Stolen Mesh

[Iki Akiri]

Hey Everyone, I was looking at mesh items on the Marketplace this morning and stumbled across an avatar I recognized as a copywrited piece of work by a fairly popular person on Deviantart.

I went to IM him so he could request it be taken down, but I didn't know how to point him in the right direction. How does a person outside Second Life contact support to work this kind of thing out?

Anyway, here is the mesh in question: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Kursed-Renamon-Mesh-avatar-box/2619797?page=1

And here is the original: http://kp-shadowsquirrel.deviantart.com/gallery/24487513?offset=48#/d2nejev

Obviously we all saw this coming, but should there be a better system in place for people outside of Second Life to claim their own work?

Thanks! :matte-motes-bashful-cute:

[Ariel Vuissent]

Two people have already let this guy know that his art has been stolen, so I'd say that's a pretty good start. The original character is ripped from a cartoon, so making profit from is already violation of copyright. Several people have reported him, and the original creator is "looking into it," so it will likely be taken down soon. Hopefully, anyway.

Interestingly, every time someone criticizes the "creator" for having stolen the design and using it for profit, said creator disables their future customer support and updates, which is supposedly the reason they're charging in the first place - it says so in one of the creator's responses to a review of that nature. (The creator also says they had to edit a few things, so they also put the price of that work into the price of the item.) They also say that if they were to credit the original creator and share the profits, they'd charge twice as much (so their own proficts didn't go down, they'd just charge an extra $450L, which they'd give to the original creator. When in fact the original creator deserves a larger share in my opinion...)

Regardless, report the entry for having been copied, and for violation of copyright since it's almost an exact match to the cartoon character, and see what happens.

Unfortunately, there's no way for LL to monitor every entry in sites like Deviant Art and other artistic websites, so they can't prevent this sort of thing nearly as often as they should. They probably should have caught the copyright violation; but I think they often rely on users to report said violations, rather than policing such violations themselves.

[WADE1 Jya]

It is simple for the creator to take this down. I see on Deviant Art the artist is aware of the rip at least.

 

All the mesh creator has to do is go to the marketplace listing you linked here. Then they click "Flag this item" >> "Infringes My Intellectual Property Rights". As it is specific "MY".... only the creator can take this item down.

Wow it sure didn't take long to see some rips appearing.

I am worried of this happening next with the likes of Sony, Blizzard, Microsoft, Disney or Nintendo IP. Then Lindens will find themselves under the thumb of some very aggressive litigation. For sake of survival of this platform, I hope Lindens stay proactive, vigilante & aware... really they should probably tighten things up a lot better to ensure this occurance is exteremly rare, not the norm! Since Lindens directly profit from all copyright infringments on marketplace they are in an extremely precarious position.

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

The resident who provided the previous content, if any, has replaced it with this generic statement.

[WADE1 Jya]

Qwalyphi, if you see the artist's page they are wanting to look into it. They did not reply with oh its open source its okay...

I signed on to deviantart just to pass the artist the info they need to take the item down, since it is less than obvious how to do this easily.

[Iki Akiri]

It is sad to see this happening. Recently I saw Alice - Madness Returns rips on Flickr in Second Life. People were going crazy wanting to buy these rips that were obviously stolen from within the game. I believe that is EA IP, so whether or not they'd take action against it is anyone's guess.

I see this happening a lot faster and more often because it is SO easy to get mesh and import it into SL.

 

[Casper Priestman]

If this does prove to be an I.P. violation no doubt the item will be removed from the marketplace. My interest is in seeing what the lab does in regards to the perpetrator especially in light of the requirements to upload mesh. This would be possibly the first public outing of IP infringement. will the lab set an example?

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

The resident who provided the previous content, if any, has replaced it with this generic statement.

[Iki Akiri]

He doesn't provide information to say that the models are open source either; one would assume they aren't.

 

I am under the impression that he provides the .objs for fan art purposes only; as he has specified on other works of his that are also available for download.

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

The resident who provided the previous content, if any, has replaced it with this generic statement.

