Attached Link: http://groups.msn.com/IslandofIandaMagistrateCylinder/profileartwork.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=

?

got the message- Hmmm, We Can't Find that Page... The page you're looking for might have been moved or deleted. Or, perhaps the Web address is misspelled?

seems to need a log in.

Attached Link: http://groups.msn.com/IslandofIandaMagistrateCylinder/shoebox.msnw

Attached Link: http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0VwDVAkkcSAMGRXXPDSu7atLiDbyXCOnrMR5KY9HXBJup5o2*moNUuDZrstLRhnuAsUjk

GUH I dont think that link will work from here....GUH like I said it is in the shoebox....album titled profile work...page 2 fifth one down

maybe you should post it somewhere else, as i'd rather not sign up for anything made by microsloth. heh.

Maybe you could post the images here instead of posting the link to this pages. If it's about images they took without permission I do not see the problem when you take them from their pages now to find the original artists.

Well, you can look in "slave pics" where a good number of them have Renderosity file names ... i.e., GalleryImage########.

ahh i figured out what these are.. Chatroom icons.. Specifically these are for people in the online world chatrooms of Gor the poster has not done anything to these images besides take them and add slave and Master tags to them for people to use in the chatroom. There is a lot of artists represented in her selections not sure who they all are.

and meanwhile can someone tell me how to contact this person to remove my artwork from her selections?>

you can either join the comm or you can contact microsoft. jkweston@microsoft.com is the person in charge of copyright. actually they are signatures people use to post with. or they use them in their profiles.

well this is a group so i can't even email the person because i do not have access to the group

jkweston@microsoft.com you dont have to be a member of to write to him. he is the copyright person for MSN.

318924 Deleted 319316 naokitanaka TEST 03 JAPAN BOY PATTERN 03 338408 Deleted 319946 MiKo0 Good to be home 328187 Rockets V2 Pinup 338311 deleted 338520 atom 1972 These Are For You 338574 sxykitten Portrait In Green 338693 Deleted 338845 Blazerwiccan Brown Curls 344264 Malefic Beautiful and Damned (for SophiaDeer) 348772 rockets The Bridge Tower i tracked these down in the gallery some have been deleted tho Yep I sent off a email to him Thank you :) or her.. and hope to hear something soon

this though is causing a curiousity with me....you cant even view pictures with out being a member here.....and I have been seeing a HUGE upswing of renderosity work in msn comms and such....it seems they are joining to just get pictures....is there anyway to stop this?

ohh and i did try to join the community I wanted to try to contact the group owner first but msn doesn't really allow that with these groups.

Sure by not posting images anymore.. anywhere. That's the problem with images there is no way to prevent images from being stolen from here or anywhere.

Ijust found some Linda Berkgvet work in there { I think I just mangled her name} and I know full well it is listed onher sites her work is not suppose to be used for rp or anything

so is vallejo's and bells and i think i saw one or two of theirs in there

yup and royo

Yep found one that is mine. Grr another person I have to go try to talk to that will either be like "I did not know it was wrong" or "I don't care what you say" Or will never hear from them. sigh This gets real old after awhile. Stormrage thanks for the heads up.

Very old I definately agree there. I sent a notice to the MSN contact and hope to hear from them If you can get an email for the Ash2 i would love to have it as well.

nope she knows it is wrong. I just found out she had another comm that had problems with the same thing. and I was just told that she ""copyrights"" her work to protect it. the thing is she is offering some of those pics for use knowing they are not suppose to be used. The Linda bergkvist {heh got her name right finally} states all over her site in epilogue and else where that her work is not to be used for RP or sigs or web sets. So no one could say they "didnt know" also this is what I posted one time for community Ideas. that the copyright notice be put on the front page..where it CAN NOT BE MISSED. right now it is at the bottom of artist pages I believe. It should be smack dab on the front page where no one can go .oohh I didnt sseeeeeee that.

I am so pissed, and hurt. This person actualluy had the gall to rip off a memorial pic, and didn't even bother to remove "I miss you grandfather", with my signature. Of all the pics in my gallery - Why that one! (not that they should have taken any!!!!). This has to be removed!!!!!

Hopefully you won't mind some dos & don'ts from someone who deals with issues like this on a daily basis...

