Am I allowed to do this? Buy dae and change it up in blender? and sell with full perm

[Conceded]

So I was wondering if I am able to buy a dae mesh template from marketplace and use it as a starter mesh in blender and fix it up and sell it with full permissions? I bought a mesh and the terms are:

1.You may not re-sell or give away the mesh templates with full permissions. 
2.You may not re-sell or give away the work resulted from the mesh templates with full permissions.

So if I bought it am I able to put it in blender and fix it up and make my own dress? using that mesh as a starter? for example I bought a long dress that was to the ankles but I made it shorter up to above the knees and I made it backless and changed some other stuff about it and it looks like a new dress. I made my own UV, Shadow map, ao map, ect. for it also. So it was like I made it from scratch but I just used her dress as a starter to help me out a bit. Can I still sell the mesh that I finished and spent almost a whole week on, working on it, with full permissions for others to buy it? It's not HER dress that i'm selling it's the dress I fixed up to make it look like a whole different dress. Also I think the terms are just meant for texturing... it never really said anything about changing it up and making it look like a new dress in blender. 

[Freya Mokusei]

Your work is a derivative of the original, therefore I would say that no, you cannot discard the license you agreed to when purchasing the template. With templates, it's assumed that you're not going to release it 'as is', the terms extend regardless of what you do with the licensed item.

It inherits ALL conditions of the original items license as long as you use their work.

I'm not a lawyer, but you'd almost certainly have to have the change to the license confirmed in writing (from the original creator), allowing you to sell your new work as full permission. Otherwise you're breaking those license terms, which are clear (especially point 2. in your post).

[Pamela Galli]

1) How did you get it out of SL and into Blender in the first place?

 

2) "So it was like I made it from scratch but I just used her dress as a starter to help me out a bit." is like saying "So I made this cake from scratch but I just used this box of cake mix to help me out a bit."

From scratch means not using anything "as a starter to help me out a bit".

 

 

 

[Jake Koronikov]

If your licence says:

1.You may not re-sell or give away the mesh templates with full permissions. 
2.You may not re-sell or give away the work resulted from the mesh templates with full permissions.

 

==> You can sell the resulted work in any other form but absolutely not as copy/mod/trans (full perm).

This means you can modify and texture it and sell it for example as copy/mod/no-trans, copy/no-mod/trans, no-copy/mod/trans and so on. As long as one permission parameter is "no". Rigged mesh clothes are usually sold as copy/no-mod/no-trans.

I would guess that most of those full perm .dae files are also not allowed to be sold as copy/trans. But that should be found in the licence.

[Chic Aeon]

Well the obvious thing to do if you are in doubt and want the REAL answer is to ask the original maker.

I too am wondering how you got that mesh into blender assuming you did not purchase the DAE file.

 

Hmmmmmm?

 

Also any work built on the work of others seems to be against the current infamous terms of service . 

Texture the dress and sell it as retail. Using her dress as a starter means you used all the weight painting which as far as I can see is the REALLY HARD PART at least I never got it right at Cloud Party HOHO. 

[Antumbra]

Because I did purchase it. After you buy it she gives you a download link to go download the obj, and dae files. 

[Pamela Galli]

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Antumbra wrote:

Because I did purchase it. After you buy it she gives you a download link to go download the obj, and dae files. 

---

ok

[Cathy Foil]

If you really did change the dress so much that it is unrecognisable from the original the person who you bought the DAE file and OBJ file from would have a very very hard time proving that it was a derivative from their original work.

If enough changes are made to the original there does come a point that the original content creator licensing agreements become unenforceable.  They may be legally in the right and you in the wrong but they can not prove it to a court of law.

From what I understand is most people who sell thing full permission like this just don't want someone making little or no changes and turning around and selling it with full permission.

Personally I like the way IMVU does derivative works.  There are no problems like this and the original content creators always get their fair cut from every sale.  Derivative works can not be sold for less than what the original content creator sold the original for as well.  This basically mean while, what we call full perm, sells for relatively very little to start with all those who are selling derivatives of the work the original content creator gets the same amount for all those sales as well.

 

[Dresden Ceriano]

So basically, you're saying that it's not right, but go ahead and do it anyway because chances are you won't me caught, right?  Lovely.

...Dres

[Monti Messmer]

No you are not allowed. Easy and straight.

