Thunderclap

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=222194
Any one know who this is that is doing the ripping or willing to help defend the cause of skin making?

Walker

No. I'm sure all skin creators would defend the cause of skin making. The debate there is about people offering to rip legitimately purchased skins in order to apply tattoos. Not a problem if permission has been obtained from all parties (ie. the original skin and tattoo creators), but unfortunately some people think the black market is justified because skin creators generally refuse to do such custom work (mainly because it's not very profitable).

prinţesă nină

i admit to ripping both my skin and the tattoos then creating a skin for myself from the textures.
i bought both, ive given the resulting skin to nobody.
it is nice to be able to wear underclothes and not need to wear tattoos as pants and whatnot.

no i dont feel a bit of guilt for doing it either.

Tyche Shepherd

To be honest if I knew how to I'd do the same - There is one custom tattoo I have I'd love to add to my skin . If it's for personal use and I've paid for both the tattoo and the skin I'd not feel bad

Redhead

People still read the official SL forums??

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prinţesă nină

thunderclap was kind enough to include the name of the ripping app in the thread tags.

Io Zeno

As it was pointed out in that thread, if someone already knows how to rip skins, why bother "hiding behind" a tattoo business to steal them? All they need to do is stand around and rip all the skins they want and no one would ever know.

Io Zeno

I ripped my old skins to change the shade of the skin slightly. It's very hard to find good black or mixed race skins. I loved the skin but the shade that was closest was too dark. So I lightened them a bit. I never said so publicly before because skin makers can go nuts over this but I don't care anymore.

Joshua Nightshade

They do go nuts, but this is covered under fair use and protected whether they hate it or not.

Ewan Took

All the hassle of intercepting the textures and re-uploading them as well as now owning a master copy of the texture when you really aren't supposed to (some greedy arsehole will try to sell it on), all because LL will not give us more layers of clothing.

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Io Zeno

The thing is, this guy advertising this ripping and tattooing, is not who they need to be worried about. It's the guy ripping the skins without telling anyone who is selling them. You aren't going to draw attention to yourself if your intention is theft.

What skin makers should do is hook themselves up with a tattoo or just a photoshop person they trust to offer the service, if it's not worth it to them.

And I understand it wouldn't be worth it for a popular skin designer unless they charged so much no one would agree. They would wind up doing hours of custom work for what would amount to 2 or 3 dollars an hour, every week.

Io Zeno

And they never will, people have been asking forever along with a non-bubble-butt skirt mesh.

oh....

NECK ATTACHMENTS!!!

Joshua Nightshade

I still want my transparency layer.

Walker

That's not a bad idea.

Cristiano

This issue flared up like crazy last year during the "Frankenskin" incident that opened up a whole pandora's box of people fighting about this topic. The solution is for LL to carry through on their promise to add additional layers, but in the meantime, the suggestion of skimakers aligning with a tattoo and makeup artist they trust with their skins is not a bad idea. There are all kinds of valid arguments on both sides, but ultimately, it does come down to the need for more layers on the avatar.

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mcgeeb Gupte

Ok, as a skin maker myself, the idea of someone stealing a skin from me and selling it is scary. It is less scary if someone rips it and then adds a tattoo to it.
They are allowing themselves extra profit at the expense of skin makers who are the ones to actually own the original skin. If they want to fix this problem, they should pressure LL into adding more layers. Or they should at least join in partnership with a skin maker and get some of the sales from it.
Look at it this way, skin makers create on base skin with different facial hair options and makeup options, different shades, body oil, and sometimes tattoos themselves. Creating all of these options is how many make sales from skins. The skin creators add things to the skin, not the tattoo creators themselves. If they are allowed to do this, then whats to stop someone from creating a business just like them to do makeup or hair additions? In a sense, its the same thing. Except many skin creators don't offer tattoos that I know of.
In any case, its still a lot better than someone stealing the skin and selling it, but there are many questions to deal with. I think there are better ways to deal with this.

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Psyke Phaeton

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1449

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Joannah Cramer

Wrong when you take closer look at technical details. It could be correct in situation where skin maker sells actual textures that you manually apply to existing skin template of your AV, but the skin file you typically purchase is *not* these. It's just small pre-made file that contains *UUID reference* to three files on LL asset server along with few more attribute numbers. That's all it is. There's a reason why you can't just click on tattoo thumbnail in your appearance window and have it show in full quality, when you don't own the texture itself. It's because skin file and textures are considered as two different things.

Since the 'fair use' you speak of is ability to alter the purchased property, in case of skin files that means ability to change these files. That is, the texture UUIDs (or the other attributes) they contain, to different ones. And by all means, knock yourself out. But retrieving and modifying the actual texture files when you have not purchased *them* is entirely different matter.

Note, i don't personally begrudge people who want to apply tattoo or whatever to their skin and so they go this route. (though if they bother to contact me about it, i generally do such tweaks free of charge myself) But my indifference to it doesn't stem from this 'fair use' thing, because whoever uses that argument simply doesn't understand what the skin files actually are.

edit: and yeah, enhancement to current layer system would not only resolve this nonsense but also let people to sell way more skin options than you can currently get

Joshua Nightshade

I understand what they are, and I understand what it is, and yes, this is fair use.

Joannah Cramer

How is it fair use when you are altering something you have not bought?

Joshua Nightshade

What are you talking about something you haven't bought?

If I buy a skin and a tattoo, it's fair use for me to merge those two for my personal usage.

If I don't own those things then obviously not. That's not at issue here. Your distinction of skin/UUID is irrelevant.

Joannah Cramer

OK, in simpler terms. When you buy skin, you get this:

UUID_1
UUID_2
UUID_3

when you buy the tattoo, you get this:

UUID_4
UUID_5
UUID_6

if "it's fair use for me to merge those two for my personal usage", then the merging you speak of is actually ability to mix and match these six numbers for any combination of three of them. Which won't get you the end result of having graphics of one overlayed over the other. Because that is merging of entirely different things that are image files you have *not* purchased.

And it's not distinction of "skin/UUID" because skins *are* UUIDs. What skins aren't are *texture files*.

Joshua Nightshade

Okay, you find me any sort of ToS or even a sign in a store that says "The L$ purchase only covers the use of your account for the UUID" and maybe I'll consider your argument.

I don't need the psd file; the UUID is referencing the object and you're making a needless distinction that isn't supported by the SL ToS or even a single merchant sign.

Short of maybe Chip Midnight, but he's the Apple of skinmakers.

Joannah Cramer

Much simpler way to solve that -- if according to you by purchasing the skin you get the rights to the very texture files that form them, for personal use... why then the SL client explicitly blocks you from viewing these textures, as long as you haven't obtained them separately in the form of textures files? Very much like it blocks you from viewing full quality textures applied to prims you buy, if you don't buy these textures as separate image files, for that matter...

prinţesă nină

couldnt care less about this legal/techno mumbo jumbo.
i bought the skin, i bought the tattoos, i wear them all as one skin.
nobody was deprived of a sale, no one was ripped off, nobody will ever know or care that the creator listed on the skin is 'nina' as nobody will ever see the properties of the skin. the only difference visible to the rest of the world is that i can now wear my cossie, socks, and my underthings over my tattoos.