1)Don't bother contacting the person who owns the webpage/group/community that is stealing your work. 99% of the time this will be a fruitless & ultimately frustrating experience. All webhosts/ISPs/hosting communities must have a copyright agent whose job is to act on official complaints of infringement. The US Copyright Office maintains an alphabetized list of online agents at... http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/index.html (Note: it requires Acrobat Reader to view)

1. Don't write your initial email in anger. The copyright agent you are contacting is someone you want help from. Yelling at them is not the best way to go about it.

2. Don't write on behalf of someone else unless you have their permission. As well meaning as your attempt may be, all it does is slow down the system. By law the material can only be removed if an official DMCA claim of copyright infringement is received from the original copyright holder or an authorized agent acting on their behalf.

3. Do make certain the your complaint is in the proper format. Most of your complaints will fall under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) & it is very specific in the information that is required.

Information that must be included in a claim of copyright under the DMCA

1. A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;

2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such workss.

3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity, and that is to be removed, or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit location of the material;

4. Information reasonably sufficient to permit contact of the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an e-mail address where the complaining party may be contacted;

5. A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and,

6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

7. Do be brief. Understand that the person you are contacting probably has to deal with hundreds of emails in an average day.Extranneous details again just slow them down in doing their job.

8. Do follow up. In order to avoid liability a host must "expeditiously" remove the offending material from public access. Generally I will allow two full business days after my initial email & then will send a second inquiry. If I don't see any action after that I will use the phone number which is also provided at the online agents directory & see if I can speed things along.

If anyone has any additional questions feel free to ask, either here or privately.

I wish there was a form email that we could use to make it easier. My email was kind of longish but i have been assure it is legal. To whom it may concern: Your company hosts a group located at http://groups.msn.com/IslandofIandaMagistrateCylinder/ containing graphics copyrighted to and owned by me as the creator of Thunderstorm Creations, and artist known on the www as Stormrage I have contacted the group owner on July 17,2003 about removing the image but my email will not be delivered because I am not a member with the group The graphics that are in violation on their site (which are owned by me) can be found at http://groups.msn.com/IslandofIandaMagistrateCylinder/slavepictures.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=174 (entitled GalleryImage343235 and currently bears my signature and copyright notice) The original can be found in my gallery at Renderosity.com http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=343235&Start=37&Artist=Stormrage&ByArtist=Yes (entitled David) and is specifically indicated as copyrighted to me. Therefore, the use of my graphics on the web page hosted at your site is illegal under copyright law and forbidden under my terms of use. I am prepared to sign and fax to you a prepared statement of ownership indicating that the information provided by me, Jennifer Greenlees, is accurate and under penalty of perjury I state that I have exclusive and/or licensed rights to the material in question. I am legally authorized and represent myself, as I am the licensed owner of the copyrighted material. In reviewing your site's terms of service, you indicate the following regarding copyright violations: * Upload, or otherwise make available, files that contain images, photographs, software or other material protected by intellectual property laws, including, by way of example, and not as limitation, copyright or trademark laws (or by rights of privacy or publicity) unless you own or control the rights thereto or have received all necessary consents to do the same. * Use any material or information, including images or photographs, which is made available through the MSN Sites/Services in any manner that infringes any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other proprietary right of any party. Therefore, I am seeking your immediate intercession with this matter. Please remedy this offense with either: (1) Your immediate contact with the site owner demanding the prompt removal of the graphics owned by and copyrighted to me or (2) that you remove the site itself and/or my graphic files from your server. Your expeditious attention to this matter is greatly appreciated as I find no other recourse for remedy without undertaking legal action. Please understand that this letter is not a warning or threat. It is being sent to you as part of a legal process that must be followed in an effort to maintain my legal rights. You can put an immediate stop to this process by acting in accordance with this offer of good faith. Sincerely, Jennifer Greenlees Http://www.tstormcreations.com Reply to: email removed address removed phone number removed a Lawyer pointed me to the Artist rights site where I got the basic form of the email.

Here I go getting myself into trouble by being the devil's advocate (so to speak). It seems to me (though I may be wrong) that it's unlikely that anyone here will take any legal action against a person steals a piece of work or take action against a site who allows it to be displayed. Without going into all the details (that have been argued before), there is proof of damages, different countries involved, etc. And considering the difficulty that an entity as powerful as the recording industry has had trying to stop pirating of songs (which IS a loss of revenue), I think most any of you (I'd say, "us" 'cept I have nothing steal-worthy...hehe) would be wasting your time. So, to keep this small, it seems the best approach is to prevent the theft (NOT run around all the sites of the world writing letter to get them taken off after-the-fact). However, IF it can be displayed on the screen, it can be captured. SO.... though it detracts from the beauty of the art, why not put big semi-transparent lettering across the middle of your work that says, in some appropriate wording, that the work belongs to you? I'd give an example but I'm at work (shhhhhh....). (OK, I'm done, now start ripping me up....sigh...)

