texturing a sculpty

[Josh Susanto]

(continued)

> It doesn't matter what it started out as if it's no longer at all recognizable.

That makes sense. So if an image can't be recognized as originating from one specific image or collection of images as opposed to some other, it's not recognizable...(?).

>That's a far cry from what you offered to do with the fireplace example, though, which is the kind of thing we've been talking about this whole time.

How would you feel about me sculpting a fireplace that could just as be plausibly derived from any of several images?

 >So there are criminals in your country, and your justice ministry isn't particularly effective. What does that have to do with what YOU choose to do yourself?

There are also plenty of jobs in narcotraffic and money laundering. I'm chosing not to look into that, although any government connections I can make would be my first place to look for that. 

 >>This is called "deviant globalization".

>Yes, and it's a term meant to describe criminal behavior. Is that really what you want to be associated with?

If you live in the U.S., you live in a country run by crooks. If you don't see it, that's only because they've stolen the legal system. Re-install some kind of constitutionally compliant government, and then maybe I can begin to take more seriously the the moral admonitions you can so far continue to afford to provide to me.

 >Josh Susanto wrote:

>If my fellow Americans and other people in the Global North don't want me to participate in it, maybe they shouldn't have constructively deported me to the Global South.

>There you go again, blaming everybody else for your own actions.

All I did was fail to pay extortion to the U.S. State Department beyond what their own policy statements indicated was necessary.

>Deporting you somehow forces you to go into those stores and buy those pirated DVD's? Sure.

The issue wasn't me, but my wife. I chose to honor my marriage vows over compliance with an apparently endless process of bait-and-switch.

>By the way, if I were to play the semantics game that you seem to love so much, I might point out that If you were indeed deported, then you were never a US citizen, which means you don't have "fellow Americans".

I said I was constructively deported. Meaning, I decided not to abandon my wife, who had done nothing wrong. I am a US Citizen. I'm descended from 6 people on the Mayflower, a Salem witch, numerous soldiers in all major conflicts and people who built or invented stuff you take for granted every day. 

I will return to the US when I get nostalgic for the sensation of a door being slammed in my face while another one is hitting me in the ass. Thankfully, I was able to use my last SL cash-out to become a permanent resident here.

My wife and I do not buy such DVD's. There's plenty else to watch. But core of the matter is not that I think I'd be taking food out of someone's mouth in the U.S.. The core of the matter is that I don't want to possibly support organizations here that do things like put car bombs in front of shopping malls.

OTOH, the kind of absolute proactive compliance you seem to advocate, I consider to be mostly a way for the crooks who run your country to squelch small-time competitors.

 Josh Susanto wrote:

They uphold either nothing or close to nothing, apparently.

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>Sorry to hear that. But what your government does or doesn't choose to uphold has no bearing on what you as an individual choose to do. Nobody's forcing you to be a pirate. You made that choice entirely yourself. You can just as easily choose not to be one.

I must continue to disagree with your terminology as long as there is no specific example. 

In terms of what I actually do, whatever it is, I might ask what you would do and what you would not do to protect your wife and child from long-term financial instability.

Josh Susanto wrote:

That does give me something to consider. But, at this rate, if I eventually get extradited to the US, it will more likely be for defaulting on student loans. Meanwhile, all I have for anyone to seize in the US would pretty much be in my Second Life account.

---

>Again, you're focusing on potential consequences instead of on the rights of the people whose work you've stolen. I sincerely hope that one day you grow more of a conscience.

Potential consequences are more concrete, or at least less abstract. I might be able to focus more on other stuff when I've more effectively beaten back the threat of total financial implosion to my family.

>As for your student loans, do you realize that by not paying them back you're not only stealing from the lender who helped you get your education, but also from every other student who will now have a harder time getting a loan because of you? Does that not bother you at all?

I don't like it. It's my intention to pay all of it when possible, in spite of my belief that I was fraudulently induced. I'm not stealing, though. The possibility of my default was one of the variables for which the lender calculated, or should have calculated when they made the loan. If the company remains profitable, then the formula is just fine. If the company is not profitable, then someone other than me miscalculated, and was paid to do so. If the company is at loss by a difference smaller than the amount of my loan, I suppose I might have more reason to feel bad about it. But they haven't said anything like that. In fact, while I was making not enough money to be required to pay up for almost 10 years, rather than help me find a better job, they instead sent me thousands of emails trying to convince me to take more loan money to buy a house and a car (which I did not do). The whole appearance in not that they intended to get me to pay up, but, rather, that they are in the business of producing negotiable debt instruments they can sell to some other company (which they now have). The degrees I got with the loans are useless, and they should have had some idea about that when they made the loan. Nonetheless, it's my intention to pay if possible, just for my own sense of satisfaction. In the meantime, I respect their right to police their end of the contract by garnishing wages I don't make where they can garnish them and to seize funds in my nonexistent accounts. Maybe they can also reposess the car and foreclose on the house, both of which I didn't buy.

