Ayesha Lytton

The SL My Little Ponies are actually free, though people do sell accessories for them. They're designed so you can create your own *original* pony character, which the RL company also encourages as they sell blank ponies you can paint, mod, and sell. That's different from copying a character straight from a game or movie.

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Rage

I have a couple of mesh cars I made but the TOS states I can't use them. I haven't.

Adeon Writer

Actually, the higher quality versions are sold.

Not that I would know anything about that.

Charlotte Bartlett

Sega got injunctive relief and $10,000 in damages plus attorney’s fees for a copyright infringement claim that was reported last year (not SL related) ... so they seem to protect their IP versus not.

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Eata

There seem to be quite a few Batman props and tools such as this one https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p...tarang/3263419

I think I found the source of why there are so many, Batarang SET 3D Model - Free - obj, lwo which even says they are from Akrham Asulum.

Yoshiko Fazuku

i have a few thoughts on this subject. When it comes to creating something in the likeness of an object in the realworld everything in the Virtual world is technicaly a copyright infringement to some degree. its the nature of the beast. i really dont have an issue with people who create from scratch things that copy real life things. I beleive this is covered some what via Fair use doctrine. I also ponder if there is possibly a diference between selling something for L and never cashing out and selling something for money and or cashing out proceeds of a sale of such a thing. another observation is that most of the people here have bought or taken part in such things as Star Trek and Doctor Who RP and have purchased things that were replicas of those properties witch under current arguments are technically infringement. Building designs can also be covered under copywrite and or trademark and i have seen a lot of replica buildings of real places. Its of my opinion that this subject is a lot more complicated and nuanced than we think and that other than for the purposes of witch hunts and self gratification for the most part we realy have no biz trying to determine whether something is infringeing or not. Its in my opinion that this is between the person claiming the infringement of there IP and the person who is claimed to have infringed with in a court of law. Its my understanding that the DMCA is set up to work where its the responsibility of the IP holder to complain and ask for removal and not the host of the content to actively search for possible infringement else the host becomes involved in the legal dispute. The reason for this is (to my knowledge) is that to remove content with out a valid legal claim makes the host legally liable to possible breach of contract or liability for lost revenue. How this is applied to SL and LL is some what complicated due to TOS and other factors.

In a nutshell i dont think any of us can honestly state what is infringing and what is not about others peoples IP given the current climate of the law and to attempt to do so is pointless and simply brown nosing in other peoples business. If you are a creator and you think your IP has been infringed you have ways of protecting your IP. and its up for the rights holder to defend there work.

anyways just something to ponder and discus and no offense is intended

Laverne Unit

Balls. Sorry, but it's perfectly possible to state what constitutes an infringement in most cases. (The question of whether the rights holder will pursue a DMCA takedown is another matter.) I agree that there can be some confusion with franchises like Doctor Who (though note that the BBC have been aggressive about protecting it in the past, and even if you're not profiting from it, using the Doctor Who brand is almost certainly violating their trademark/copyright), but this thread is about ripped content that has been taken from other sources and dishonestly presented as an original creation. I don't think anyone here is looking for a witch hunt - just some ethical behaviour.

When an individual is clearly presenting someone else's work as their own (and there are some very clear cases in this thread), it is not pointless to state that they are infringing on another's rights. It's a public service, especially if that content is later removed and a buyer ends up losing money. That goes for a copybotter selling another SL resident's work, or someone who's ripped meshes from a professionally-made game.

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Yoshiko Fazuku

I agree that riped content from games and content from 3rd party sites that hasn't been approved and licensed for use in sl is a big fat no no. The issue I wanted to propose and point out is we dont always know for sure that permission doesn't exist, or that the item is truly a rip. It can be possibly harmful to make assumptions especially when not qualified to determine such things. Only the original IP holder can bring up a valid complaint and a court of law is the only place a determination of fact can be made in a legal dispute over IP. This does not mean that submiting a posable infringment to a IP holder is a bad thing. I am only pointing out the problems and issues with public speculation of such things.

Joshua Nightshade

So what? People are going to speculate either way. And given the fact that 99.99% of the time the individual in question does NOT have permission and has NOT licensed the rights, it's not much of a surprise that it happens.

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Adeon Writer

Plus if they did ask for and actually obtain the legal permission to sell the content, you can bet the copyright holder would require their company name be mentioned prominently and the fact that the content was used with permission would be boasted.

It never is.

Elysium Hynes

So you´re basically saying if you don´t own the IP rights yourself stfu. aimirite?

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Laverne Unit

I don't see a problem as long as the speculation is relatively sensible and restrained. Someone who posts saying "I've noticed someone selling this item and I think it's a violation. Does anyone have any more information?" or, better "and I've sent them an IM to ask if they have permission" is surely fine. Such has been the tone of this thread.

