Not to mention the fact that though Lady Luna may have takin out Antons part of the original mesh she is still useing the original thumbnail of the warez mesh and that in its self is pretty insulting twords Anton and kind of another slap in the face. Granted this may not have been Lady Luna's intention but it was in pretty bad taste to even post anything resembling that meash here.

On a less serious note - that hair would be good for one thing, making a female version of Don King :-)

The rest of it make for pretty hair though. :)

will be adding the magik set to the sizable list of stuff I'll be getting from DAZ next week :-)

Anton, your idea that some rules and guidelines should be on the upload screen is a good one. A well worded warning may catch the eye of those who mean well and just don't know. It also looks worse when there's no warning. Well, interesting thread. Hey, I have an idea, how about a render of everyone kissing and making up. It would fit with the Valentines theme!

I do think that with guidelines clearly posted at upload there should be no 2nd chance. If all the guidelines are clearly written before upload then there is no reason why even a first offense should occur. If people coose not to read the guidelines that is there own resposibity. If not then each upload should count as an offense and not just each time they get caught.

I think it's impossible to check every free stuff item. Look at the delay's in getting stuff up in the MP and that's stuff R'osity has an internst in getting up there. I do have an idea for a halfway solution though. Make Free Stuff more like the Marketplace. Treat every free stuff item as a zero cost sale. This would let R'osity and the free stuff distributor keep a record of who downloaded what and when. In the even of a Warez problem, a message could be sent to all the downloaders informing them, and it would keep a record of of losses for some one like Anton to use against the Pirate. It would also open up the opertunity to some welcome Free Stuff improvments. Like adding preview renders and a REAL product description. Something more than just a thumbnail. You could still require the user to link to their own server space for both the file, and the previews while only increasing the overhead of server space used at Rosity by a small amount. I personally hate having to download something just to see what it looks like. I would welcome a more verbose product description. It would also make offenders easier to catch. I would also like to see an optional download limit so a user doesn't bang the free stuff providers bandwidth to death.

That isn't a bad idea. I always hated downloading something just to find it was only a texture. But that would mean that they would have to wipe FreeStuff clean and start over. Since Freestuff generates most of the traffic here I don't think that would ever happen. But something has to change for sure.

There is also a language and cultural problem here. Perhaps these warnings could be available for download in different languages. Have you ever purchased something to find that instructions were in Japanese only. Consider how it might be for someone who doesn't speak or understand American and downloads something from this site or from Daz, or most sites for that matter. Efforts should be made to better communicate with each other. It's easy to get a lynching party together and sully someone's reputation on the net. Take your contentions to Court, however, and odds are you will be laughed out of there. You can't prove intent if you didn't communicate the rules to the buyer (defendant) in his or her language and in a clear fashion. Good luck, Q

Anton, Luna did not kill your product... Have you seen how much of yours is being traded p2p these days??? Why do you only get loud when you believe one of yours has been violated, I never saw you defend other merchants who get ripped off, maybe even more than you are! I am not condoning warez or p2p, but if you insist on getting personal in an open forum, you cast a very bad light on DAZ right now as its employee. Look at Kupa and Dan, who do NOT get this hot and loud here... and stand to lose a lot more money than YOU ever will! And you never got Laura banned from here, she caused more damage than Luna.

You're talking about manpower though, rattler. Ultimately, extra manpower will have to take place, but how will that be offset? Paid help? Volunteers? Will that stifle the uploads to the freestuff? And what if a mesh gets by the screener? Imagine having to check every clothing mesh against every known sale item from every known site! It has to be checked manually. I doubt there's a program out there that will compare .obj files to determine if they are similar (though some enterprising developer might one day come up with a checker). I think it should be up to the creators to verify if the obj is the same or not. After all, the person who made it will know what to look for. So would DAZ and RDNA and yada yada care to review every obj before its OK to post in the free stuff? Would a poster have any reason to expect that their obj would be reviewed any time prior to the year 3000? Easiest thing is to give a warning on the upload page and act when violations are reported.

