Clarissa Lowell

I make shapes that others gloat about stealing and then declare worthless. Lol That's what this sucker has spent the past year doing!

It isn't quite the same. You chose to go to the club or the store that sent you a group invitation. While it is annoying when they hit everyone with a group invitation, especially right away, instead fo just having a group joiner, at least you had some choice in going. If you went somewhere in real life you might expect to see some of their ads. If you just get ads in your mailbox or email, that is spam. When you just randomly send out an IM or note card advertising a group, that is spam.

Qie Niangao wrote: but if that were the problem, it shouldn't work on your own land either. Which is why I'm wondering if he didn't both buy and build it...i.e. copy a mesh house and put his own script into the copy, which didn't work. At least that would explain the conflicting stories.

None of us are stupid even if those who are loudly proclaiming shape creations have no value and should be stolen (not only that but claimed creation of, when they know darn well not a single thought went into just xeroxing that shape) keep talking to us as if we are. As someone just said we all know theft takes place here rampantly, as it does in real life. No one is saying it doesn't. We would have to be really ignorant to claim that when people in this very thread are BRAGGING about doing it. I originally came into this thread just to answer the question, which others have also done: Shapes are made no modify because of the number of bold as brass braggart thieves who also for some reason known only to them or their therapist must also then declare the very thing they are stealing, worthless. I stuck around because of the level of arrogance and misinformation. And of course, trolling, as people deliberately ignore valid points in order to basically just taunt and or insult the others in the conversation. "an avatars shape from the tools won't hold much value or chance of winnign anything in court because of how many close versions there are in world or can be to it.." Did I mention how useless the quote function here is, by the way? I want to quote from more than one post and without having my entire reply turn into italics...anyway... I disagree with that. Pretty much anything involving creative thought can be copyrighted. That's what intellectual property really means - it comes from one's mind, from thought and creative design. Then you carry it out. The fact that the tool is commonly available means squat. The fact that there is no legal precedent, really, for game IP or virtual worlds IP means squat. Stealing is stealing. And I'm not saying you are advocating stealing in your post by the way. Does it occur to you though that there are a lot of 'close versions' because of all the stealing? Also there are a lot of shapes that are not all that original, that's true. They copy a trend, they make the avatar's face as much like the current trend as possible. For instance the current trend of pouty fish mouth faces. However the first one who made those, could, if the means were available to, and it were financially practical (worth the trouble) copyright that face and have a case. Yes, they could! Yes, they could. (It really does not look like the average avatar face that preceded it in Second Life.) The fact that a lot of juries are unpredictable does not mean a case has no merit, either. "Miss Catnap" I am not going to reply to your post until I get past your insult in it...if ever...No insults were needed. (Having ethics is judgmental now?) Others already replied to it very well and to the pertinent part anyway. I've honestly not seen such a depressing topic since the Red Zone debates, with all the justifications for sociopathy going on in those topics. This one is worse. If you didn't create it, you didn't begin with an inspiration, conceive a design for that inspiration, and work it out with all the limitations of the available in world tool provided, then you did not create that shape. Sorry, you did not create it. If it is so easy, which no one ever seems to respond to by the way, if it is so easy to do and such a worthless skill, then why are you stealing what other people do? Start from scratch yourself. Masami, I am NOT your dear (Why is it when people mean the B word they say DEAR instead) - I ignored that the first time - and you don't merit a response any further, either. If you really think the shape I made looks like Ruth, or like most other shapes, you need help. (THAT is the criteria for originality not your made-up criteria.) "it's like comparing the same style of shoes sold in 50 different stores that look exactly alike.." That is also prosecutable, all the 'knock offs' are prosecutable. The problem is that proving it and taking it to court is not usually worth the financial expenditure. The person or company's time is also worth money. People get away with a