 >Josh Susanto wrote:

If LL does not hold the copyright, then they assume the copyright is held elswhere. What if it isn't?

>I'm not sure I understand the question. If there's no copyright, then the whole thing is a non-issue, as anyone can do whatever they want with the work.

Well, then. On any specific image I've used, how can you be sure that anyone still holds copyright?

 Josh Susanto wrote:

>>I use my own work, but do not assert copyright over it. If someone wants to claim that it's subject to their copyright due to its derivative nature, I'm all ears.

>Derivatives are not your own work. By definition, they're the property of the owner of the original.

Except for the derivative which I posted? Interesting.

 

Josh Susanto wrote:

Have you spotted anything that I've derived from your work?

>No, but if I do, you can be sure I'll pursue the matter to the fullest extent of the law.

Should that somehow happen, you can expect full satisfaction.

 Josh Susanto wrote:

That's not the current standard applied by US industry and government. The current standard is tha it's wrong if you get caught. And maybe not even then.

---

>I'm sorry for you that you choose see it that way. Governments and industries are made up of people, and people are complicated. Some, like you, believe "wrong" means getting caught. People who are better than that (and there are more of us than you might want to imagine) understand that it's far more fundamental than that. Getting caught has nothing to do with it. Wrong is wrong, whether you get caught or not.

US laws are not written to address the moral question of right and wrong, as such. They merely allow some flexibility for contrition, absence of malice, etc.

 Josh Susanto wrote:

"Attractive nuisance". Music that is broadcast into the air via radio, I also consider to be fair game for recording out of the air, itself, if it is audible in public space. And I'm trained as a composer.

---

>So again, if you want it, you just take it, with no regard for the rights of the real owner.

That's an exaggeration. If someone in the US put their trash out in a municipal trash receptace inside their fence, I wouldn't touch it. If they put it outside the fence, I'd sometimes go through it. That the property line may extend to the middle of the street, doesn't change the fact that the contents of the trash are forfeit when placed outside the fence. You'd be amazed how badly a landlady, for example, might incriminate herself by what goes out in her trash.

I don't hack websites or servers for images, or anything even close to that. If a work is in no way published or distributed, I'm totally disinterested, even if you give me a bunch of passwords (please don't).

>For what it's worth, I'm a classically trained musician and composer, myself, and so is my younger brother. I chose to go into business after my father died, so that my brother could more easily pursue his dreams. It wasn't until 10 years later that I got the chance to go back to school, and become a professional artist.

Interesting.

>My brother's band was signed three years ago. They've toured the world twice, been interviewed on MTV, third album is about to come out, the whole nine yards. Yes, my kid brother is an honest to goodness rock star. But he's flat broke, just like most "successful" musicians these days. It's all they can do to make ends meet, living on Ramen noodles, largely because of people like you, who think it's OK to just take their music without paying for it.

I don't take music, but I'm also not interested in taking it. There's plenty to hear without any potential legal exposures. I also do not generally support the recording of electronic signals, or the use of melodic transcriptions from live audio events. I DO support people to record audio (from the air, as sound) to which they are subjected in public space, and to make use of that specific recorded audio, especially if they are subjected to it involuntarily.

It's interesting to me that even people who don't enjoy jazz consider it to be an important American art form. As a composer, I have to ask if you've ever listened to any of the classic jazz improvisations. If their content were to be policed as you imply image use should be self-policed, jazz, as such, wouldn't even exist anymore are a living art form. I have developed a wholly non-derivative improvisatory style which other musicians often appreciate. But let me tell you; there's ZERO money in it.

>You're not exactly helping your case here, man. I hate music pirates even more than I hate art pirates.

I don't approve of a lot of things people do or try to do with recorded music. But I have as many complaints about its legitimate abuse as about piracy.

[Josh Susanto]

(continued)

 Josh Susanto wrote:

I'm saying that the process from my end might not be appreciably dissimilar. I would either have the resources to efficiently defend myself or I wouldn't.