I'm having trouble finding anything, do you have to join the group to see, or did the person remove the folder?

ok actually I personally have gone after a msn group for theft of work and paid a very highpenny for it. I just logged on so I havent gone to the site yet. But as an artist yes I am going to protect my work and I am sure others here are as well. it is not so much damages{and in actuallity it is very hard to collect monetary damages unless you are officially copyrighted.}that does not mean you cant. The link that started this thread was sent to me because the person knew I was a member here.If I see work that I know is from Renderosity or another artist I know...I tend to inform them. just as I would wish someone to inform me.

This group is full of copyright infringements - in fact I'm pretty sure they are the same group I reported to Sinsister and Toxicangel for using their images a few months ago. Suddenly the owner said she was giving up her group - she was a GOR mistress as well.

I reported another group a month or so ago that had koshinis that were in it...I had been invited to it but after I posted here I got banned~chuckles~ geez I wonder why. I guess it was due to the fact I spoke out about copyrights. There are a few out there but see this is the thing...if they put an adult rating on their profile you cant view it with out logging in. if they make the comm private..then you cant even view it with out being a member. It is free to sign up...you dont have to have a msn addy or hotmail addy to do it. but it is a pain in the rump. you can sign in to a passport with any addy. just you have to register it.

"It seems to me (though I may be wrong) that it's unlikely that anyone here will take any legal action against a person steals a piece of work or take action against a site who allows it to be displayed. " umm i would and have done so in the past. And will do so again when necessary

But what I mean, Stormrage, is that all anyone does is make them take the art down and not show it. It's after the fact stuff. And keeps one busy doing stuff they could spend better time doing other things with. Has anyone here ever REALLY hurt someone by going to court and getting money? That's the real issue. Running around cleaning up the theives sites just takes up your time with no real compensation.

I know what you mean and to answer your other question Yes i have hurt someone by going to court and getting money (well an out of court settlement is still the same thing) No you don't always get compensated sometimes you do

I've been court, too. Sued someone for not paying for software I developed. She didn't even show up in court. Got a default decision. THEN, I had to hang around her trashcan to find a way to get my money (nearly $3,000). Found bank accounts and other stuff. Finally, filled out a form to have the county sheriffs seize her property and sell it at auction to get my money. THEN, she paid, when they showed up. It's HARD, even when you win in court! So, did you receive money? And how often do others sue, and get a favorable decision AND get money? Then the out-of-country crap comes up. When you sue someone, you have to go to the county (here in the states) to file. If it's out of state, think of all the problems...much less out of the country. There needs to be a better way !!!!!!!!!

I am not disagreeing with you Chuck. I agree there needs to be a better way unfortunantly I don't know what it is. Yes I got the money, Yes after a huge battle, Yes after costing me even more money to get it but I did get it. Would I do it again. Yes simply because it might just teach someone they can't get away with it.

And thanks for not "flaming" me. I'm on "your guy's" side. I don't have anything theivable. But I get really upset seeing wonderful art being "stolen" all the time from "you guys". But your "win" doesn't really do anything. All the other thousands don't know about it and therefore, continue stealing. Shit! Even with all news about the recording industry going after individuals, there are still hundreds of thousands that trade music. IT's like the drug enforcement. Though hundreds are put away, thousands take their place! So, the only way I can see any help is to put big "transparent" letters over one's art and suffer the degradation to the artwork. In other words, it needs to be stopped "before it can happen" instead of fixing it after it happens.

I agree and for the most part my professional art is never shown on any web site. These are sold to people And what they do with it is up to them but i have been paid. Now like my image stolen here.. It isn't a big horrendous deal but I still copyright my work and the person does not have the right to it. I could put big transparent letters across it but that defeats showing it.

"I could put big transparent letters across it but that defeats showing it." True, but I would hope those who look at it and "judge" it and offer tips on it would understand why the "letters" are there and "look past it" to the art itself. One thing is for sure (well, at least I think so), people wouldn't steal art that required excessive manipulation. Not only is it YOUR decision but the decision of every artist here who creates art worthy of sales (and therefore theft).