I agree that there is little that Renderosity can proactively do about this issue. "Auditing" the uploads would be next to impossible as Rendo does not have access to every product that is out there. Imagine trying to compare all swords to each other!!!! The best that they can do is develop a policy and apply it consistently. This includes immediate removal of links from the download page; a specific, written policy that is on the download front page; the immediate and absolute banning of users that have been caught violating the terms (no one-strike, two strikes. In the real world, if you are caught stealing, you more than likely do some time). This includes "family and friends" of those who work and administer this site, as the community is rather large and, at one time, a hell of a lot closer. Keeping a profile log of all who upload is both fruitless and pointless. How can they verify a person's identity, especially over the Internet? You kill the free stuff, and you likely impact the overall community, including individual creativity. This MUST happen, otherwise, Rendo could be subject to a legal challenge by warez artist. If the above is not done and complied with, Rendo could face a willful abetting charge, as the issue has been brought to their attention many times, and they, to this point, have not addressed it.

Anton- You have every right to rant about this. It is a can of worms, isn't it!

PheonixRising: "If you want to ignore someone who attacks you that is your right. I choose not to if the person won't stop after I have asked them to stop."

Me: As far as I'm concerned you 2 can have at it until the cows come home or you get banned for TOS violations...which will probably be soon based on the attacks you 2 are lobbing at each other.

PheonixRising: "I still feel that a new process of submission is needed. Lady Luna's first batch of 12 dresses wasn't brought to my attention until three months had past."

Me: For the record, Freestuff isn't "submitted", it's not stored on Renderosity's servers. It's not Renderosity's responsibility to download and check every mesh to see if it's legal...and I see no reason to make it their responsibility! Sorry about your losses Anton. Gee, since your stuff is so widely pirated, perhaps it would be in your best interest to download every item posted in the Freestuff on every site in the community and compare it to your meshes so that you can catch it sooner!

PheonixRising: "If there would be better guidelines and restictions posted as they upload then there would be no reason for any second offenses."

Me: There are guidelines...as to restrictions...as long as the items and their thumbs fall within the TOS that's the only restriction that should be required.

EricofSD: "Easiest thing is to give a warning on the upload page and act when violations are reported."

Me: Sounds fair to me Eric!

ryamka: "The best that they can do is develop a policy and apply it consistently. This includes immediate removal of links from the download page; a specific, written policy that is on the download front page; the immediate and absolute banning of users that have been caught violating the terms (no one-strike, two strikes."

Me: I agree, that's a sensible solution.

Since the items in question are not "warez" per se, but cut and pasted pieces of copyright material disguised as original creations, and since the items are not stored on Renderosity's servers I don't see this falling under the same category as pure "warez" and don't think this site should be or would be held responsible for such items. The same holds true for 3D Arena, 3DC, Renderotica, PoserPros or any other site that hosts freestuff or links to freestuff.

Although I have sympathy for your plight Anton, and agree that anyone redistributing copyrighted material without permission should be banned when caught...I don't feel it's Renderosity's responsibility to screen every item and check it for legality. Once Renderosity is alerted, removes the item, and bans the poster...it becomes an issue between you and the thief. I realize that you have found your items being blatently traded on p2p and that has impacted your profits, but that is not the problem you have here.

Personally, after seeing your behavior and your attacks on others that have posted...I'm surprised you haven't been banned for TOS violations as a result of personal attacks (oh...and just for the record...the same goes for VirtualSite). Maturity, civility, and manners are good business traits...I haven't seen much of that.

That's my 2 cents!

