Ok, lets get legal for a moment, and then move on. For Sellers: When planning to market a product you must realize that once you sell it, you are thereby granting the right to the buyer to render it in any way he chooses. Modify it in any way he chooses to obtain his renderings or animations, and then sell the end renderings of his animations or still pictures to anyone he chooses. The buyer is not obligated to give you credit unless this is a written part of your release agreement, nor ever share profits with you again unless this is part of the release agreement. As to this one thing, we are selling ROYALTY FREE products here, so though many artists may build into their release contracts provisions for royalties, we will not go down that road. You sold the product to him. For Buyers: What you, the buyer may NOT do is to RESELL or Redistribute the original or modified geometry that you purchased from the original artist in any way without the original creator's express permission. When do things traditionally go from being "the original artists work" to becoming you the purchasers work? This is a legal gray area, largely open to interpretation of the individual, but the rule of thumb legally is that once a artist modifies another's work by 51 percent, the work then becomes his own work of art that he may "sign" with his name as his own. Where the 51 percent lies is the source of many legal battles and frustrations in intellectual property and copyright court. We do not aim to have these squabbles here, so all who plan to sell any product need to be aware it CAN and WILL be legally modified by your buyer to his needs, and then if at all possible will be used to make money by the buyer. That is the art business :) Every artist bar none, since the first one, was influenced by the one who went before him, and we are a community with a hive mind who owes all to those who went before. Buyers should note however, that giving credit to those who went before is a polite gesture, and in some cases a legally necessary gesture. Once sold the original artist cannot demand excess of you that is not provided for in an agreed upon contract, but he CAN demand that you give him credit by word or trademark in your work. If the original artist wishes his trademark to be included, it is his obligation to provide the bitmap of this. We would again like to avoid this here, as it merely complicates matters. Including Works Of Others In Items For Sale: For those wishing to include props made by others in works they sell: This is a very sticky area that again often times winds up on contract and intellectual property rights court. Our aim here is less stress, more joy. This is very, very simple, and I think I can sum up the store's stance on it in one short paragraph. Do not redistribute the works of another in any sold work. Even if you give credit. That is, unless you are working in agreed upon collaboration with the owner of the intellectual property you wish to include. Ok, ok, I hear you. What if that lovely barbarian you have modeled and wish to sell is just NOT going to look right without BillyJoeBob's sword you downloaded? Here is a suggestion, take it or leave it. I myself would include several "suggested usage" renderings not only in the zipped up files, but also in advertising material renderings for the actual sale pages that the store will construct. I would make it clear that the sword is NOT included, but may be downloaded from BillyJoeBob's site to complete the look you are showing your model in. Less artistic license and more gratitude and thought wins the day and keeps artists from feeling cheated. As always, I am here to help in any way I may, Liz Birdsong Hbg@kreative.net

Wouldn't it make more sense to post all of these memo's in some sort of intro to the store page on the actual store rather than here on the poser list where it will likely disapear into the subpages in a few short hours?

As I stated in my first post, I have done so, and in fact will compile all of this into a FAQ when I have finished writing it ;P All great minds... Anyway, since many may not read the store forum, it makes sense at this stage to go for redundancy.

One word about ownership: Let anyone tell you that you cannot sell/give any program away, ie. sell (complete with all docs and copies et al) a program you no longer use, then watch for their nose to grow. Let noone tell you that you must keep this in perpetuity. There is no law that says you must own anything forever. The new owner will never be the registered owner, and will never get support/add-ons/upgrades, but as long as you keep nothing of the product (no copies) this will generally fall under the 'book use' provision. Keeping even one archive copy is illegal and immoral. And giving credit, even where none is asked for, is good form. And intellectually honest. (clear conscience) MadRed