huge amount in real life as well as virtual worlds because of that aspect of human nature and practical reality. But if they did, they could win. There is a huge difference in saying those two things. Thieves know that getting any payback on theft in SL is difficult and there isn't much help if any for it. But whether in the real world or a virtual world, designs can certainly be copyrighted. Virtual world law has just not caught up with real world law yet by a long shot. Even if it had, it would be difficult to pursue. We all know that (the thieves or those who were their victims, maybe better than most.) What I take issue with is the gloating about it, and the insistence that there is actually zero thought or creativity involved - the statements like "it was all in my hands already" or "it's just there to be found." So was the statue before the chisel was used. It isn't the tool that matters it is the person behind it. Changing a name on the result does not change who actually brought it to life. I have no idea why that simple point is so hard for some in this topic to fathom? tl;dr - Similar is not the same. (I could name 100 examples but, obviously, those intent on stealing have to self justify it some way, maybe that is some slim indication of a conscience after all.) I do wonder at the motivation some would have for so strenuously arguing the merits of stealing other people's work from them...in order to slap their own name on it or to sell it. Or even to distribute without permission. smaller tl;dr Lol - LINDEN LAB put permissions on everything we make. No transfer means no transfer of rights - PERIOD. All my shapes are no transfer, unless I sell or license rights up front, which I am not going to go into more because of confidentiality - but in those cases I am PAID. For a full perms copy. If you got a shape that was no transfer that is a CLUE BY FOUR. OK I can't help it here is one example. You can buy a knockoff of a Gucci purse on a street corner in NYC. A lot of people have a lot of trouble telling the two apart (same for an art forgery.) (Note, I am NOT saying my SL creations are Gucci. Please, trolls, don't obfuscate.) They look similar. They are both purses. They are both leather (sometimes.) They both use the same tools. But obviously, they are not the same. So what is the difference? The design was not done by the factory knocking them off. The craftsmanship matters. The designers and craftspeople who constructed the Gucci have more experience and/or skill and/or talent than the factory making the knockoffs. Maybe the versatility or wearability is better in more situations. All those things come from experience, skill and/or talent of the one who actually thought up the design and carried it out. The name and reputation of the one who originally designed and crafted out the original item also matters. To that person for sure and most probably to their customers (in the case of SL shape makers who charge $1000 per shape for instance. If the shape is duped and given out all over the grid, those customers who paid $1000L are going to be upset, and not want to wear it. The shape shop loses business, and that customer is out their money.) That is why copyright protection should be part of SL, and that is why one day in all virtual worlds, it will be, as much so as in 'real life' (which virtual life is a part of.) Laws are very behind in realizing that people spend a lot of time using the internet. The lack of law to protect against online stalking/harassment/bullying is where real life laws were 20 years or more ago. But it will all catch up. If someone with more experience, skill, or artistic ability (and it does require about the same types of talents and hand-eye coordination as drawing does, to make a good shape) makes a shape, it is probably going to be better than someone who has no ability, no skill and no experience. That is WHY that second person would WANT to take what the first person made and pass it off as their own. Anyone who's actually done it the hard way knows the difference and 'should' know better than to say anything else. Especially if they have made more than just their own shape. Their own shape can be done at their ease and over some months if necessary. Try filling up a shop with shapes, that do not all look the same. The customers might think it's all easy because 1. they never made a shape or if so, not really a good one or 2. may not be able to tell the difference between ick and well done and 3. may be buying the same thing that's been passed off as original but was in fact stolen. I don't spend hours perfecting a butt on a given shape (which sometimes is the case) in order to have someone else claim they did it all along, when all they did was take out a pen. Of course it's easy if you didn't work at it. Being a thief is easier than working. (And more lucrative I'd imagine too since it is so much easier.) But a conscience stops most people from doing it.