Hello, I'm agreed with Anton's complains about this issue, if someone steals others work and post it as this issue probes I think someone in Renderosity's team is not doing the work of checking free stuff posts, I know that there is imposible to verify one by one all the files which are posted ad free stuff, but if you got a fair complain which shows you solid proofs as Anton did, I agree that the TOS has to be aplied without remorse. I do belive that artists must show solidarity when someone is trying to screw one of the artists of this community, specially an artist like Anton, who have given too much for the poser community via his freebies and commercial models. Anton you have all my solidarity and I second your petition to Renderosity's team to aply the full penalty which is settled at the TOS. The TOS can't be aplied by convenience, there is not space for interpretations, it is very clear about this kind of issues, on the other hand the ignorance of the law don't is not a excuse to violate it, and here are serious copyright violations. Renderosity has a good shield because they don't store the files which are offered at the free stuff area, but they provide the links to get those files, so this problem affects Renderosity site too. My advise to Renderosity's team is to take important actions to void issues like this one in the future, the years which has been taken to renderosity to make a solid reputation trough the 3D community could be trowing to the trash in few days, if the TOS is not aplied. Don't take me wrong, I just hate when a good reputed artist is ripped off by people without ethics. Virus

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=970465

I believe that stealing and warezing is seriously wrong. I've complained about it before, and have made efforts to be sure that what I have on my computers is ok. I've paid out thousands of dollars to lawyers to protect my copyrights, and I've been deposed to protect the rights of others. That being said, I have also been ignored. Sharp-eyed members can do more than a handful of moderators when it comes to spotting things which look "iffy", but once an alert is put up, moderators ought to look into things. Is obfuscate still a member? Are all 13 of "his" items still here in Free Stuff. Maybe Epic will slap down a gnat, and maybe they won't... but I wouldn't want to be the one who admitted publicly that the mesh was taken directly out of a game by "a friend of a friend of a friend". He didn't show much remorse when I called him on the theft, either. (link) He even added to the lot. However, he knows that what he has done is illegal... and the fact that he went back and changed all the names to "looks like" instead of removing the items, just confirms his guilt and his obstinancy. The case with the Maiko morph is different. I don't have it, or Vicky 3 for that matter, but strongly suspect that if somebody explained to the morph-maker that he needed to encode the file properly, he would be embarrassed and perhaps even glad for the explanation of how to do it and the opportunity to fix it. Those lines from the readme up there indicate that he assumes that you need to have purchased the original from DAZ in order to use his morphs for her face. It smells like a language barrier, not like an attempt to rip off anybody or pass off the work of others as his own. Because we do have newcomers and people who don't speak English much less legalese, I can't endorse slapping somebody down and banning them for something they can't know and don't understand. I would recommend that when a trespass occurs, that somebody official speak to the member (and find a translator if necessary!). The item can be removed while it is being questioned and fixed. If a person repeats the mistake or is obstinate and truculent... THEN ban him or her. Carolly

Distributing OBJ files without encoding them is a violation of Daz EULA, the Renderosity TOS per add-on for free stuff. it's warez pure and simple. OBJ file is simply source code of the model, distribution of that is illegal unless the downloader has bought the obj file and it's varifyed (re encoded freebie). The person distributing the freebie is in volation, as are the downloaders, even if the downloaders have no idea they are in possesion of stolen items. Renderosity can be held acountable (must as Napster was) for providing the means for the illegal transaction to happen. Anybody that makes items be it for purchase or as freebies needs to police their items, as well as the site "sponsoring" those items. Anton is policeing his items, I'm suprised that more content creators have not chimed in on this thread saying ME TOO! Maybe they don't care, maybe they don't know. However Anton is not the only content creator being violated, there are several images in freebie that have been grabbed from product pages, items that are 'similar' to marketted items, as anton has pointed out several times. With the amount of money that is being lost, the number of members of renderosity downloading these items (6k! wow), even at a dollar a pop your talkin about grand theft, felony copyright violations. serious stuff. needs to be addressed as serious stuff and not as one content creator moaning about his losses of sales. At 6k of downloads thats MONTHS of rent money that could have been gotten through sales. it's serious, and I don't think anybody should take it so lightly as to brush it off as a content creator moaning. As far as keeping information private, if action has been taken and a viloation has happened, then that information NEEDS to be shared. 6 thousand people have an illegal item on their hard drives and may not know. How this is addressed I don't know, it's not my JOB to know, it's renderosity's job, and it has to be let known when an illegal action has taken place as to inform the renderosity members. I now have to go through 6 CDs and verify and delete items that may be a violation and get me in trouble if I use them. I'm hurt as a member here because my time is lost. I'm glad that Anton has brought it up, I'm glad that Renderosity is trying to do something about it, more on the issue needs to be done. my 2 cents, and it was hard getting them.