Ah, I see I need to write a transfer of ownership addendum :) I did not go down that road since the concern in fact as far I have gotten questions was not about transfer or purchased digital property, but just who owns what, and what one can do with it if you buy it. Though I do know that one or two companies in the past in the art field HAVE put harsh restrictions on transfer of ownership, this is not standard. Simple ownership transfer is generally easy to accomplish and respected when it happens, though it is probably (secretly) doubted and suspected by the producer of the original property, since there is no way to ensure that transfer took place and both parties are not now using the product for the price of one seat,short of issuing products with a dongle. The basic rule of thumb in transfer of ownership of electronic material such as software and art assets is this: You sell or give it away, fine. You then must delete it from your hard drive, and flat out not use it :)

I have a problem with the statement that the rule of thumb for original work is that which is 51% your own. This is still a derivative under copyright law. The 51% statement is misleading. Using an analogy: Say I took a photograph of a landscape that included mountains, a lake, rolling hills and a large area of sky. Now lets say that someone takes that photograph, crops out the mountains and lake and inserts them digitally into a photograph of his own. Lets say that the inserted portion of my photograph is only 25% of the new, digitally manipulated photograph. This new photograph is a derivative of my work and is a clear violation of copyright. The same holds true for someone taking a Zygote mesh, doubling the number of vertices and adding 30 morph targets. This also is a derivative work and is a violation of copyright under Chapter 13, Section 1309. Copyright law is a complex beast that I deal with frequently. I suggest that if a copyright FAQ is to be posted in a forum, the very first thing that should be noted is the source for the ACTUAL Copyright Law. It can be found here: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/ In addition to the actual text of the law, there are guides for the layperson as well. Another good source is the book, "Mass Communications Law in a Nutshell," by T. Barton Carter, Juliet Lushbough Dee, Martin J. Gaynes Respectfully, ScottK

Does the Copuright Law you are refering to apply internationally or just in the USA?

There is a link to info on International Copyright at the link I posted above, as well as to the World Intellectual Property Organization. Much of Europe has similar laws to the U.S., and U.S. copyright can be enforced abroad in most countries with reciprocating laws. The cost of international enforcement, however, is prohibitive and impractical. Still, the laws are on the books in many places, whether practical enforcement is there or not. -sk

Since my bf is only an attorney and only in the US, my area of being able to ascertain things of this nature is limited to the US. I do know that other countries are at times more lenient and at times less so. For instance in Russia EVERYONE had 3d studio max, character studio, animatek world builder, maya, and every high end program you can think of... for 5.00. On the open black market. But then we must just get into plain old fashioned ethics here. Even if one's countries copyright laws to not protect the intellectual property of digital and intellectual workers enough, is it RIGHT to take advantage of them? Can one SLEEP with oneself at night, wake up to face oneself in the morning? I could not.

Scott my aim here was not to make lawyers of us all, since most of us can never be. And as I pointed out, where that 51 percent lies is the way lawyers make LOTS of money every day, and why our copyright courts are bogged down so. My goal was more general, to try to make the sellers aware they cannot restrict usage, and the buyer has NO obligation to give them anything if he then makes MILLIONS of a rendering of the thing that the seller sold. More just get it straight, we do not want alot of fussing and fighting and fretting :) Ok? Anyone who is very very concerned on copyright laws needs to get themselves a lawyer, and then probably they will learn what I did the hard way. The law is ON MY SIDE, as an Independent Contract Artist. I am within my rights to demand certain things. But you know, when I DID tout those laws, and demand those rights? I almost starved to death, me and my child, since no one would hire me, and the few who did got rid of me fast. No one is obligated to hire, nor to keep an independent contract artist :) Laws give us tons of protection, but not there. I learned something once though from a colleage of mine, and the advice has done me worlds of good. He said to me, "Lizzy, we are the real worlds oldest profession, the first real prostitutes. Learn to shut up, do what they want, and take the money." If that is a bitter observation... now you see why I would not really wish full time contract artist status on many, since it is unfortunately a true observation as far as my experience goes.