It clearly says the original or the modified cannot be given away full perm.

If you feel like doing this it´s nothing else than simply give away the original and ignore the rules.

A crime doesn´t become illegal only after the police caught you. It is at the time it happens ;-)

Monti

[Cathy Foil]

I didn't say go ahead and do it.  I just said the reality of the situation.

This does bring up an interesting topic.  When does changing a mesh constitute a new design?

If you take a mesh head and move the vertices around so much as to make say a mesh hand out of it does the copyright for the head still hold for the new hand?

Basically you took one shape which was copyrighted and made a completely new shape.  The copyright is for the original shape yes the mesh has the same vertices just in different places now so you could say there is still a connection to the original work but what if you retopologize the new hand making a completely new mesh?

You have made a new mesh based on a new shape not owned by the mesh head designer.

 

[Dresden Ceriano]

It seems to me that if a person possesses the skill in order to change the topography of a mesh head into that of a mesh hand, they could just as easily have started creating that hand from scratch in the first place, thereby avoiding licensing issues altogether.

That being said, you do bring up an interesting topic... one which I've discussed here before.  I remember, years ago, getting into a discussion about avatar shapes in which someone rather condescendingly suggested that people were wrong in stating that they made their own shape, if the shape they started off with was created by someone else.

My position was that, once a shape is changed so much that it's completely unrecognizable as the original person's creation, it would actually be doing that person a disservice to name them as the creator.  I know if I sold shapes and someone who bought one, then changed it into an unsightly mess, I wouldn't want them going around telling people I created that mess.

Of course, that discussion was about accreditation rather than licensing.  It's my position that, if you willingly purchase something under a restrictive licensing agreement, you should be vigilant in making sure that you follow that agreement to the letter.  There's really no way around that, unless you're entirely unscrupulous.

...Dres

[Cathy Foil]

I can definitely understand where you are coming from Dres and even agree with you on many points.

I would never recommend using someone else's mesh as a starter or making it a habit of using other peoples mesh as a starting place to then change it where it is unrecognizable so it can then be sold with full permission.

Where you and I differ is the point at which a Licensing agreement becomes unenforceable making it void.  I can buy a book which is copyrighted and take a pair of scissors and cut all the words out and rearrange them into completely new sentences creating a totally new story.  Does any licensing agreement or copyright still hold? Or is the sole owner of this new work the property of the person who cut the words up and rearranged them?

Courts definitely have looked at the source material and the new work and determined if the new work is definitely different enough to constitute a completely new work granting the new work it's own copyright to the new creator.

In this case the words are the individual vertex and the story is the original shape of the mesh.  Creating a new shape is analogous of creating a completely new story.  Since it is now a completely new shape selling it with full permission isn't directly competing or hindering the sales of the original mesh.

Licensing agreements can have all sorts of conditions and clauses that are not enforceable that leave the end user free from not having to follow them.  Say one of the causes or condition was that they had to jump up and down on one leg before being able to sell their mesh in Second Life.  Does that mean someone who physically can't jump should never sell their mesh in SL?  It is an unenforceable condition.  Of course they should go ahead and sell their stuff in SL even if they can't jump up and down.  Should those who can jump do it?  Sure they should.

The purpose of the original terms of the licensing agreement was so that the original mesh of the original content creator doesn't lose value on the Full Perm market.  A completely new shape that is unrecognizable from the original even if sold with full permission does not diminish the value of the original mesh.

I think the person who started this thread is a good person.  They are trying to clarify at what point is it OK to not follow the licensing agreement.  I think I have shown examples where there does indeed come a point where you don't have to follow them and that you are not a horrible person if at that point you don't.

[Pamela Galli]

Using your example to make Dres' point:  If you have the skill to write a whole new story with rearranged words, why would you not start writing your story from scratch?

What people do, tho, is lift whole paragraphs and insert them into their own stories or articles. 

 

The OP is using a template in order to leverage the work already invested by the template maker. That is what the template is for. But changing the template -- using it is a foundation upon which to make modifications -- does not negate the work done by the template creator, so the End User Agreement applies.

 

[Cathy Foil]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

Using your example to make Dres' point:  If you have the skill to write a whole new story with rearranged words, why would you not start writing your story from scratch?

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Just because something would be easier to do in a different way doesn't negate the point I was making.