Illusions, I hate tp disagree with you, but there is no difference between this and warez. Think of the anology of sampling, where musicians used to take pieces of another song and use it for loops in their own music. Every court in the US would slap that down as stealing, and have done so. Consistently. As a mesh is a copyrighted object by default, the same principles apply. It is stealing, pure and simple.

hmatienzo, I have not seen Peer to peer but you seem to. I never got any heads up from you about any of my files there either. As far as Lady Luna ruining sales of the dresses, you are absolutely mistaken. At the time I checked and sales droped 50% after the date she released all 12 desses. They died quickly after that cause some of the dresses were almost exactly like mine. This is about warez in freestuff. I generally don't comment on other members personally or offer career advice and would appreciate the same respect. No offense intended. It kinda bugs me when people tell me I don't know what I am talking about after i have looked into it and researched it. Anton

Anton, quite a few people here browse p2p regularly, and many a screenshot has been posted already. I'll IM you in a sec, this is not for public eyes.

freeStuff issue.. Yes if caught warezing someone's product in any way shape or form should be a bannable offense and done immediately once found out. VS vs Anton.. ummm PRO's do it in email guy's.. Anton remember you represent not just yourself but Daz as well. None of us really care about what goes on and you BOTH can choose to ignore each other or not. P2P - "I have not seen Peer to peer but you seem to. I never got any heads up from you about any of my files there either." Daz is and has been aware of this. Since most of your products have been available through them I think most people assumed you knew. I thought that. Anton, You are right to be pissed about this issue. I don't think anyone has said or implyed that you aren't right. I can understand your frustration. BUT... I think the problem you are running into here is most people assume that you would be and act proffessional in your communications and unfortunantly right now that's not how it sounds. The PTB's can only do so much, and they are working on it, but you are going to have to Shrugs for lack of better wording. work within their timeline.

" Make Free Stuff more like the Marketplace. Treat every free stuff item as a zero cost sale. This would let R'osity and the free stuff distributor keep a record of who downloaded what and when. In the even of a Warez problem, a message could be sent to all the downloaders informing them, and it would keep a record of of losses for some one like Anton to use against the Pirate. It would also open up the opertunity to some welcome Free Stuff improvments. Like adding preview renders and a REAL product description. Something more than just a thumbnail. You could still require the user to link to their own server space for both the file, and the previews while only increasing the overhead of server space used at Rosity by a small amount. " actually, make it so free stuff is ONLY available through the Marketplace, as a zero cost item. with marketplace testing done on all of it. that would end the warez issues right quick. would also mean that there would not be a poorly documented or described item in the free stuff, it will be set up properly.

No offense guys but enough with the career advice. i don't comment on your lives and stuff so please do the same with me. VS wants to give me a hard time I am going to have something to say about it. Very few things get me annoyed. Stealing and name calling are two of them. Unsolicited personal advice is ranking a high third lately. If profesional means using IM and email and just ignoring the problem hoping other people will fix it, well that didn't work with any of the situations above. Don't be so quick to judge me if you don't know what I have gone through or done to clear up these matters. If people insult me personally I will respond. If someone steals from me I will tell others about it. I am just a person like anyone else. I either stay as I am or I don't post at all. And if people want to keep bringing up who I work for everytime I have an opinion it looks like not posting at all. If you have a personal insight you want to share with me you also could use email or IM. No offense but now I'm getting ticked off again.

