Nacy Nightfire

It's actually quite fun to compare the two. I took the liberty of flipping the SL version to the same orientation and sizing them to be more close in size for an easier comparison (If this is against tos, I apologize and will delete the image immediately on anyone's request) The SL model is quite detailed and the interior is not at all similar, plus all other points mentioned:

Dammmmit all! I thought I could catch up with this while eating my dessert and coffee! And you added so many pages!!! My synopsis: Ishy has a dress code on his sim and mature women, by being themselves, are in violation of the dress code. I wonder how many "busy brides" , those who spend many hours and thousands of dollars planning the perfect the event of their lifetime, omit folks from their guest list because they'd spoil the beautiful photo album. Like their heroic fireman uncle who was badly burned saving a child, or a cousin who was born with cerebral palsy, or a nephew with downs syndrome, or a soldier who had his arm blown off defending his country. Do we ever have a right to exclude others (of course we have the LEGAL right in many cases)? (And I don't include a robot or a pile of poo as "other". They don't represent themselves as humans, although that particular pile of poo might have been considered a "hottie" by his or her pile of friends. Please. Don't respond to this. I'm just disappointed I'm so behind here so I have to ramble on and these were my thoughts so far from my reading yesterday.

No! I'm not taking the bait! I refuse to listen to these songs and permit them to live rent-free in my head. Besides, I have 500 emails I must answer that come that all come from Nigeria...something about a bank, a deposed queen, frozen assets, a lifetime opportunity....

Really superbly excellent thread, Dres. I am enjoying this so much.

Jackie, I was well on my way with blender before I actually noticed that myself! :matte-motes-smile:

Dang that New York Times! Bamboozelled again: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney is recuperating from surgery to implant the kind of mechanical pump now being given to a small but growing number of people with heart failure so severe that they would most likely die within a few months without it. The pumps are partial artificial hearts known as ventricular assist devices, and they come in various models. Mr. Cheney’s kind is about the size of a D battery and leaves most recipients without a pulse because it pushes blood continuously instead of mimicking the heart’s own pulsatile beat. Most such pulse-less patients feel nothing unusual. But they are urged to wear bracelets or other identifications to alert emergency room doctors as to why they have no pulse....." For anyone who wishes to read more carefully then me: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/health/20docs.html?pagewanted=1

Jackie, at the very top of the blender interface - Vertices: 8, Faces:6, Object: 1- 3, Lamps:1, etc:

I highly recommend you check out the weekly class schedule at Builder's Brewery for some excellent beginner level tutorials for Blender.

You wrote: "Go educate yourself some: http://www.bannerwitcoff.com/_docs/library/articles/Katz%20and%20Cardy%20Innovation%20article.pdf" That was very informative. And it serves as information, but not reliable legal advice, as the disclaimer states. It seems simple to me. You are free make a model of a chair. You are not free to copy the Herman Miller interpretation of a chair, famously known as the Eames chair. Particularly because this company has gone to a great deal of trouble and legal expense to protect it's design and has made the choice to retain rights to it into the 3D realm. From the sounds of that article, Herman Miller decided to enforce it's perogatives and sell its designs in SL. I'm sure they contacted LL's legal department at some point to insure that any copies of their products are deleted. It doesn't appear they brought this issue to court. It's in the best interest of businesses to act reasonably. So let us not sensationalize this issue, please.

"ETA: Next time I'm about to call someone attractive, I'll make sure to check their pulse first" And yet: http://www.npr.org/2011/06/13/137029208/heart-with-no-beat-offers-hope-of-new-lease-on-life Dick Cheney, still technically alive I'm assuming, has no pulse. I'm guessing you might ban him from your beach, if only to protect his health. He's a mature man. Hottie? Or not?

And again. Limewire: "On October 26, 2010, US federal court judge Kimba Wood issued an injunction forcing LimeWire to prevent "the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality, and/or all functionality" of its software in Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC.[3][4] A trial investigating the damages necessary to compensate the affected record labels is scheduled to begin in January 2011.[" You are comparing a company who offered direct file sharing of other companies product (music). Hasn't this discussed to death with Napster? There is no relevance here, since what is being copied is not (which again we all agree is wrong and LL has made it a requirement that its customers prove they understand this policy before allowing them to upload) the GAME, but characters or backdrop items in the game. It is the perogative of the company who owns these images to demand they be removed, but it is no basis for an all out cease and desist order of the entire LL company or demand for some crushing damages award. And a smart game company will turn a "blinds eye" to this type of copying since its excellent advertising for the actual game, its product placement here will induce people to talk about the game and purchase it. Again, I'm not advocating anyone use this as an excuse to copy anything without direct permission.