Good question! It's both now. In a shape: The eyebrow is actually the 'hair' piece. It contains a transparent texture to erase your hair (the system hair that came with the ancient old avatar, Ruth.) But its more important function is to shape the eye orbit. This is actually more important than many realize. With the wrong eyebrow placement or eye orbit shape, your face can look completely different, and not at all like you'd want it to. This can even change when you change skins. You can have a sudden, surprised look, or you can have a very bored blah look in your eyes. If you are lucky the skin is a lot like the one the shaper used when they made the brow shaper/hair piece for the shape, and so the brows won't change place that noticeably. That makes many people assume that all brow shapers are alike and there is no importance to it. But if you use the wrong one, you can make a child shape look matronly, a pleasant face look pinched and so on. Experiment with different ones and you will see. Now with attachment points you can also buy eyebrows that are different colors or thickness etc., to go on the surface skin. But if you got a shape and it said 'comes with eyebrows' it means the brow shaper.

Just 'don't steal from me.' I can pretty much ignore most other things! LuciaRiley wrote: Anyway, what are some of your own pet peeves while using SL?

Jacki will do great at it. To answer the question you asked here, I do not remember seeing a human and furry avatar in one ad before. I don't know for sure either way if it has happened before. I wanted to add that the gown comes with a shorter skirt too. That's kind of cool. Someone's suggestion about putting the object permissions in is good. Might also include that it comes with a shorter skirt, if you haven't already. And of course, price.

Dana Hickman wrote: Clarissa Lowell wrote: No, sorry. If you copy the numbers I made - which do require thought, decision, and aesthetic ability to choose in the unique combination I ended upon - and put your name on it, then you are a thief. End of story. This is true. Even through intentional legit imitation, the odds of arriving at exactly the same values on more than say 50% or so of all *commonly adjusted* slider values is so astronomical that to find such is pretty much a guarantee of thievery. Someone who does that is no different than those inworld who write down all the object parameters of mod prims, one after another, until they end up with a perfect copy of someone elses construction that shows them as the new creator. RE-creations are not creations at all, they are intentional copies and a willful attempt at bypassing owner name or object permissions, and they still count as theft. IMO Mod item RE-creators are only 'manual' copybotters in a sense, but worthy of less respect than real copybotters because they demonstrate the amount of deceitful effort a thief will put into calling someone elses work their own. QFT! Thank you. So well said. Kelli: I hear ya. But, to me, intellectual property means also the creative idea, and design. That comes from inside someone's head. Some are using the fact that some things are created in world using a common tool to claim it then means all creations are alike. That there is an exploit that makes it easier, doesn't change who actually designed/created it. (ETA I am not saying you said any different. I'm just saying what the word intellectual in intellectual property, means to me.) (Quick ETA again Lol - I remember hearing that even a photo taken in world using the SL camera gadget can be copyrighted, because where to place the camera and which lighting selection to use are creative/intellectual decisions, even if no further photoshopping is done. If that is so, I can't see why anyone would think the same is untrue of the shape making tool provided us.)

Pussycat Catnap wrote: Coby Foden wrote: I have found that with fair amount of studying the human body and its proportions it's fairly easy to make a well proportioned avatar shape. What I do is that I put a photo of a humand figure on prim, stretch the prim so that the photo looks the right height to what I am aiming my avatar to be. What I do is this: http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/getting-good-body-proportions-in-second-life/ But yes - it is VERY EASY to make a beautiful and well proportioned BODY-shape, if you just work with an anatomy guide of some kind. More complex is the face. But to note what Ossian said about you, in reverse... I have never been able to buy a shape as good as the ones I can toss out in a few minutes of dial tweaking. Maybe I need to change businesses in SL or something... if this is actually hard for some. I'd not been under the impression that this was talent on my part - but just something anyone could do. Well if you make shapes by just slapping your name on other people's work, (per your example above), then I truly hope you NEVER open a 'shop.'

I see your point and thank you for understanding what I meant. I used to see garments in SL without any shading on them, a lot. But most creators seem to be of the same camp - wrinkles, shading and shadows are better, so they all do it. There might be some beginning clothing makers who don't.