"As to this one thing, we are selling ROYALTY FREE products here, so though many artists may build into their release contracts provisions for royalties, we will not go down that road. You sold the product to him." Bast I am not sure exactly what you mean by this. And please do pick this up wrong, I am not trying to undermine your work on this issue. However, to the best of my information and legal understanding, if an Artist or manufacturer builds in usage restrictions to their product and their licencing terms, those licencing restrictions take legal precedence over anything you or any other third party vendor may state or intend. I think your term "ROYALTY FREE" needs further explanation and clarification as it may lead to a certain ammount of confusion among both purchasers and contributers. Might I suggest insted that you have a seperate free download of any licence agreement for any product in the store that potential buyers can look at before making a decision to buy. This will remove the Store from potential conflicts and save you a lot of problems in the long term.

I think it would just be simplest to refuse to accept any items for sale that were NOT royalty free. Make it a condition of acceptance for consignment. That way, there can be no misunderstandings on either side (seller or buyer). Kate, lover of simplicity

This is a cool thread! Thanks for taking on a project like this, Liz. At Zygote we're always happy to see people concerned about these types of issues, of course. I keep realizing more and more how ill-informed most Poser users are concerning the legalities of data and binary copyright. If I can, I'd like to add a little, too. Feel free to quote me anywhere else this subject is being discussed. Like Scott said, copyright infringment of software code (including 3D models) is not measured in percentage of change, as it is for traditional media or binary images (not to mention music, stories, etc.) Even a small amount of usage of someone else's programing code is illegal. For example, if I wanted to write a program that had the exact same features as Adobe Photoshop I could, of course, do that. However, if I took even a few lines of code directly from Photoshop and put them into my new code it would be illegal. (Much less starting from Photoshop's actual program code and then going through it to make modifications here and there until I felt I had hit the 51% different mark.) That having been said, you will probably see why it is still perfectly legal to make, sell, and/or give away a "plug-in" program for Photoshop (authorized by Adobe or not). Users will still need to buy Photoshop itself for any add-ons to be useful. As I said, copyright infringment of 3D computer model data is determined the same way as software code. Someone can change models to the point that they think they will be unrecognizable the makers, but they are still stealing from whomever created the model. As far as the "plug-in" analogy goes, if someone modifies one of the models included in Poser, for example, (ie: creates a morph target for that model) then they are working within the Poser license agreement. It is also OK if they want to sell or give away their work (morph targets) to others who have purchased Poser (since they also own a license to the same models). This is, in fact, benefical to all parties involved and makes Poser a more desireable product. They are essentially paying the person for their changes to the model and not for the original model. Problems arise when people modify models (to create morph targets, new models, or whatever) and then pass those changed models along to users who have not purchased the original models. (For example, as a free downloadable model rather than in a format which requires posession of the original model, such as .cr2, .pcf, etc.) Obviously, there is no way that any company or individual can make sure that everyone is following the terms of their license agreement. Zygote appreciates all the efforts you people in the Poser community have made to prevent violations of model license agreements (Zygote's and otherwise). Thanks. -- Chad Smith Zygote Media Group

Why not meerly act as a middleman, and not impose Royalty or Royalty Free preconditions at all. The whole area is a minefield e.g. what is the exact (100 page closely typed legal description) of Royalty Free (if such a document exists at all or exists perhaps as the published but uncompiled summary of various court findings i.e. in case law), does it cover every possible usage? are there exceptions? I think Renderosity would be better off staying out of that minefield where specialist lawyers make big bucks. If you enter into the process by stipulating licencing terms, you may end up entering into any potential future legal row. Leave it between vendor and purchaser, maybe provide examples to vendors of standard type licence agreements, but my advice is to stay out of the actual agreement and imposing terms on what kind of licence agreement should exist. If buyers do not like a licence agreement they will not buy by the same token you cannot ever be accused of imposing a range of licencing terms on vendors. That way you will not be dragged in if a row starts. This is even more simple. STORM

