Virus opened this issue on Apr 27, 2000 ยท 52 posts
Keith posted Thu, 27 April 2000 at 5:15 PM
This is getting damn silly. Answer this question: what, exactly, will closing the site (and I see 3DCC has jumped on this absurd bandwagon) accomplish? The thief in question obviously doesn't give a damn what you guys think, so how does this action hurt him? Oh, I understand that if he'd stolen something of mine I'd be upset. I'd really want to smack him good. So it seems to me that pulling all my stuff offline that he might have taken, while possibly emotionally satisfying, is counterproductive. Why? Because, if I was giving the stuff away for free and he was selling it, by pulling my set off the only set that's available is the stuff he's selling. So if people want something I've made, the only place they're going to find it is through him. Where they pay for it. And he makes money. And I get nothing. Of course, if I leave my stuff available, well then people can get it from me for free. And he gets nothing because, realistically, why pay when you can get it for free, legally? I get proper credit and the satisfaction of seeing him make less money than he otherwise would have. And then I'd see about getting organized and trying to do something about it, probably in cooperation with Zygote and whoever else I suspected might be interested in learning about this little scam. It would be the same thing if I wrote a book that someone copied and stuck their name on. Protecting the copyright does not mean that I have to go around and yank my book of shelves. It means that I inform the proper authorities and do what I legally can to stop the illegal copying. And meanwhile I'm screaming as loud as I can about what this guy did and, hey folks, why pay $50 bucks for that rip-off when you can get the real deal from me for a lot cheaper? Of course that's just me. And if I had a model up at the Props Guild I'd be saying the same damn thing.