Pussycat Catnap wrote: Masami Kuramoto wrote: Ossian wrote: For people like you, the word "easy" means "someone else does it." I didn't say it's easy. I said it lacks originality, which is a key requirement for copyright. The whole easy vs. hard argument is a distraction that you and Clarissa brought up. You think if something is just difficult and time-consuming enough, it automatically qualifies for copyright protection. You are wrong. What you guys are doing in the appearance editor is basically solving a puzzle. You push sliders back and forth to find a configuration that doesn't suck from your point of view. That is a challenge, no doubt, but it is not artistic, because you are moving on rails and your choices are finite. Your artistic freedom in the appearance editor is zero. You will never escape Linden Lab's predefined morph targets, which are copyrighted just like the base mesh. No matter how long and hard you push the sliders around, the avatar's shape will never be your intellectual property. And since the shape can't be your property, you can't call it "stealing" if others re-use it. If I take a file that has your name on it as creator, and don't alter the shape dials - that's theft. If I take the numbers you used, and put them on a shape with my name as creator - that's my original work, but only because everything about those numbers was already in my hands before I even saw the values you used in yours. A like example and third to show where it stops: First the like example: If you rez a bunch of prims, taper them all a certain way, and rthen use library textures on them, that's your work. If I take a copy of that, with your name as creator, and sell it - that's theft. But if I go rez the same number of prims, taper them the same way, and use the same library textures on them - this new thing is my work. BUT, if you use a texture you bought, or uploaded... and I then do everything you did, and then take your copy of that texture... that's theft. But if I go buy that texture from the same legit place as you, then its my work that I've produced. Thus the difference between imitation and theft. - trademark - protects you from imitators, copyright protects you from theft. And trademarks are both not automatic, and require a lot more originality or uniqueness. No, sorry. If you copy the numbers I made - which do require thought, decision, and aesthetic ability to choose in the unique combination I ended upon - and put your name on it, then you are a thief. End of story. So if you take a painting and erase a name and paint yours over the top, you're now the creator? Sorry, sounds like you've been smoking too much ganja. Unless you copybot it, there is no way to take a shape EXCEPT to copy the numbers down and put your own name on them...but how is that ANY different one from the other? You can make twisted analogies all day long, but it's not what you created from your own thought and creativity - it's what you COPIED DOWN.

Sorry to hear this. Thieves bite the big kazoo.

Wear a system skirt shape. If there is not one in your shape's folder, then copy and paste the shape in the folder, pick one of those, name it something else when you save the shape and make the hips skinny. When you put on a system skirt (the tight fitting kind, not mesh, but the old kind) it makes your hips 100 times bigger.

Oh my goodness. HUGE Difference. Perfect illustration for your point!

Not to take away from the mysterious model, who Zantyago did tell me about also; but just for fun I tried it on and ended up snapping some pix of it. So here is a taste of what the gown looks like on a 'human avatar' - and in one you can see Zantyago in the background also for the back view of this gown (an accident, but I snapped a pic anyway, and liked it.) I'm wearing a shape I'm in the middle of working on, so this isn't my usual av. But it kind of made me think of San Francisco around 1890, no?

And by the way a lot of sandboxes have free photo globes. There is one in teh sky over the Forum Cartel Hangout too. The poses are all old or freebies, but they work, especially if you zoom in or turn the camera or av a little bit. The 60L weekend has some poses for sale at 60L this weekend. I am going to buy them for my own future photo-taking. I hate HAVING TO take pix in world, otherwise I enjoy it. The part I hate is how the mesh deforms when in some poses. Or the jaggedy edges in the pictures. I think your photo is pretty much just fine, at least it is not too cluttered which is a mistake most people make. Keep it basic if you can't do the fancy tricks in photoshop yet. As for the clothes or hair going through the av just edit that when you are in a pose. I use a plain color background on mine and before I go I take a photo of just that background without an avatar in it. In case there is a composite later.

I would make the background a different color before anything else. It absolutely absorbs your dress. I am not a furry so I can't say how a furry wearing resident would respond. Personally I would be a little confused if the ad was aimed at me or not, I confess. If I liked the dress enough, I would ignore it (back when I used to go to Tombstone, and so, buy Victorian stuff.) Do you want some help picking out a human av? Well not to flog my store but it's all free for personal use, stop by and see if any of the avs there fit what you have in mind. Actually I have one that I never used yet that might be a good model for you but she's a bit petite. But there are tall skinnier ones in the store. They have styling cards if you are out of practice finding human hair in world. Or just IM/NC me I will help you shop. I don't care where, just tell me what you have in mind and I'll try to help - if you want that.