I'm not sure about that Jaqui, I'd rather know that something I'm going to pay for has been tested thoroughly rather than skipped through quickly because the testing queue was so large... and the last I heard the queue was quite large. It is a problem, there's no doubt, and Anton is right to be upset about it, though it may have been better taken care of through personal correspondence with the site admin. That being said, it doesn't seem fair to punish the majority of honest freestuff providers for the actions of a few, especially when the provider pays for the bandwidth of their downloads. Quite a can of worms here.... sigh

I guess the next step is to wait and see what the Rendo staff come up with. Anton, if it continues to be a problem, you always have the legal recourse. Especially if they do not act once the issue made known to them... Here are a few intesrting quotes the DMCA: For purposes of the first limitation, relating to transitory communications, service provider is defined in section 512(k)(1)(A) as an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the users choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received. For purposes of the other three limitations, service provider is more broadly defined in section 512(k)(l)(B) as a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefor. ME: Um, this is Rendo!!!! In addition, to be eligible for any of the limitations, a service provider must meet two overall conditions: (1) it must adopt and reasonably implement a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances the accounts of subscribers who are repeat infringers; and (2) it must accommodate and not interfere with standard technical measures. (Section 512(i)). Standard technical measures are defined as measures that copyright owners use to identify or protect copyrighted works, that have been developed pursuant to a broad consensus of copyright owners and service providers in an open, fair and voluntary multi-industry process, are available to anyone on The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 reasonable nondiscriminatory terms, and do not impose substantial costs or burdens on service providers. ME: This IS NOT Rendo, at this time...

Ok I am calm again. :) Thanks for the info. lately the admins have been great about handling this stuff. They do look into it and they do remove the links. I think my frustrations is just that, by then, it is too late. And currently there is no way to prevent the situations from repeating. Sorry if I am a bit touchy right now. Just way too much, off topic advice and jabs in one day, to absorb. I'lll leave the post now and wait to see what happens. Everyone keep your fingures crossed. Anton

Well, I can tell you from personal expereince, much of what Daz provides appears in the P2P environment, as well as Usenet. I work in the 3D app industry, and my company produces applications and plugins for other applications, some available commercially and others are purchased by the big guys and used in their apps. I can tell you for a fact, one thing that we do is keep track of the amount of piracy that occurs of our apps. Where possible, we contact the user's domain and have their account shut down under threat of law. Yeah, we know it does no good as there are 100 for every one we shut down. However, now we have a new tool, at least for us. While copy protection can be cracked, we have developed little programs that go in and put identifiers in the applications. These identifiers can be likened to ID numbers. They are all the same size and made up of the same characters so that if any warez kiddie tries to search for it, any differences between a legal copy from X and a legal copy from Y will CRC out to be the same, ie no difference. So we can then obtain copies of the app or plugin from the Internet, and trace the ID number back to the person/Company to whom the app was originally sold. The warez kiddies have no tools to track down the identifiers among all the rest of the code, and we can pinpoint the leaks and deal with the "leaking party" personally. Usually this is in the form of a strong suggestion to pay for additional licenses or suffer the invalidation of their current licenses or legal action. It sucks, but hey you have to at least try. Hopefully this sight will come up with a GOOD policy, not just A policy, and they will be covered for all intents and purposes. It would be shame for this site to be hit by severe legal actions. - Ray

MachineClaw stated: *"Distributing OBJ files without encoding them is a violation of Daz EULA, the Renderosity TOS per add-on for free stuff.

it's warez pure and simple. OBJ file is simply source code of the model, distribution of that is illegal unless the downloader has bought the obj file and it's varifyed (re encoded freebie). The person distributing the freebie is in volation, as are the downloaders, even if the downloaders have no idea they are in possesion of stolen items."*

Well then I have heaps of Warez on my machine. I have loads and loads of MORPHS which are all .obj's. There is and must be a difference between a whole figure and for instance the NOSE or the EARS stored in a morph file. If not then I really do not understand anything anymore. But then again... perhaps I don't.