>How is that at all relevant to the fact that you just shouldn't be stealing in the first place?

I recognize a person's right to collect damages if they can prove infringement.

If they can't do that, the law does not define the action as stealing.

 

Josh Susanto wrote:

This seems to be more of a moral argument than a legal argument. You seem to be confused about this, too.

---

>You've been flat out wrong about virtually every legal point you've described, yet I'm the one who's somehow confused? Project much, do ya?

I admit I'm confused about whether and when you're making a moral argument rather than a legal argument.

>It's both a moral argument and a legal argument. There's no need to draw a distinction between the two when they both say the same thing, which they absolutely do in this case.

Morality is more subjective than law. That's probably the main reason that law even exists.

 Josh Susanto wrote:

You haven't really provided me with a compelling incentive to refrain from doing so. Not yet. An actual copyright notice would be plenty, but I guess that's just too much extra effort for someone who has hiked up the Andes to take the same picture that thousands of other people have already taken.

---

>Why do you keep harping on this copyright notice BS? Notices like that haven't been in common use for over three decades now. The law itself is all the notice you need. Read it.

Copyright law is written to provide the maximum amount of protection because such protection can only be reduced during negotiations or other proceedings. The easiest 2 ways to assure that such protection is not reduced would seem to be to provide notice, and to refrain from distribution or the enabling of distribution. 

 Josh Susanto wrote:

I'm getting there, and I'd actually prefer that. Of course, I'd have to do it with pirated Photoshop on what I understand is probably a pirated operating system on a computer of spurious production origins; all completely normal in the country.

>You'd have to, huh? No other option, right? You'd be shot at sunrise if you used GIMP, and burned at the stake if you used Linux?

Gimp does not work on this system. The system I paid for is a Sony Vaio laptop with Windows, and that's what I certainly appear to have. Blender, among other things, also does not work. Legally, I have no clear reason to resort to Linux, which I don't see how I would learn to use in any case, assuming my hardware will even support it.

>If it's truly out of the question in your country to obtain legal copies of free software, and it's absolutely positively the case that they only way to go is to use pirated programs on a pirated OS because you simply have no access whatsoever to anything else, then you can hardly be held accountable for what is beyond your control. What imagery you choose to use IS always within your control, though. Again, two wrongs don't make a right.

If I'm systematically disabled from earning what you would consider to be an honest living (let's not even get started about how else I'm making money here) either here or in the U.S., then what do you suggest as an alternative? Suicide, or just waiting for the rest of my personal disaster to play itself out along with the total consequences of the recent leveraged buyout of the whole US economy by a consortium of multinational banks?

Josh Susanto wrote:

>The principle is double indemnity. If someone else is already paying for what is determined to be an abuse, it's redundant for me to also pay for the same abuse.

>No, it's not redundant. You're talking about two separate acts, not just one. You're individually responsible for your own actions, just as the other party is individually responsible for theirs.

I think that's a matter of good faith or bad faith. Bad faith may stand to be persuasively demonstrated in court.

 Josh Susanto wrote:

I'm saying that if the grocer steals some percentage of his stock and then offers everything to you for free, indiscriminately in exchange for the opportunity to advertise something to you, it's between him and some 3rd party.

>No, if you knowingly receive stolen goods, you're guilty of a crime, yourself. It doesn't stop just with the person who stole them.

Suspicion is not knowledge.

 Josh Susanto wrote:

>I'm not going to reveal everything that I use or how I use it. Randimaginator is one of the things I have used. They are one of several things that gets repeatedly disabled and then appears elsewhere, functional again. Just one.

>So not only do you routinely steal images from other people, you deliberately use nefarious methods in order to do it. This just gets worse and worse. Whatever respect I might have had for you a few days ago is completely gone now, Josh. I hate to have to say that, but it is what it is.

I can't eat your respect. Show me something I can eat, and I'll care more about your respect.

 Josh Susanto wrote:

SL also lets me load out images that may or may not be pirated, and SL makes money by creating a larger online medium that includes this un-explicit option.

---

>If it were technically possible to stop it, they would. But it's not, so they can't. They employ every reasonable means at their disposal to keep their system free of piracy. People like you don't exactly help in that effort.

They could just shut down their whole business, which is not essentially different from what you're asking me to do with mine.