 

There are people out there that make incredibly intricate and complicated works of art on Etch A Sketches that would have been much easier to do using pencils and paper so level of skill or ease is not an relevant issue.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Pamela Galli wrote:

What people do, tho, is lift whole paragraphs and insert them into their own stories or articles. 

 _________________________________________________________________________________________

Yes people sometimes do lift whole paragraphs but again this is irrelevant to my example of cutting up a book and rearranging the words.   I said to make a completely new story and sentences not rearrange paragraphs.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Pamela Galli wrote:

The OP is using a template in order to leverage the work already invested by the template maker. That is what the template is for. But changing the template -- using it is a foundation upon which to make modifications -- does not negate the work done by the template creator, so the End User Agreement applies.

 

---

Here we will have to agree to disagree.  We would really need an attorney or judge to clarify at what point a user licence agreement ends or is void under what circomstances.

Did you know that in the United States designers can not copyright real world clothing design or costum design or footware or car body design or furniture design?  They can however copyright the design in mesh.  They can trademark a logo which is why you see so many cothing designer stamp their logo all over the clothes and purses.  It is also why so many cars form different manufactures look so simular.

Did you also know that those items that can't be copyrighted those industries generate about 1000 time more money than all the copywritten work combined?  

[Dresden Ceriano]

You keep bringing up examples which have absolutely no bearing on the question which the OP originally asked.

Copyright and licensing agreements are two entirely different things.  Most EULA that you agree to when purchasing a template are perfectly clear.  When they specifically state that you can't use them in order to create your own, full-perm content, they mean just that.  It doesn't matter how much you change them... you simply can't do it... period.  There is no grey area where they're concerned, like there sometimes is with copyright or IP.

By confusing the two, you're doing the OP an injustice by making it far more complicated than it actually is, if not outright providing them with inaccurate information.

...Dres

[Cathy Foil]

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

You keep bringing up examples which have absolutely no bearing on the question which the OP originally asked.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

I beg to disagree.  I have already addressed the OP's question originally asked in my first reply.  The examples I been bringing up do definitely relate to the OP's questions.  The OP in their original post goes into quite a bit of detail of the changes they have made and the additions they added to the mesh and is quite clearly asking if the changes and additions are enough to their dress to be considered a new piece of work not needing to follow the licensing agreement.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

Copyright and licensing agreements are two entirely different things.  Most EULA that you agree to when purchasing a template are perfectly clear.  When they specifically state that you can't use them in order to create your own, full-perm content, they mean just that.  It doesn't matter how much you change them... you simply can't do it... period.  There is no grey area where they're concerned, like there sometimes is with copyright or IP.

By confusing the two, you're doing the OP an injustice by making it far more complicated than it actually is, if not outright providing them with inaccurate information.

...Dres

---

You are right licensing agreements and copyrights are two different things. 

My examples have been of taking existing work and making so many changes that the new work is just that new.  I bring up copyrights because it is that that gives the creator legal control over it in this case licensing agreements.  

If the OP's dress was to be considered to be new piece of work and thus granting the new content creator copyright over it. That would make the licensing agreement null and void to the best of my understanding of copyright law.  So yes bringing up copyrights is valid in this discussion.

It is clear that you and other believe that no matter how many changes or how much you add to such a template would it never void the original licensing agreement.  I however am not quite so sure and believe that there most likely is such a point.  My hunch, and I am not a lawyer or judge, is it most likely happens when the mesh becomes unrecognizable from the original.

I am not giving, to the best of my knowledge, inaccurate information.  I been open and honest that these are just my opinion and that I am neither a lawyer or judge.  I am not over complicating the situation because it is most likely not as cut and dry as some would like to think it to be.

Ask any attorney.  In law be it contracts or licensing agreements are hardly ever Iron Clad.  It is because of this so many contracts and legal documents are so long and complicated.

I could put up on the MarketPlace a beautiful mesh for free but one that has terms stated that buy buying this mesh you agree to never sell in SL or the MarketPlace anything ever and if you do you must pay me a million dollars.  Would those terms hold up in court?  My layman's guess is no they would not.  I am not sure why they wouldn't.  My terms are not requiring the buyer to do anything illegal.

My point I am trying to make is you can put anything in agreement terms or licenses but it doesn't automatically make those agreements binding under all circumstances at least I don't think so.....  By reading this you agree to pay me a million dollars United States Currency whether you finished reading this sentence or not....