 

[Iki Akiri]

In most cases, fan art or recreations are fine if they aren't sold for a profit; they are under fair use guidelines. ShadowSquirrel has followed the right direction by allowing people to download the file, but he should have provided a disclaimer stating that the character is not his, and should not be used for commercial use.

Whether the responsibility for taking this down falls on ShadowSquirrel (As it is his recreation) or the original IP holders, the guy selling this item on the marketplace does not have explicit permission from the model creator OR the original creators. Under fair use guidelines the reselling of a character or IP is given leeway if it is a parody, such as those Japanese fan comics where the story or characters are changed enough to be defined as a parody.

This is obviously not a parody; it is a resale of someone's character. I VERY highly doubt that it's legal, and I doubt equally that LL would want to risk it. We could argue this until we are black and blue in the face, but the point is that the guy selling this for a profit is the one in the wrong.

I'm really not making assumptions here, I do know at least a little about this stuff.

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

The resident who provided the previous content, if any, has replaced it with this generic statement.

[Iki Akiri]

There is no precendent set, no; but looking at previous cases and case studies there really only has been exceptions in very unique cases and the rest are parody. 

But you're right, I've only had to look into Australian copyright law for my education. Americans could have it way different to us.

[Casper Priestman]

Looking at the other products that particular vendor has on the marketplace would increase speculation that they really don't respect copyright or fully understand it. What bothers me is the open admittance of not creating the avatar or uploading it , which would lead to the question have they even taken the mesh IP test? And if not, should they be selling mesh products? It would make sense that even if one purchases full perm builder mesh items, that they would have to take the same test as anyone else uploading mesh in order for them to sell it on the marketplace.  The other products have descriptions such as "inspired by krystal from starfox." which is definitely against marketplace rules let alone IP infringement.

[Min Barzane]

Merchant you mentioned that has ilegal mesh on MP isnt only one ,there are more.One ewen states that his item is open source and he can do what ewer he wants with it wich it is not,i personaly informed original creators about it.

Item on MP:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Tower-Bridge-64mt-3-prims-boxed-MESH/2633832  

Original mesh:

http://www.wirecase.com/free-3d-models/3d-tower-bridge_s-5_id-2887.html

On site its clearly stated that mesh is not for comercial use or sale in ANNY form but merchnt states othervise.

Other mesh items this merchant has are also rippofs. If this continues and LL doesnt make reporting of ilegal mesh easer we will see tons of items like that in SL and real creators will not survive,original creations will fall down to 0 becouse its not worth to invest time and effort to make it when some ppl who dont respect anything just convert downloaded mesh for SL and sell it as is with no effort invested whats so ewer!

[MaxTux Wonder]

Exactly, the point is what i'm working for if someone can sell stolen items?

 

Imagine that i realize a similar item that cost me a month of work, the thief sell and me not...

[Maeve Balfour]

It never ceases to amaze me at how brazen some people are (or just purely stupid) when it comes to dishonest practices - in this case selling stolen meshes. I am not surprised that it is happening, sadly, but rather at how blatant they are in doing so.

Generally, thieves aren't exactly rocket scientists, so their skill levels in regards to rigging, quality control etc will probably be pretty low - and this will unfortunately give mesh a bad taste for many customers who get ripped off in this manner.

Having been a Poser user for several years, I am fairly familiar with a lot of the general content around the related community (DAZ-3D figures etc). I won't point any fingers due to TOS, but I have already alerted DAZ on one occasion when one of their main figures appeared in the marketplace advertised as a "next generation avatar" (the seller even "borrowed" a promotional image from the DAZ website to use in his own listing!). Not sure what it was like within SL, as I refused to purchase it, although one customer had left a bitterly disappointed review. Regardless, the item seems to have been removed fairly quickly.

I guess it is up to us honest mesh creators and users to be vigilant (but not vigilantes) in keeping our eyes open, and alerting rightful mesh creators if we recognise their works being listed in here illegally.

:matte-motes-frown:

[Catwise Yoshikawa]

---

Min Barzane wrote:

Merchant you mentioned that has ilegal mesh on MP isnt only one ,there are more.One ewen states that his item is open source and he can do what ewer he wants with it wich it is not,i personaly informed original creators about it.

