linden's servers in various forms. Unless specified otherwise in your transmission, by submitting your Content to any area, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content worldwide and incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

The only thing I see is the "unless specified otherwise in your transmission", which if you can illuminate how you specified this in uploading the texture, please, ,I would be interested for my own purposes...

Well, I think this is just a little odd. This is just a video game, not a chance to make money IRL. I can understand people wanting textures they spent a lot of time on to be their own, but still. Copyrighting your textures seem to take it a bit far.

I think the whole point of this game is to create a community where people meet, build, have fun, and most importantly, share. Sure, we can sell stuff we have to others to make in game money, but that's the reward you are getting from it, in game money. I don't think copyrighting textures is a good idea, and if you had to pay for those textures, then you shouldn't have downloaded them to the server.

No matter what, everything in this game is meant to be shared and used by all others. That's the idea I got from this game.

Another thing is that if an artist wants their material copyrighted, then they shouldn't post it here. As stated in the terms of service that someone posted here eariler, the items and things uploaded to the server becomes the property of Linden Labs, unless you specify otherwise before uploading. I think this unless otherwise specified clause should be eliminated, because I don't think it keeps with the idea of this game. That's just the way I feel about this though.

LL has previously stated that they're working on adding in permissions for textures and scripts, but there's no ETA. Apparantly it's no small thing to implement. In the meantime it's just best not to upload any texture you don't want leaking out into the world and being used by others. Most of the time I don't think it's malicious... just people are forgetful of where they got any given texture unless it's stated in the name of the texture.

Most license agreements for texture libraries that can be purchased for use in 3d software allow the textures to be used freely in commercial work (applied to objects and rendered) but do not allow redistributing the raw texture files or trying to repackage and sell the collection, or electronically transmitting the raw texture files. Most likely uploading the texture onto the SL servers would be a violation as it would likely be considered a form of redistribution. Hard to say without reading the actual license agreement.

I don't get this at all. I have a texture for which I paid r/l money for a license to use and distribute (yup distribute). Someone takes that texture, applies it to an object, and sells it in SL.

I post to make sure that people know if they do that, they are taking a fully licensed product. A bit different arena from freebies downloaded off the internet.

And I get not one word of support. Rather, I get a string of questions and accusations regarding what *I* am doing. When I have gone out of my way - far more than the average person does - to ensure that I am not doing anything legally or ethically wrong.

I am an ethical person. I have never even come close to ripping off anybody in here. What the hell is in your heads to be so rude - no - so hostile and mean. What sorry lives you must lead.

Such a putrid crock of blame the victim.

I can't speak for anyone else Candie, but I intended my posts to be helpful *shrug*

Well, first i'll thank you for the personal attack, that was certainly lovely to see.

Second, we're trying to be informative here. You want something to be one way, but apparently did not investigate how things actually work.

I commend you on increasing the legally acquired artwork inside SL, and properly acquiring licenses and redistribution licenses, but as was pointed out, the SL Terms of Service indicate that by uploading them to SL at all, you grant reproduction rights to the game. The difference being in your case? You are actually legally able to do that.

While there may be a partial flaw in the fact that SL is too "open" or "shared", that's where it's beauty comes from. The world there is very open, built to work in a specific way, so we don't have to worry about things like copyright squabbles and intellectual property.

Thus is the way of the world. Now, if you're going to unleash a chain of personally oriented insults at everyone who responds to a forum thread, I suggest you may want to not bother posting in the future, as it will certainly get your posts ignored, or worse in some cases.

You need to be clearer on what you want, what has happened and what you are doing then.

This is what it appears from your last post is the real case:

You have a liscense to redistribute some piece of copywrited artwork. You attach it in SL and distribute it. Another person takes it and sells it themselves. I agree that is wrong and not legal.

However, the person who bought it does have a usage liscense implicitly if not explicity. That is where you got me and why I responded. You are trying to say that the person who obtained it from you has no rights whatsoever with it and that simply can not be true.

I believe it must be the case that they do not have the right to redistribute it. But they do have the right to use it. The real meaning of owning a liscense to distribute is that you have the permission and the right to grant others usage right liscenses. If you don't, then you do not have a liscense to redistribute.

I can and do understand that people shouldn't be able to take it and sell it themselves. In this case I think maybe the ingame 'buy' feature is not the best way to sell your items. I think they should be required to talk to you first so you can make sure to explain it to them since it is a special case.

I'd like to take this time to apologize to Candie, as I had a conversation with her in game through IM's about the subject. She hadn't made the situation clear to most of us, so we didn't understand the whole situation. Even though my posts weren't meant to be an attack, it may have inadvertently came across as one.

But, as I said before, people shouldn't have to liscence the stuff they get in game. That's what this game is about, the users building the world. While Candie can go out and do whatever she wants, such as obtaining a licence for a texture and using it in game, I think that is does go against what the devs were trying to do.

Once again, this is not an attack against Candie. I think that we should, insted of looking outside the game, find a good artist to do the textures so that person can focus on building. This will keep those legality issues for licenses out of the way.

Now, I know I can't just proclaim that, and it happens, otherwise, everyone would be proclaiming things left and right, but i'd like people to work towards that.

We can't control what other people do, if someone is intent on taking a texture, then they are going to take it, or if someone wants a specific texture, then they are going to obtain the license for that texture, but that's one thing that's going to need to be worked out.

Once again Candie, i'm sorry it sounded like I attacked you, I was simply trying to get my point across as to why I think licensed stuff shouldn't be in game.

< Insert amazingly supportive comment here >

Xavier

Ok, I support what ever your diong Candie. But can I point out that in the start of the thread you were talking about concequences? Might I have you before taking legal actions to try and solve the problem yourself? Ask the person kindly not to use the texture? I don't know about anyone else, but I personally would appreciate it. I don't nessicarliy like it when some type of athority come knocking on my door and noone has told me why.

Like I said before. I support what your doing. Think it just came off as rather harsh, and like I said. Try dealing with the problem yourself first. Then if the offending party doesn't wish to comply, take it from there. Again, just a thought.

-Skippy