[Dresden Ceriano]

I'll say this one last time, then I'm done.  People simply must to abide by that to which they've agreed, otherwise, what they're doing is wrong.  It matters not what a court of law may or may not find... the question is that of scruples, not legal ramifications.

...Dres

[Cathy Foil]

I 100% agree with you Dres from the perspective of scruples.

The OP in their original post didn't ask specifically for responses on grounds of scruples though I think it was very good of you and other to do so bringing it to the OP's attention.

The reason I been so active in replying here is I am actually getting ready to enter the Full Perm mesh clothing market selling Full Perm mesh clothing I have made from scratch.  I am sure this type of issue is going to come up and I really needed to figure out how I am going to deal with it and how I am going to word my User License.

I have come to the conclusion that in my Licensing agreement my wording will be very similar to the wording the OP (Original Poster) said the agreement was when they bought the template they were using but I am going to add one extra term.

I am going to add that if the user changes the mesh so much that it is unrecognizable from the original and that they create their own UVs and their own textures they are now free to sell it without any of the aforementioned restrictions.

My bet is the OP and others will more likely buy my Full Perm items and it will generate more good will which will produce more sales from even those who were not planning on selling full perm versions.

I thank you Dresden, Pamela and the others for adding your thoughts, information and opinions to this topic.

[Gaia Clary]

---

Cathy Foil wrote:

I am going to add that if the user changes the mesh so much that it is unrecognizable from the original and that they create their own UVs and their own textures they are now free to sell it without any of the aforementioned restrictions.

---

I wonder how you are going to measure "unrecognizable from the original" ?

[Cathy Foil]

Good question!

Mainly if it is a different shape than the original.  The more original and unique the design of my full perm item is the more someone will have to change their design but if the template is a more simple and basic design like a T-Shirt the less someone would have to change.

It probably be best if I add to the terms that they submit to me photos or a copy of their design so I can take a look and decide.  This way when I respond in writing that it is indeed unrecognizable from the original the new creator will have written proof from me that they have satisfied the terms.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention Gaia.

Unrecognizable is subjective and getting my approval and opinion in writing as evidence if it is so is a good idea since I would be the one who would be pursuing an action against the buyer of my template.

[Gaia Clary]

I still see some problem here:

 

1. When you are doing a great job with your Templates, then you will eventually become popular, so you hopefully will get a growing user base and thus you might end up getting more and more requests for approval. Of course you could then setup a fee for "checking elegibility for classification as non related work" or so... But i believe you not realy want to do that :matte-motes-sour:
2. Since you do only have a subjective measurement, some of your customers might start complaining with "why the other creator got approval, but not me ?" and again end up in extra work that probably was not foreseen.
3. Maybe your templates are based on general 3D modelling principles, so it may be possible that other creators use similar principles and might end up with very similar artwork which "could have been derived from your templates" but actually just look similar incidentally... This happens all so often...

Because all of this i personally tend to offer templates (and any other kind of knowledge content) with a very liberal license, like CC By0 for example which lets your customers do whatever they want. For example the Machinimatrix rights&duties tells that any content based on our courses, tutorials or example files is "customers own content" unless our demos contain third party content in which case the third party license agreement counts as well.

Here is our rights&duties page:

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/rights_and_duties/

and of course this is just an opinion and is not lawyer proof by any means :matte-motes-sunglasses-3:

[Cathy Foil]

You're bringing up some very good potential problems that I need to consider Gaia.
I really appreciate your input and thoughts.

1.  You are right if I become successful I may be spending more time than I like looking over approval request.  That's the bad news.  The good news it would mean my items are selling well.  Kinda like taxes.  Bad news is the pain in having to figure out your taxes and pay then.  Good news is your making money so you can actually pay taxes.

I agree with you I don't think I should charge a setup fee.  

2.  Probably the best way to handle an unhappy customer, if I have rejected their work as not being unrecognizable enough, and they complain I have given others approval, I would ask them to send me links to these others and take a look and look at the rejected mesh again.  I'd explain everyone has a bad day and perhaps I did judge them too harshly if indeed I had approved others that were similar.  Of course I would tell them what I think they need to change or do extra to get my approval.  I also agree with you that this may take more extra time than I currently think it might.  Won't really know till I try.