Bast, I think we're essentially saying the same thing, but approaching from different angles. I only wanted to point out that, while it's true we shouldn't be playing lawyers - it's also important not to oversimplify. I am very hesitant to boil down ANY legal issue to a number, because it encourages people to toe the line. That's not what we're about here... It's safer to just say, "Hands off," unless you have permission from the original artist. I think anyone who works (or plays) as an artist should have a knowledge of the basics of copyright: what it is, what it does, what is fair use, what is a derivative work. It may not make us better artists, but it will make us more aware of the consequences of "borrowing" others' work. Copyright law is much too elastic for the layperson to have a firm handle on it, but a knowledge of the foundation gives us the knowledge with which to grow. Chad: very good distinction on software code. -sk

Bast, I think we're essentially saying the same thing, but approaching from different angles. I only wanted to point out that, while it's true we shouldn't be playing lawyers - it's also important not to oversimplify. I am very hesitant to boil down ANY legal issue to a number, because it encourages people to toe the line. That's not what we're about here... It's safer to just say, "Hands off," unless you have permission from the original artist. I think anyone who works (or plays) as an artist should have a knowledge of the basics of copyright: what it is, what it does, what is fair use, what is a derivative work. It may not make us better artists, but it will make us more aware of the consequences of "borrowing" others' work. Copyright law is much too elastic for the layperson to have a firm handle on it, but a knowledge of the foundation gives us the knowledge with which to grow. Chad: very good distinction on software code. -sk

First off, most of you are apparently, including Scott, all saying about the same thing I am. Thanks Chad for hopping in, since it is good to have another companies input always :) What I was aiming to accomplish though here, and on all the forums I have been placing the same post was sort of a pre-writeup of the "rules" of using the store :) We at this time will NOT be accepting any consignments or donations that are not also royalty free. It frees up our purchasers and our artists both we feel, but mostly at this particular time, since the store is not able to afford much in the way of legal fees, it frees us up to help out the largest portion of you. Later, who knows, we may make a special area of the store for items that are not royalty free. But one small step at a time, eh? I have seen various posts on giving credit where it is due, other posts from those who felt somehow that the downloads in the free area did them no good at all since they could not make any money off those things or else it all went to someone else.. things like that. I am not sure which models were the ones that were the concern in free stuff. My own free stuff models have been only restricted on redistribution for sale of of the geometry of my creations :) Render happy, make your millions, don't send me a dime :) But DO PLEASE mention my name in your credits :) I love to read credits, it is a passion of mine :) I would love to see this same spirit in the store, and whilst I stand here to run it, it is the spirit I want to let you know it is being run under :) I also though feel it is VERY wrong to resell the geometry in any form. That is electronic code in a sense. Not a rendering. Thus my saying one cannot resell or redistribute the code which means the cr2, the obj, the prop, you understand, even if you did do some mods to it, without getting the express permission of the person who you bought it from :) This enables us all to render happy :) This weekend sometime, when I get a moment, my bf and I WILL be posting ALL over the place, sample license agreements we suggest that ALL our store participants, both buyers and sellers read. These take a while to write... when one is also a mom, a gf, a worker bee, and in the middle of a birthday depression :) Oh... who is my bf and why him? He is a contract and copyright lawyer. No one is obligated to use our sample licenses. No one is obligated to put items with us for brokering, and no one is obligated to buy. Part of the plans I have for the store is just as you may click on the thumbnail picture to get more details of the object for sale, you may also click a link to read the exact licence that is with that product. I cannot force folks to not build in their own provisions, other than to say I have no plans to accept anything that is not royalty free at this time. I hope this helps, Lizzy

I don't know about anyone else, but I for one would not purchase anything that wasn't royalty free, if you can only use it for personal use you might as well get something from freestuff. What does concern me though is if I was led to believe the product was royalty free, only to discover after purchasing it and downloading it that it had a further licence document saying that it wasn't royalt free. I think I would feel, fairly, that I had been decieved. Would it not be far simpler to display each products licence so we can all see what we are getting.