Item on MP:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Tower-Bridge-64mt-3-prims-boxed-MESH/2633832

  

---

And funny his comment here because a one star rating for listing as a 3 prims item: "it is 3 prims and the mesh is 64 equivalent (that's how mesh works > http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh"

So now all mesh creators would say only 1 prim when in fact are in SL 30prim? And no flag option for wrong prim count

[EQINOX Corbin]

While i hate  stolen content asmuch as anyone  however on a closer  inspection  of the mesh  of the one  on deviant art and the one on the market place  they are not the same  tho they do have simularitys they also have many  diforant features .  I in the pic below i have highlightet in red  the difforances.

1: The ears  tho simular are not the same  on the one on marketplace are shorter and more upright  were as the ones on deviant art are longer and more  pointing backward.

2: The mouth on the deviant art one the mouth is clearly defined by the mesh  were as on the  marketplace one there is no defined  mouth

3: The pink arm things (sorry duno what there called   ) but yeh if you look at the  deviant art one  you  can see they  cover the entier arm and have a more refined  level of detail like creases and seams were as when you look at the market place one  you can see that they  are not only shorter  but  they are also a compleatly diforant shape  they dont even have the same level of detail as in  no  creases or seams.

4:The  anthro legs  are also  simular but not the same when you compare  meshes  the deviant art  one is more  upright were as the marketplace one is more horozontal

marketplace pic on left  and deviant art one on the right

 

So as you can see  its ether a totaly difforant  mesh  or its a heavily  modified  version that ends up not looking as good as the origonal.

[Casper Priestman]

You need to read the description on the marketplace, the vendor states that it is indeed the model downloaded from Deviantart. Rigging and weighting can also cause the difference in the knee joint areas, although the ears are probably just an optical difference due to the pictures taken.

[EQINOX Corbin]

As staited ar the botom of my  post i did  point out that it could be a heavily  modified version.

 

Ether way after again looking at the persons deviant art page they have not bothered to set any writen restrictions  on the mesh usage  they havent even botherd to set up a leagely backable  deviant art CC  (see pic below  of what is missing on this guys page and this is requierd to set leagaly backed  usage limitations)

here is a link to what the CC covers http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/  so sadly with out these  restrictions in place the mesh is leagaly considered free of any usuage restrictions

[Drongle McMahon]

"so sadly with out these  restrictions in place the mesh is leagaly considered free of any usuage restrictions"

I'm afraid you are somewhat mistaken. Perhaps you would care to look at the DeviantArt copyright information page. I draw your attention particularly to the section on what sort of things are copyrighted and the cautions section that follows it.

I think you will find* that the Creative Commons licenses that are available from links on the site are not to provide protection, which is already granted as the result of implicit copyright. They are to relax some of the copyright restrictions, depending on the version chosen, by providing an explicit license.

*Since I am not a lawyer, you should consult one to determine whether these assertions are valid.

[Tailslol Mills]

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/fr-FR/stores/41625

to me some freebies here (and some not freebies) look like gamerips (from ps2 and pc...)

kingdom hearts,monster hunter,mass effect,star wars.....

[EQINOX Corbin]

Im sorry but your responce is not valid quite simply becuse the creator of that mesh on DA dus not own the rights  to the Renamon its based on thus they cannot claim any copyright on it becuse you canot  copyright something that is simply a copy of another that is copyrighted by the makers of Digimon. So if any DMCA was to hold  against the market place users  a DMCA would also have to hold against the user on DA becuse i very much doubt they got permision  from the makers of Digimon to make an exact mesh copy  and then not only make  art with it  but also distribute it.

 

[Drongle McMahon]

That is why I avoided saying who held the copyright. Whether that is the originator of the character, or the author of the model, who may have a license from the originator, or both, the copyright still exists whether or not there is a statement to that effect. Thus the absence of a copyright or license statement does not mean that use is unrestricted. It is irrelevant whether the DA creator is infringing or not, since even if he is, that does not mean anyone else is entitled to copy the work. On the other hand, it is relevant  when it comes to the question of who is entitled to take actions to defend the copyright..