Morph obj files are fine if they contain only vertex data (mashed, so to speak). If that is not the case, then they should not be distributed by their creator, unless the creator also owns the rights to the original model on which the morphs are based.

judith, to not hurt the marketplace putting free stuff through same process, would require an increase in testers for testing the free stuff. as it currently sits, there are frquently items in free stuff that are not worth downloading, as the product quality is not where it should be for use. or the paths point outside of poser directory, and the targeted texture wasn't included. ( seen that one several times ) besides clearing up small things like that, the testing would give the stie a chance to make sure that the free item in question is not a warez item. ( though it doesn't guarantee none will slip past, we all are human and make mistakes ) I was just putting an idea out, for concideration, after all none of us wants anything we make to be warezed ( it is and we want it stopped just like Anton does ) and unless we can come up with a livable solution, we will be left with either no change or whatever solution the satff here chooses. our input might be ignored, but then again it might be the solution chosen. if we don't make suggestions where all can see it, then no-one can comment and help improve and idea or actually shut it down. ( if it's that bad an idea, like doing nothing to stop warez )

ryamka: "I hate tp disagree with you, but there is no difference between this and warez."

Me: You must have misunderstood me...I did not condone what these people are doing by manipulating others copyrighted material and posting it. I did not mean to give the impression that I felt it was legal, or should be ignored...indeed not, theft is theft. What I was attempting to explain was that Renderosity should not be held responsible for this illegal activity of others since the activity itself is not blatent, but disguised. Having Renderosity screen Freestuff is burdensome...Even the DMCA, as you pointed out, does not require sites to take such extreme measures. It clearly only requires "service providers" to not interfere with the technical measures copyright holders use to identify or protect their works and to terminate the accounts of subscribers that are repeat offenders.

PheonixRising: If profesional means using IM and email and just ignoring the problem hoping other people will fix it, well that didn't work with any of the situations above."

Me: Nobodys says you should ignore the problem Anton...just that you should present yourself in an adult and mature fashion...that's part of what being professional means!

ryamka posted: "Here are a few intesrting quotes the DMCA: For purposes of the first limitation, relating to transitory communications, service provider is defined in section 512(k)(1)(A) as an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the users choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received. For purposes of the other three limitations, service provider is more broadly defined in section 512(k)(l)(B) as a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefor. ME: Um, this is Rendo!!!!" I have to disagree. This clearly describes an internet service provider (such as AOL or Earthlink). Renderosity doesn't provide network access nor do they provide connections for digital online communications. not to mention it's quoted out of context.

I also have to comment on the suggestions that freestuff be put into the Marketplace. Renderotica attempted to put about 16 free items into the marketplace for a period of three days as a promotion. It brought their website to a standstill. I don't think it would be wise to freeze up Renderosity with the thousands of freestuff downloads that occur daily (maybe hourly??).

Oh gosh, Fyre's going to try to be a voice of reason. Run for the hills. Let's be honest, testing of freestuff items just isn't practical. Dozens are uploaded every day. I read Anton's suggestion as more of documenting the downloads, although I may have misunderstood. Note the user who downloads the item. If an item is later found to be non-kosher, an e-mail can be sent to everyone who downloaded it warning them, and the list could be used as evidence of potential lost sales. Perhaps that could even be done silently behind the current set-up. User name is logged when you click the download button. It wouldn't be perfect, since sometimes the download fails or the button may take you to webpage where you download a few other things while there, but it could be a start. I don't know if the storage requirements would be prohibitive, though. And of course, Renderosity would have to keep this information confidential and for these anti-warez purposes only. I don't want spam saying "Hey, you downloaded my freebie, I bet you'd like to buy my product." I definitely agree that Renderosity should put better guidelines on the upload page. Let's be honest, the general population is very confused about copyright law. Many people think there is a 10%/50%/X% rule (if you change X%, then it's yours), that unsquished objs are all right, etc. Flat out say on the page what is and isn't OK, i.e. items must be entirely of your creation, have the permission of the original creator, or be encoded; morphs must be in injection poses or squished; and so on.

