Eliot Eloh Skin Templates Legit?

[floweryflower]

Are these skin templates legit?  Is it legal and OK for Second Life users to use these templates?

See:

https://sites.google.com/site/another/resources

[chrismignon McDonnell]

This is a skin used by many people, lot of people selling this on SLMarket

Read License https://github.com/eloheliot/another/blob/12d0954235999b20cf06a0beb28ac134c7d78e42/COPYING

[PeterCanessa Oh]

Eliot Eloh does wonderful work, an alt of mine wears one of her skins.  They are legitimate.

[Rolig Loon]

Eloh Elliot's skin templates have been around for ages.  They've been used by many people and have been recognized by the Lindens as a great resource.  For example, here's an excerpt from a meeting transcript from 2008...

[2008/10/09 13:03] Ash Meersand: Torley, do you plan on any skin making tutorials any time soon?
[ ...]
[2008/10/09 13:03] Torley Linden: Ash, no plans, but i'm open to doing it if someone else doesn't step in. problem with those is they may be better suited for mixed media or still pictures (of which i've seen some tutorials), since... high resolution is important.
[2008/10/09 13:04] Torley Linden: in the meantime i recommend looking at educational resources like Eloh Eliot's fantastic templates.

[Perrie Juran]

The question at hand is whether one can now upload/use/sell/give away/etc skins made with Eloh's Templates in SL.

Eloh chose to use the MIT license rather than the BSD:

"

+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person

+obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation

+files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without

+restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,

+copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell

+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the

+Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following

+conditions:

Because he allowed for "sub licensing" I'd think there would be no reason Skins made with his templates would not be OK.

But a question has been asked elsewhere about what license info/credits needs to be included with a skin made with the software?

Distributing a skin made with the software is not the same as distributing the software itself.  I'm not required for instance to state that I use photoshop to edit an image I made.  But if I make a skin based on his templates, do I need to credit him for this?

(I hope I've made sense here).

 

[floweryflower]

Also, can we use the templates and derivative exports/copies as references in work made without using Eloh images?  For example, using the image in the background (like the texture body maps) then deleting them before exporting the final work?

Or, can we apply filters to the work, then delete the original template, and use the images created by the filter?

[Rolig Loon]

These are good questions.  I am not a lawyer and will not pretend to offer anything more than personal opinion.  My feeling, however, is that it is probably not necessary to credit Eloh's templates, just as you are not obliged to credit Robin Wood's template or Chosen Few's several tools or -- as you point out -- Photoshop. If I use an architect's drawings to build my house in RL, I do not need to acknowledge his contribution when I sell the house later. I would not be selling the drawings, but a house created with them. To get a definitive opinion, though, you'll have to hire a lawyer.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Rolig Loon wrote:

These are good questions.  I am not a lawyer and will not pretend to offer anything more than personal opinion.  My feeling, however, is that it is probably not necessary to credit Eloh's templates, just as you are not obliged to credit Robin Wood's template or Chosen Few's several tools or -- as you point out -- Photoshop. If I use an architect's drawings to build my house in RL, I do not need to acknowledge his contribution when I sell the house later. I would not be selling the drawings, but a house created with them. To get a definitive opinion, though, you'll have to hire a lawyer.

---

That's my feeling also.  And I'm not a lawyer either.

The specific problem that's been presented deals with section 1.3 of the TOS:

"....as to that User Content [that you submit], (a) you are the sole author and owner of the intellectual property and other rights to the User Content, or you have a lawful right to submit the User Content and grant Linden Lab the rights to it that you are granting by this Agreement and any Additional Terms (as defined in Section 2.2 below), all without any Linden Lab obligation to obtain consent of any third party and without creating any obligation or liability of Linden Lab;"

Even though the software appears to be licensed for use in SL, if an acknowledgement is required you can't create an obligation for LL to acknowledge it.

But I still fall back on my Lay Persons feelings, anything created with the software does not require an acknowledgement.

But like you said, for a definitive answer you'd need to ask a lawyer.

 

[floweryflower]

I think its not a problem because I've decided to do something else anyway.  I'll need help from other people but I'll make a separate post so as not to be disobeying LL forum rules.

[floweryflower]

What I want to know is whether we can use Eloh Eliot's files as reference to make a new template.  I am creating a template with each layer based on a layer in Eloh Eliot's skin, but I am deleting all of her layers.  Is this legally fine, or is this still considered her file if I do this?  It's basically like tracing.