Genuinely Free Animations?

Beginning furniture makers or experimenters often don't have the money and / or confidence yet to invest in buying licenced animations.

We all know from this weekend the débacle that can ensue when what appear to be "bargain-priced" licenced animations fall into their hands.

I'm trying to make a list of animations that float around in freebie circles (such as Yadni's) that they generally can count on to be legitimately free, unpirated animations for them to use without being bitten in the arse one day for having done so.

Here's my list so far, and my thoughts. Any contributions / corrections / etc appreciated.

Genuine freebies
Butcher Cassidy (confirmed in conversation)
Chip Midnight (confirmed in conversation)
Damien Fate (confirmed in conversation)
Emma Thorn (confirmed in conversation with CL 3 August 200
Fleabite Beach (confirmed in conversation with CL 5 June 200
linkin Slate (confirmed in conversation)
Ulrika Zugzwang (from her profile)
YadNi Monde (confirmed in conversation)
Yuriko Nishi (confirmed in conversation with CL 5 June 200

Animators whose stuff always requires a licence
Animator Ragu
Beau Perkins
Bella Beleza
Ben Stravinsky
Cita Boa
Craig Altman
Damen Gorilla
Dylan Rickenbacker
fana dechou
Furr Burt
Johan Durant
loufa Shilova
Medhue Simoni
Michael Somerset
mikeD Streeter
Natalie Oe (confirmed in conversation with CL 13 Aug 200
Nya Raymaker / Jolly Lovenkraft (confirmed in conversation with CL 13 Aug 200
Nytemyst Grace
Owain Raymaker (confirmed in conversation with CL 13 Aug 200
Parsalin Gullwing
Sandy Clymer
Sin Toshi
Siryn Rosse (confirmed here in this thread 13 Aug 200
store Allen
suzi sohmers
Tara Bournemouth
trebbort subagja
Varon Kappler
Zoe Biggles

Animators who never licence their stuff [1]
Abramelin Wolfe
Cheree Bury (confirmed in forum)
Darkness Anubis
Desiree Bisiani (and Cheewha Palen)
Flip Fitzsimmons
Hol ALexander
jamie Cheeky
Jennifer Brennon
Lizz Silverstar
niknak Bugaboo
Paul Llewelyn
Paul Lobo
Phil Deakins
Ravanne Sullivan
Renee Irwin
Riann Maltese

Animators who produce both licenced and freebie stuff [2]
Darien Caldwell (confirmed in conversation)
Deira Llanfair (confirmed in forum)
Ferran Brodsky (confirmed in conversation)
Indika Herbst (confirmed in conversation)
Lear Cale (confirmed in conversation)
LordJason Kiesler (confirmed in conversation)
Starlight Kiesler (confirmed in conversation)

Animators who released some freebies in the past but now never licence their stuff [3]
Neo Virgo (confirmed in conversation with CL 5 July 200
Owain Raymaker (confirmed in conversation with CL 13 Aug 200
Shukran Fahid (confirmed in conversation with CL 24 Aug 2008. Please do not contact him about these freebies as he is no longer in possession of them; you must obtain them from somewhere else. And, they are not supported.)

Creator no longer exists [4]
Cid Jacob
Eva Capalini

Status Uncertain (IM'ed / emailed a minimum of 3 times, but no response. Attempts to contact them have been abandoned.)
Cristiano Midnight
Dyonis Blanc
Gwinivere Grayson
Kiari LeFay
Kris Gullwing
Launa Fauna
Michael Firefly
Princess Medici
Remo Yossarian
stephenpaul Bliss (reportedly no longer active in SL; status of his animations uncertain.)
Vicious Volos


Sine Wave (various creators). Released the following genuine freebies: Lime Jelly, Hipster, We love you girl, and We love you boy. There is a full-perm version of Caramel circulating, but its release was accidental.
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FOOTNOTES
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[1] if you see these animations being used by anyone but them, they are likely pirated.

[2] You need to check with these animators when free stuff created by them comes into your hands.

[3] These people released some stuff as freebies in the distant past, but now only produce animations for their own use, and never licence any of these current ones out.

[4] An effort was made at clarification but no real determination of status was possible owing to the accounts having been deleted from SL. Use at your own risk.

/me slaps a "good idea" sticker on the thread

I guess you skipped the 'black list' animators, lol. I just bought a lil product called U Poser, I am thinking that I am going to try and make as much as I can regarding content I sell in the future. But i thought that poses and animations were hard to make, this lil product is making me think twice. Amazing really.

It is simultaneously easier than you think and harder than you think.

Easier to get started than you may have though, but much harder to perfect than you might expect given the good tools you might have.

But regardless, good luck.

And that's off-topic. On-topic, to the OP, keeping a status list for animation licensing is a great idea. My only concern is that if it's just kept in one of these forums, it will be buried after a few days and hard to find. I'd like to see it maintained in a way that people know it's there and can easily consult it if they are looking for it.