3.  I know how to hide little details that would be a dead giveaway if someone had used my templates and hadn't bothered to make their mesh unrecognizable.  I also agree that there are only so many ways you can layout the vertices on sort of generic clothing.  It really won't take much for anyone to take any full perm mesh and edit it and upload it with a different account than the one they bought the full perm mesh and get away with it.  

I would definitely have to be 100% sure it was my template they had used.  If I wasn't I wouldn't say or do anything.  I have seen others here on the Mesh Forums raise big stinks over what they thought were mesh that had been stolen from them to only find out shortly after that is wasn't.  They ended up hurting their own reputation and may have lost more money over it than they would have even if the mesh had been stolen and they never said anything.

It has been my experience that people who want to steal or cheat are lazy.  Lazy people rarely stay in business or SL for very long.  They get board and move on fairly quickly or end up getting caught sooner or later and end up banned.

I have found that vast majority of people are honest.  Some have made mistakes and end up doing something against the TOS or copyrights without realizing it.  I know I have.  So I tend not to judge people so harshly and realize that life is more often shades of gray than being black and white.

Here's something interesting.  The following is true for real life sculptures and I am assuming is also true for mesh.  Did you know that if you make a mesh using photos off the Internet or any other source as references,  even if the object itself isn't copyrightable like furniture, is a copyright violation?  The furniture design isn't copyright protected but the photograph is.  So making a mesh copy of what is in the photo is illegal.

The way to legally do it would be to take your own photos of a piece of furniture you wanted to reproduce in mesh.  Then it would be legal.

I am working with a partner so your third party information and link are really going to prove invaluable.  I am definitely going to spend a good amount of time studying them.   I really appreciate it.  Thank you!

[Jake Koronikov]

When a derivative work created from the original is considered to be "new work"? The question seems to be complex, there is no simple answer.

US Copyright Office has given some considerations about this:

    "A typical example of a derivative work received for registration in the Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published material. This previously published material makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law. To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a "new work" or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example, are not copyrightable."

There is no exact definition for the border line when a new work is not anymore considered as original. There is also other aspects. SL is definetely not only playground for US residents. In a case where (for example) Chinise resident uses Brazilian resident's copyrighted material that is located in a server based in US. Definetely a law case that no-one would like to get involved in. No matter on whitch side you are, you probably loose.

I tried to figure out in my mind a non-SL situation where this kind of dae-file licence issue would  be possible.

DAZ3D is a company where same kind of issues may arise. Their commercial 3D models can be used in a such way that the customer sells the model in competition with DAZ3D itself. The reason is about same as in SL - a closed community and closed software solutions for models. Closed markets.

I found their official forum post regarding this. And they propably have encountered exactly same huge difficulties in defining when a model is derivative and when not.

Here is the post: https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/entries/123984-DAZ-3D-s-stance-on-distributing-derivative-models

I can read between the lines that DAZ3D lawyers have not been able to give any exact answers

[Cathy Foil]

Definitely some good food for thought Jake.

I went to the link posted for DAZ3D and read everything there.  While reading I kept one thing in mind that I remember reading someplace about mesh and copyright.

When a mesh is copyrighted it is the shape of the mesh that is copyrighted not the vertices or your layout our positions.  So just changing the size of the mesh which would change the XYZ coordinates does not change the basic shape of the mesh.

It also mean modeling techniques like retopologizing or shrink warping or saving it in different formats since it does not change the basic shape of the model the copyright is still intact.

Adding new mesh on top of the original shape does not constitute new work but a derivative the original copyright would still stand for the original shape, though any mesh added if original can be copyrighted though, the entire work would be considered a derivative work still subject to the control of the original copyright holder.

Frankensteining which is a practice of taking bits and pieces of different mesh models and putting them together would still be considered a derivative work from many sources since these are just bits and pieces of shapes that have been already copyrighted.

Now if my memory is correct and it is the shape that is copyrighted by editing a mesh so the shape is no longer the same as the original the new shape in and of itself is a new work creating a new copyright for the creator of that new shape.

Now morally and ethically if a template was use which had in the user agreement that anything created with that template can not be sold full perm then the new mesh even though it has it's own copyright and would not be considered a derivative work it should not be sold with full permission.

That said however, and I don't know the answer I am not a lawyer, it may be possible to legally sell the new mesh with full permission.  I really like to know the answer to this so I know just how much my own user agreement I am going to write will protect.