>Your display of hypocrisy here is pretty amazing. You admit that you steal other people's photos, and upload them to SL as textures, and then you have the gall to chastise LL for unknowingly and very indirectly profiting from your actions. Once again, you appear to be trying to skirt responsibility by shifting blame to those around you instead of squarely onto yourself where it belongs.

Hypocrisy is not exactly the same thing as cynicism. I'm not actually holding anyone else to a higher standard.

Josh Susanto wrote:

I'm saying that when you rely on such an impotent law to protect copyright when there is an easy option that is better, you're inviting 6 billion people to consider using your image first and wait for questions to be asked later.

---

>What's this easy option that is so much better? You really think a notice will stop anyone who wants to steal?

It would stop me from doing what we would both define as stealing. And it already does.

>If every image in the world had notices attached, I have no doubt you'd be doing the same thing you're doing now. You just wouldn't be able to feign ignorance quite as easily.

I think not. I understand why you might think that, though. You've now moved from accusing me of something I may have done to accusing me of something I would do if something were different. Applying this method, I can easily say that if you were born in Germany in 1920, you'd have worked gassing innocent people to death. Whatever. In the past subjunctive, we're all downward counterfactual Nazis.

 Josh Susanto wrote:

I don't claim to legislate.

>And again, we have the semantics game.  I never said you were actully legislating, and you know it.

I just thought it would be clearer if I said it clearly.

>What you have been doing throughout almost this entire thread (and others) is making up your own interpretations of the law, which have little if anything to do with what the law actually says, or with any existing case rulings.  It's hardly a misuse of wording to refer to that as making up your own laws as you go along.

The law says neither what I say it says nor what you say it says. The law says what it says when push comes to shove.

OTOH, I'm fascinated by your apparent sincerity.

If you really think there's a way for me to make any money here with unambiguously nonderivative work, why don't you explain it to me and we'll see if it works. If you can prove my worst suspicions incorrect, I think I can live with that.

If the positions were reversed, I believe I would do this. Checking my previous contributions to this forum, I also think you'll see adequate support of this statement of belief.

What's the first thing I should make?

[Josh Susanto]

UPDATE:

On an experimental basis, I have now begun working exclusively with public domain images, and I have begun to remove from the market unprofitable items which use textures not explicitly authorized.

 

[cwenmaria Abeyante]

Here I was looking for some advice on texturing sculptys, instead it sends up as long drawn out an involved posts about copyright issues.   While I respect there is some darn good posts in here on that matter, both of you might have considered the person who made the original post.   They were asking a question and probably not expecting to have their question hijacked.   Perhaps this should have been a totally new post?

[Kristin Burner]

Its a moot point in SL, i have seen stores that all they do is sell other peoples pictures they scanned from books or swiped from other places, and been around for years doing it to.

And i mean recognized artists like Luis Royo.

But i do agree, that selling anything with an image that you did not create or have permission to re-sell is definitly wrong.

 

[Chosen Few]

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cwenmaria Abeyante wrote:

both of you might have considered the person who made the original post.

---

The OP's question was well answered, as he himself responded to indicate. Or did you neglect to read the first fourteen posts in the thread?  In particular, did you miss the one in which the OP said, "Wowww lots of great advice, thanks to all who helped, much appreciated"?  That response more than indicates we all did our part to give the OP exactly what was asked for.

The fact that the discussion subsequently took a turn in a different direction afterward does not negate any of what happened in the beginning.

By the way, does "both of you" include all four people who took place in the secondary discussion, or just a particular two?

 

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cwenmaria Abeyante wrote:

They were asking a question and probably not expecting to have their question hijacked.

---

It wasn't hikacked.  The second topic was directly related to the first.  A potentially illegal solution to the OP's question was suggested.  It was important to point out that that was not, in fact, a legitimate option.  I agree it's unfortunate that it took an additional 20 posts before the person who made the suggestion got it through his head that he was in the wrong, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Further, the second discussion took place only AFTER several very good answers to the original question had been offered.

 

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cwenmaria Abeyante wrote:

Perhaps this should have been a totally new post?

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And you thought resurrecting the thread more than a month after it died was the best way to acheive this?

[Chosen Few]

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Kristin Burner wrote:

Its a moot point in SL, i have seen stores that all they do is sell other peoples pictures they scanned from books or swiped from other places, and been around for years doing it to.

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That's all the more reason that each of us do our part to actively dissuade it whenever and wherever we can.  It's NEVER a moot point.