You have pointed us to a 2008 case which has no relevance that I can see to what we are discussing here. LL is not willfully piggybacking it's product on the back of another company's game. As follows: "Glider, also known as WoWGlider or MMOGlider, was a bot created by MDY Industries, which interoperates with World of Warcraft. Glider automates and simplifies actions by the user through the use of scripting to perform repetitive tasks while the user is away from the computer. This allows the user to acquire in-game currency and level-ups of the character without being present to perform the required actions. [6] As of 2008, it has sold approximately 100,000 copies.[1] [edit] MDY v. Blizzard See also: MDY Indus. LLC v. Blizzard Entm't, Inc. While MDY Industries asserts that the software is meant to overcome design flaws in the World of Warcraft environment, Blizzard contended in a 2006 United States federal lawsuit that the program's use violated their terms of service.[7] In July 2008, the court entered summary judgment holding MDY Industries liable for tortious interference and copyright infringement, based, in part, upon the legal premise that users of the World of Warcraft client software are licensees rather than owners of their copy of software.[1] Public Knowledge, a public interest group which filed an amicus brief in the case,[8] criticized the decision, saying it makes the loading into memory of legally obtained software an act of copyright infringement subject to high statutory penalties, if the user has violated the software's license agreement in any way.[9][10] The court did not hold this view and found that Glider infringed upon Blizzard's intellectual property by making an illicit copy of the World of Warcraft client in order to avoid Blizzard's anti-cheating software, Warden, and ordered MDY Industries to pay Blizzard six million dollars.[11] In finding this, the court agreed with Blizzard that World of Warcraft is licensed, not sold.[12] Following the judgment, Blizzard petitioned to enjoin MDY Industries from distributing Glider or releasing its source code.[13] In March 2009, MDY Industries suspended Glider sales and operations pursuant to an injunction.[14] On December 14, 2010, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its ruling. They agreed that users were licensees rather than owners of the software. They changed the ruling on copyright, stating that users were in breach of contract concerning the end-user license agreement (EULA), but that this did not constitute a violation of copyright. Nevertheless, they ruled that the bot violated the DMCA. Accordingly, the case was sent back to the district court for review in light of this decision.[15][16"" Edited to correct line to properly read NO RELEVANCE

"I wouldn't kick out Sean Connery or Bea Arthur, both of which still have sex appeal in my opinion. " Bea Arthur died in 2009. As a result she's probably lost a bit of her sex appeal. Great Actress however and extremely funny gal. She'll be missed.

Hmmmm. You wrote: "About the Linden Attorneys - I am pretty sure that they know about the risks of unrevised model imports. They only won´t tell us. It would cause a major exodus." This makes no sense. Would the LL attorneys not explain to their client of the risks to the company if their customers upload copied 3d meshes and suggest they not go forward with their plans to introduce it if a crippling lawsuit was possible. I'm sure they have their own best interests in mind. If there is infringement (and no one here is suggesting there should be or it is in anyway acceptable) there may be a demands from time to time for LL to shut down the SL vendor and delete his/her product as a first step, which LL will comply with. It's in no company's interest to go aggressively after another company as small as LL and jump into full blown litigation. Notices are filed and there is time to comply. Judges look for reasonable behavior on the part of both parties, particularly attempts at mediation before trial. LL is doing nothing willful here and they've warned their customer base to also refrain from willful copying. If an incident happens, LL wil act in good faith to correct it. This happens in RL business every day. There's nothing so complicated here as the issue of Samsung and Apple. Everything we do here is a drawing or a code that can be easily erased. ETA: and the issue is getting very muddled. Are we concerned about our own designs being copied and the fear LL will be unresponsive? Or are we concerned that someone will copy another game mesh and the whole company will come crashing down on our heads. I think perhaps the former question is the one people find to be a believable scenario.

You wrote: "There is only one point you make which I agree to: The games industry and the studios will not go after someone like you or me, they´ll go after the company which tolerates such actions, profits by such actions and to the place where the money is , which is Linden Lab." Vivienne, I believe I've read this from you before. What's your point? Are you saying that the sky is falling, LL is going to be sued out of existence and everyone will lose their businesses here? What does this have to do with mesh on the creation forum? I think you would be much better served contacting the Linden Lab attorneys and giving them your legal advice. As for the average creator, I'm not sure they can respond to something you agree won't effect the average SL creator, but will only effect the LL corporation.

""Do Microsoft, EA, Google, Blizzard and the entire game and 3D modelling industry see any value in figuring it out?" If they do, and this is the case as long as there is money in Linden Lab, they WILL figure out, regardless the cost. There are enough methods to figure out of which you obviously are not aware of." And do these companies even care about such small potato infringements or do they see the brand promotion benefits of such activites. If I owned a car or watch company, I'd be delighted to see kids knocking off copies (up to the point it doesn't effect what I'm obliged to object to to maintain copyright control) of MY brand rather then my competitors brand. It's like giving out t-shirts, visors and free frisbees at a college home coming game with your logo imprinted on it, but without the expense and time.

Excellent! Thanks Gavin.

Thanks sincerely for this information Gavin. It makes sense to me. I usually am cautious about news sources I rely on, but it's getting ever increasingly difficult to find news and/or statistics that are truely meaningful. This kind of discussion goes on in my RL household daily and I plan to share your last post with my husband who has become alarmed that the search results from google have become increasingly useless and suspect. And, although its a bit off-topic, if you could recommend a better search engine, I'd be grateful.