Agreed. But perhaps we can get a draft going here anyway, and then someone will come up with a place (dunno wiki somewhere?, a sticky in the animations forum?? dunno) where people will be likely to trip over it. I know! A notecard in a box, that you name "free animations / free lindens!" and drop off at a freebie centre! (just kidding :})

I don't know the procedure for getting a forum operator to make something sticky. (Maybe it depends entirely on whether I am a friend to a forum moderator or not.) But to me, if you can get it on a Sticky in the Animation forum, that seems like the most logical choice to put a list, one you've gotten it drafted.

Naw, could be do-able. But to make "truth in advertising" we'd need to put a full-perm prim effigy of a Linden in the box... along with a script in the effigy to make it burst into flames...

Oh yeah, keep forgetting to mention... a side benefit of a "genuinely free" list is that it could act as clue to newbies who the unscrupulous people are trying to flog boxes of them for 500 L :}

Here's another idea.

If there is a way to get a handle on listing the legitimately free content, it might be an idea to get the biggest providers of free content to at least post some information on how to figure out if the free thing you're getting is legal or not.

Information available with the biggest providers of freebies seems to be the best way to target good information to newbies.

Add Darkness Anubis, Paul Llewelyn, Flip Fitzsimmons, and Hol ALexander to the NEVER give a license tally. And in fact these animations are not for sale anymore AT ALL.

Why not make a wiki page so it can easily be updated by anyone and the whole thread doesn't have to be gone through?

Because then "anyone" could go in, edit stuff, and make it look like certain content that's floating around "for free", that shouldn't be, IS a legitimate freebie.

Which is the beauty of a wiki, there's a record of that, and it's ridiculously easy to undo such silly acts!

Yes, but what about innocent people who check it during the time it's been mangled, and go away with calm assurance about certain anims being free, only to discover later to their dismay they are not?

*Thank you* for this list! I've been slowly sorting all of the free animations I've obtained over the past year into folders by creator, and this will make it so much easier to label them useable or not.

I mooted the idea back in the 'SexGen Removed' thread of a group-maintained blog wherein lists like this could be kept (and kept updated, too, as new creators enter the market and older ones leave) for reference. A lot of users don't check the forums, but they *do* Google things like "full perm animations SL" so a blog might be more likely to come up in search results. If it was maintained by a committee of residents who could post to the blog, then the burden wouldn't fall on a single pair of shoulders.

Thoughts? Suggestions? (I'm about to head out to work, but will check up on this thread when I get home.)

Do you mean that animations by the people you list are always free for anyone to use in any way, or that nobody should ever have a copy/trans version?

Yes. Good point Anubis.

I've created a section called "Animators who never licence their stuff"

Great idea! Although I think it's preferable to go ahead and pay the money for legit stuff (aside from any warm fuzzies, if something is useful to me, it's a good idea to reward the creators, so they'll make more).

Yet I have no clue how to tell if what I'm buying is legit. For example, I'm a skin freak (nothing improves the look of your avatar more than a good skin), yet despite the fact that I've downloaded Eloh Eliot's *.psd files and have played around with them some, it takes me awhile to determine that a skin is just minor modifications to her files that I could do myself. Yeah, I know the seller is doing nothing illegal, just explaining how poor my detection skills are, even with respect to something I'm very familiar with (I haven't a chance with furniture/animations/scripts/pose balls). Then there's the drama over Minnu, who I don't think did anything wrong after reading the license agreement, but the fact it's an issue, does make one pause.

So I think it's a great idea for the player community to help identify what they think is safe to buy. It's no guarantee, of course, but it's better than nothing, since us end-users are being held responsible.

NO ONE should have an all perms version ever. We never released them that way and never will. In fact we are totally out of the business of animaitons. But our work was NEVER ever licensed to anyone.

You can add Abranimations and Abramelin Wolfe to the list of never license for resale, and if you see animations being sold as a copy item and not the original item being sold, it is unauthorized exploited content.

The couples animator v.2 that has been sold by content thieves and that is the subject of our current DMCA action is specifically identified as stolen exploited content.

EDITED NOTE: The only exception would be for some tinies animations that are free animations distributed in the Abranimations store and are permitted to be used however desired, but those are the only exception.

I second the Wiki concept: if nothing else, have it point to this thread.

But, since threads do disappear from time to time (not here, but elsewhere, when forum software gets updated), it might be a good idea to duplicate the info there.

If so, I recommend a two-column format, where each entry also lists the person who verified the information. If anyone posts someone else's name, we can quickly delete it out of hand. The number of people who verify entries will tend to be small, I suspect.

I will sign up to watch the page and help police it.

BTW, unfortunately I don't fit into any section, since I've made a few animations that I released as freebies.

Hi, I added Abramelin Wolfe to the list.

I wasn't sure how to add "Abranimations", as I'm not sure that would ever come through as an avatar creator name as an animation?

Good point.

I've made a sometimes free / sometimes not section.

Do you want to list the few that you have released as freebies?

(Granted, if they're mod, sometimes over time people may change the name of some of them --- still, it might spare you a few IMs at er, um, inconvenient times.)

Can you give some insight into why these anims are no longer for sale Darkness?

Rock