Has anyone mentioned Baby Monkey? Very cheap, and a big wall of lucky boards (free if your letter comes up.)

Don't be silly, there is absolutely no difference between the Ruth shape and whatever you paid for. COUGH

Each slider change impacts at least 3 other nearby components. The number of decisions, including deciding what not to do, is not just the sliders themselves. It's anticipating how each movement will change what is around it. And when it does, which thing or things to change in response. Made this shape today. Maybe took an hour, maybe two. The more you do the faster you get at sizing things up and predicting outcomes. Same skin and eyes. No photoshopping except cropped and brightened (equally on both images.) Testing the shape in world now which involves at least three days worth of separate log ins/time spent in world walking, sitting, viewing from different lengths away, angles, lighting, etc. Still have some fine tuning to do. But if someone took this result and just changed the mouth, or the bust, they skipped the hard parts. I made probably up to 50 decisions or nixed decisions while shaping the head alone, not even counting the features. People who make shapes would know. I encourage everyone to begin with Ruth and see.

If you like flexi hair try Sirena. Their red tones were always nice. elikatira also had some nice reds. It depends what kind of hair you like. People seem to be moving away from fully flexi and fully prim or sculpt hair both. Well of course now they all want mesh. I don't know where to get mesh ones though except maybe wasabi pills.

I couldn't make it all the way through the original post. Sorry. Those sentences were longer than my hair. Oh really now. That sounds amazingly intrusive. That sounds like a tool with which others can tell who is who on an alt. Not only does most of Second Life not know about this, but Linden Lab has apparently done nothing about it. I don't like TPV and that is why.

I didn't understand most of what you said, although it sounded brilliant. But this part: Madelaine McMasters wrote: When we're mobile we can't give the sort of cognitive bandwidth that we can in a quiet room, looking at a big screen. That's what I love about it. Especially if the room is poorly lit. Not all of us want to be out in the big noisy world or make it even more connected, (so it gets even bigger), or more noisy. It sounds great for the extroverts but I don't even want a cell phone at all. No one views 'that electronic thing that has moving entertainment on it - the forum won't let me type the name of that thing after the word' in the old way any more because of DVR but most still do have 'that thing people view'. I don't know anyone that doesn't, not in real life. I know of someone in SL who doesn't. But you can watch 'entertainment video' on computer too and those two are combining. It doesn't sound to me like the home computer will go away it will just combine with other things. If I understood your post. PS maybe the world should work on forum software first. Most message board communities could use a lot of improvement in programming or in moderating methods. Either most are too strict or not strict enough. Or the policies for spammers hurt everyone else. I got a formatting error message when I didn't use anything but the normal format. Then I got a flood alert when I tried to resend this post. Now I have to wait more than 3600 seconds or it sends another flood alert. Can't they just do a good captcha?? Lol. Sorry mods but 3600 seconds between post? Do you know how fast most people type??? (LOL and now a random phrase is being caught up and I have to remove that. But I'll wait another 3600 seconds, so I don't get yet another flood alert...!)

There is a free set of green eyes on the patio of Poetic Colors. Only for 30 days or under. I know there are more but I will have to dig up the LMs next time I log.

If anyone is zoomed in that close and long on one part of you anatomy, either consider yourself lucky or stalked! The thing about being hypercritical about our appearance, in RL or in SL is that most other people don't notice anyway. They are worrying about themselves while we worry about ourselves and probably are not even noticing the bad hair day or whatever. They're thinking about the zit on their nose. I've honestly never thought "wow what a gorgeous av, if only their clothing had no folds or shadows." Never. If it bothers you that's valid too but if the reason it bothers you is what others think, trust me, no one cares.