Ok, I take your point, and its a fair one, however you wrote: "Yes, that is what you have been led the believe if you only refer to the Fandroid blogs. The legal team of Apple are not amateurs..." No the legal team of Apple are not amateurs, (nor those for Samsung, no doubt), and I clearly stated I AM an amateur in law related issues. However, I neither referenced nor read "Fandroid blogs" for information about this topic. I did a web search on the case and read a broad range of publications and news reports (none which were blogs) to learn more about the topic.

Deej, I also hope you do not disappear out of frustration. I, for one, appreciate your point of view and your contributions very much. I've been once called a "fan boy" of LL on this forum, which made me and folks that know me laugh. In reality I consider myself a realist and not wedded one side or another. It's very difficult, I know, for folks who are committed to a high standard of performance to witness the messy and inefficient way this or any other business is run. The waste and blunders, etc. But this can be due to any number of things that are difficult for our voices here to make an impact on: lack of vision, budgeting constraints, manpower constraints OR or in a positive vein, enhanced vision of things to come we are not privy to. I can't think of a single business I deal with in RL that doesn't have customers who both love and hate them, and want them act on what seems obvious. I've been a customer of SL a few years now and I am equally frustrated as you on other issues, but I'm realistic that SL is first and foremost a business. If the market for virtual worlds is sufficiently profitable, and LL doesn't perform to customers expectations, inevitably there will be competition to take over and everyone will jump ship. That really hasn't happened. So there's a rational for why LL, who has public meetings and takes input from its customers, doesn't perform in the way a lot of people hope or want them to, it's all based on the bottom line. We often sweat about the result of policy/feature changes in SL our own businesses (well I personally don't plan to own a business here, which makes me a second class citizen, apparently), but business owners have set themselves up and invested their time with full awareness and knowledge that they are all dependent on the whims of their "landlord" and his/her OWN business concerns. The bottom line of the landlord will always trump theirs. So, not unlike RL investors who take the risk of doing business in a going into a new country, They weigh the risks, fully aware they are subjected to the vaguries of the laws of this host country , regime changes, confiscation of their assets, imposed trade restrictions or oppressive taxes levied at any moment, and plan accordingly. There is rationally considered risk associated with doing business here in SL. Edited to clarify the last part, and fix a few typos.

Gavin, I'm not sure that is entirely accurate. Apple has been accused of fraudulently altering a photo submitted to demonstrate that the Samsung product is substantially similar to the IPad. And the original injunction was eu wide, I believe, but it was reduced substantially to the boundries of Germany until a final decision on 9/9/11. I'm not a lawyer, so I may be incorrect in my facts. And Germany, issued an injunction, which I don't think is the same as a decision, just an action to halt things until a decision is made. Which may very well be in Apples favor. This is just fact checking on my part. I have no "pony in this race" as the expression goes.

Jenni, I can't seem to find any reference to Apple winning the lawsuit. If this has been decided in the courts, I'd love a link to any info about the case being decided. I guess anyone can sue, but they may not actually win. And what I read so far, Samsung countersued, but in April dropped the case for tactical reasons for defending their case going forward.

Deej, I'll accept your correction to my RL crime example. If Ishy can take the time to post an example of what he feels is a crime here on the forum and take this issue to the resident public, why is it asking alot for him to report it to the authorities? If he does report it and the product STILL remains and he's convinced that LL did not investigate and the owners of the mesh would be unhappy the mesh is being distributed in SL, THEN it's worth posting here. We have an AR system that people use all the tiime. I don't have an AR trigger finger, but in one instance when I had a copybot issue I got IMMEDIATE attention from a linden representative. I'm sure that doesn't happen all the time, but I'm convinced they care just as much as we do and are doing what can be reasonably expected to keep folks happy here. No, if we are not the owner that is being affected by the mesh, we don't have standing to file a complaint in preparation to go to court over the issue any more then I could file a complaint if I saw someone selling Rolegs watches. That would be Rolex's job I could alert the attention of the authorities to a potential crime or even contact the Rolex company if I had the inclination to do so, however. (although I think perhaps company like Rolex couldn't bother with the issue..this form of copying an excellent form of free advertising of their brand. The people who would purchase such an item from a street vendor would never buy the real thing, but here we are talking about the Rolex Brand and propping it up as the ultimate brand one would want to own)

The prevalence of this and its impact on SL probably has been decided that it will not increase the current amount of theft that already has taken place and is expected to take place in SL. This is like a virus. You will never eliminated it completely and it's a constant battle. And LL can't possibly budget for a staff that constantly monitors this activity on every corner of the grd. That's what we dear citizens are here for. There's a reporting procedure and to the degree we care and are passionate about such things we will report them. In RL if I'm walking down the street and witness someone stealing something out of another persons car, I make note of it and report the person to the authorities.