If someone is selling something based on someone else's IP, they should not be in any way surprised if people start to query it (and such queries may end up being the least of their worries). Also:
One possible benefit of raising the question in a public community is that we might discover that permission does exist or that it isn't a rip, thus clarifying the issue for future buyers.
This is going a bit far. There might be an occasional case where it would need to be escalated to court proceedings (and it would require both sides to have a very strong case for ownership), but in the vast majority of SL cases, if you're not the copyright holder, you're in the wrong.

Tsukasa Karuna

Sorry, I can't agree with this. To go all reductio-ad-absurdum up in here, it's like asking if $person is, say, a furry gorean ageplayer griefer (note lack of slashes). Sure you might be just asking questions, and probably are acting in good faith, but you've already cast the subject in a negative light and damaged them to some degree just by virtue of the accusation.

Or fair use. Or adaptation. Or parody. Or any other number of arrangements that don't involve blatantly ripping crap off sans permission.

This is why copyright is usually handled by the lawyers. You have no way of knowing what arrangement a given person has with the original company, or original artist, or licensing company, or IP holding company, or copyrightception five levels removed from the original where the rights still transfer.

I think this whole thread is a horrible idea, but then again, my thoughts on IP are pretty extreme and well known

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Ann Otoole

heh even if someone had permission and the license required putting the trademark up you all know what LL would do concerning the trademark right?

*!poof!*

Adeon Writer

No way of knowing, yes, no way of logically concluding to with reasonable error, no.

This is SL marketplace we are talking about. It's not rocket science.

Eata

Right, which is why this thread isn't about that and is about items clearly exported from professional sources. 99% of the things pointed out here are from big budget games, that's pretty cut and dry. There's no way in hell anyone has permission.

Tsukasa Karuna

And what happens the moment the 1% (heh) gets tarred with the "zOMG RIPPER!!1" brush? A meaningless apology, and meanwhile the damage is done. Better one guilty man and all that..

And why isn't this an issue for LL, LL's and the artist's lawyers, etc? Especially considering, IIRC, you have to verify RL information in order to even upload mesh?

Going back to page 1, the guns that were taken from Resident Evil is a good example. Setting aside the merit of copyrighting a model of a gun (or type of gun) that's been in almost every shooter ever, I'm kind of curious why anyone in here cares?

Is there something special that makes the RE TMP any different from any other model of a TMP? (Not really a fan of the series, so I don't know)

Is everyone in here such fans of Konami that they like doing free legal research for them?

Is this a name-and-shame operation?

I'm legitimately curious.

And then there's the name (Mesh police?!)... no offense here, but I really don't like the sound of this, especially with the reputation such groups gain on the grid. I make a model of a gun, and I have to worry about some group feverishly comparing that work to every other 3d model they can get their hands on on the off chance that I'm ripping it off or something.

Bad vibes.

Ann Otoole

dude they don't care. free advertising. did LL remove anything at all?

I'd like to buy an antique roadster that works on linden roads. Since that is literally impossible I will never have one.

Adeon Writer

I own two copyrighted peices of content in SL. One is a Bumblebee Transformer, the other is a 2007 Solstice. Both items had the explicit permission from Hasbro and Pontiac, respectively. How did I know this? It was clearly advertised via external verifiable sources at the time of purchase.

Laverne Unit

I think we're talking at cross purposes a bit here. I completely take your points - and for what it's worth, I have some problems with aspects of IP law.

If this was a thread where we were examining every single slightly/potentially dubious product in SL (and that would be a LONG list) then I would agree with you - if someone wants to make their own (for example) SL version of Star Wars stormtrooper armour, the only people who can decide if that's an acceptable use of their IP is LucasArts. I might know that it's a dubious situation, but I don't feel that it's my place to do the job of the rights holder and inform on them when the content being created is the original (if derivative) work of the seller.

In such a situation, I would also be uncomfortable with making a public spectacle of the person, and I wouldn't want to name and shame. The furthest I'd go would be to drop the person a note asking if they had permission. (I probably wouldn't even go that far.)

However, when the seller has stolen work from another person by ripping a model - well, that is absolutely no better than copybotting. It's also very easy to spot ripped game models (the majority of this thread, I think). These cases don't even get as far as determining whether fair use applies or whether the work could be deemed a parody. They're just rips, plain and simple. I wouldn't be interested if it wasn't plain and simple.

Because they've done something wrong -profiting by someone else's hard work, misrepresenting their own skills, etc - and they're being dishonest, and I would hate to see someone spend money on an item that might later be removed when it's reported to the owner of the content.

Ann Otoole

rippers don't care. and Phillip Rosedale's claim to fame is enabling ripping. Good fucking luck changing that corporate culture.

Sione

That and the fact that they are competing against legitimate content creators who spend a long time creating their products.

Eata

Darksiders sword and another Batarang with whopping prices. Darksiders sword has been ripped for Garrys mod/Skyrim so that is quite easy to find.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p...-Sword/3260003
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p...-Sonic/3253553

The 1 star reviews on a nicely rendered chair says it has a land impact of 180. So that's someone who spent 1000 lindens on a chair someone imported without giving a crap about quality.

Tiffy Vella

Is it just me or is the sellers comment on that review some alien language?