You always do the same thing. You rush into a post and make some outrageous remarks, then spend the rest of the post back-peddling, watering down what you previously said, trying to show people how they misunderstood you. That tactic is getting just as tiresome and obvious Listen, my delicate little hot house flower, my "outrageous" remarks simply showed the silliness of your claim when you started hauling in those morphs and claiming them as copyright infringement. And if there was any backpedaling in this thread, I'd damn sure like to see it, because it didn't come from me. So here's how it goes, gang. I like Anton's work. I've said so on several occasions, although he was usually too wrapped up in his own blinding brilliance to notice. But when he screws up and starts making wild accusations of deliberate infringement, then I'm gonna call him on it, just as we all should with anyone who's doing this. The rules on this stuff are so fuzzy now, between pcf encoding and DAZ doing a double-back on cr2 distribution as well as the Poser manual itself going into detail of how to make clothing from a body mesh, that I'd be more willing than not to cut some people a little slack when things like the Magic Hair appears. I'm not saying the prop should continue to be in Freestuff, but these wholesale calls for pitchforks and torches as we storm the monster's castle are unnecessary and uncalled for. And when morph files are hauled in as additional "proof" of infringement... well, then it's time someone was sat down and explained a few things. So sorry to burst this bubble of yours, Mister Anton, but no, I'm not "trolling" your beloved thread. I'm damn sure not backpedaling either. You messed up on this one, and someone needed to tell you. Yeah, the stuff with Luna was a bad thing and should be followed up on... and I suggest you do as you once claimed you would do to me: get on a plane, fly to wherever she is, hire a lawyer, and sue the pants off her (and yeah, folks, that's exactly what the Great Anton said he would do, over a spectacularly trivial and meaningless gallery image that Anton took enormous umbrage to and ultimately forced the PTB to pull down, even though it was about as offensive as a Family Circus cartoon). I'm sorry that you've been the object of creative theft once again, but you're not the first. You won't be the last. And innocent mistakes are gonna be made, whether you find them "stupid" or not. That's it for me, folks. I'm outa this one.

Let me suggest the absolute minimum this site needs to do is have a statement something like this on the upload page. ****************************************************** By putting this file in Freestuff you are stating that it is 100% your original work, or includes other items used with explicit permission of the genuine original creator, under penalty of permanent banning from this site. Original work will not include: Any figure, mesh or morphs made by combining or modifying mesh created by others, or morphs created by others, by any method. Any texture map that uses any part of another texture map. Please note permission cannot be given to allow others to include your items in Freestuff unless they are 100% your original work. Ignorance about the origin of any item is not an excuse.

The only problem I see with your suggestion Jim, is that it does not take into account derivative work that is "encoded" making it useless unless you have the original mesh. The same with "squished" morphs, they could not be used without the original object, and neither could be reverse engineered.

The statement can't be too broad...but it shouldn't be too restrictive either. I mean...there are people here that will raise a ruckus if something doesn't match the "rules" letter for letter, just because they can! :^)

A couple of people have suggested a more explicit definition of what's acceptable for Free Stuff uploads on the upload page and I think it's a great idea. I pitched the idea to the other mods and admins to see what they say. Jim, yours is worded quite nicely and I used that as an example of what could work. Thanks!

When this site does something about Virtual Site once and for all I'll come back.

A useful idea might be to add another 'page' with a brief note containing the info suggested above, such as what's allowed and what isn't, that someone actually has to agree to in-between clicking the upload button and actually being taken to the page where one can upload the information for the freebie. "I didn't know" is not necessarily an acceptable excuse, but if steps are taken to insure that everyone who uploads to freestuff has to go through a list of 'what constitutes copyright violations' then at least the admins and mods might have an easier job deciding when something is a simple mistake, and when something was done purposefully. In addition, adding a simple link at the bottom of such a page for one of the many web translators out there, or calling on the services of several of our international members to translate it into different versions could help clear up confusion for any members whose skills with the god-awfully complex English language are less than perfect. Adding other links to resources such as tutorials on how to pcf encode objects, what the heck 'morph squishing' is, etc could also help. Such an implementation might cut down on the number of 'unintended' copyright infringements. The addition of this would also perhaps relieve the minds of some mods and admins who might feel uneasy about whether or not there was a mistake and if punishment is deserved. If clear, concise information is provided to people, most will abide by it. For those who do not... well, that's what the TOS is for, yes?

I have to wonder if those who feel Anton is behaving in an unprofessional manner have stood in the presence of a CEO during a disappointing quarterly sales report. I fail to see how one's employment status precludes them from being human and displaying a little frustration.

hecate : That sounds like Good Idea and well thought out. Like FyreSpiryt mentioned there seems to be a common missunderstanding of people thinking they can use some or part of some one elses work and call it there own. Even so " I didnt know " is no excuse so makeing them click a "I Agree" would take that out of the problum and release renerosity of liability. Copyright issues concern all of us not just Anton and we all need to work togeather so the new blood coming in does not make the same mistakes.

Migal Said: "I have to wonder if those who feel Anton is behaving in an unprofessional manner have stood in the presence of a CEO during a disappointing quarterly sales report. I fail to see how one's employment status precludes them from being human and displaying a little frustration. " The key phrase is "a little frustration". That's not what we're seeing here. The CEO at my company is known for his bluntness and hot temper. And we make fun of him every chance we get (behind his back of course). That kind of behaviour can really undermine a person, and the company he represents.

shrug Doesn't bother me how Anton is acting. He's just like the rest of us no matter who he works for. And if VS was referring to me by those names I'd be offended too. Anton has asked him more than once to stop calling him by "pet" names, and not just here.

I thought about the Objaction encoding, in that case your "original" work is the changes in the figure, and the encoding is the method to insure that downloaders are only getting your original work (as they have to already have the starting point), so I think it fits O.K., without spelling that out. I also think it is more important to present a concept - you can only give away YOUR work as Freestuff - than get bogged down in 500 rules that sombody is going to find a way around anyway! ;-)

Anton: I'm 100% agreed with your complain and rant for this matter, but why turn your batteries to VS?? He is not the center of the problem over here, The problem is one member who is stealing your work, and that person will have the TOS aplied. But don't use VS as scape goat of all this issue IMHO. Come back and fight for your rights against piracy you know you are right about it and you have the support of Renderosity's team, so don't play the austrich game because you are not agreed with one coment.

Hrms..... So a good addition to Jim's new rules would be: "By putting this file in Freestuff you are stating that it is 100% your original work, or includes other items used with explicit permission of the genuine original creator, under penalty of permanent banning from this site. Original work will not include: Any figure, mesh or morphs made by combining or modifying mesh created by others, or morphs created by others, by any method, with the exception of morph data encoded in such a way as to be unusable without the current ownership of the original file the morph data is encoded for" Is that clear enough?

in addition to Jim's post, to make things clear for non english members- when you get to the upload page- you have to click a button that would take you to a page that explains this in some one's native language- such as german french etc etc and you have to actually push an I agtree to these terms i do not agree to these terms button before you can access the actual page that allows uploading?

er sorry -Valendar's edit of Jim's post even ;P

"the silliness of your claim when you started hauling in those morphs and claiming them as copyright infringement. " I think you may have missed it but Anton has looked at the morphs and they include part of his morphs. In post 69 he said "The Brow Soften morph I made was used on these." You can't use someone else's morphs (or combinations of morphs) and then spawn your own morph/and or export an obj morph. Morphs are also copyrighted. FYI for anyone reading, how can you tell if your morph is used in combo? The deltas (the amount a vertex is moved to create the "morph") are numerical settings, just like poses and lights, etc. You don't just eyeball the result and say "hey, that looks like the nose I morphed." You need more proof than that :) Anton, you can also post your concern in the "forum news and team contact" forum: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12357 -- the admins seem to pay attention a lot quicker there for big issues like this.