Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12357&Form.ShowMessage=1379854

Link will give you the info. AgentSmith

I have already asked if we can decide for ourselves such permissions. I for one do not like having this as a blanket policy. I make my images as wallpapers for any and all to use so I have no concerns with such restrictions except were attribution is altered.

I wish Renderosity had asked for feedback before springing this on us. I for one do not like this. It does not stop a theif, just makes it a pain in the ass for someone who wants to save the picture. What's next? Is Renderosity going to clear my temporary files when viewing the galleries?

As I posted in that thread "This won't stop anything. Simply go to the picture you want, turn off the browser's java and you can right click again. This doesn't stop stealing of images."

Oh boy... here I go again: Image stealing? Let me get this straight. If I want to save the image on my hd because I want it to be my desktop -which I think I'm entitled to for personal use under copyright law, I can't save it anymore? What if the image is too freaking big and I want it to fit on the screen? Disabling the image toolbar takes that feature away. Plus, the workaround for this silly script-kiddie-like hack is simple. Drag the image to your desktop. You can still share it and it doesn't change squat, really. So the whole thing is useless. It has about the same effect as a denial of service attack on an unplugged computer... and it's just as idiotic, because the issue isn't image stealing, it's telling little kiddies to stop making so much Poser pr0n from their bootleg Kazaa copy. So yeah. Black ball number 2. Mihnea Dumitru

It's just another case of "Lets punish the innocent since we can't stop the guilty."

it's another case of "we can't run the site because we don't know how to code, so we chose to stiff everyone instead."

Even with IE and enabled JavaScript it is possible to save the images... just read the source code of that page and get the url manually. It is a good meant try do avoid image theft, and I thank the team for the try. Jimi

It is not theft with my images!

The staff and the members have been talking about this back and forth for a very long time in almost all the forums. Image theft is getting big, very fast right now. A big site with 300-500 of pics ripped from Renderosity was just shut down yesterday/today. Can't run the site? I beg to differ. These are all things/opinions you should all say/also say at the link provided. That is the thread that the Admins will be reading. They won't be reading this one, lol. Let your opinion be known, we have to hear what you think! ;o) AgentSmith

have done and will do, cheers AS!

yeah i heard about that site (i think it was the same one) they were prtty pissed over at cgtalk.

That's the one, looks more like around 700 pics, not all from Renderosity, but a lot. AgentSmith

Hey AS- The interesting thing is right click has been disabled for ALL links within renderosity. I just tried to open (in a new window) the AgentSmith link in your post and no reponse. Most inconvenient for IM when I must exit the galleries/forums (loosing my place) first. Makes it a serious pain to monitor both threads too!

sigh I've explained it in several postings now... Try CTRL+SHIFT+LeftMouseButton to open links in a new window. Greets, Jimi

I am at work at the moment (IE) and that didn't work here!

Ouch... tried it with IE 6 and thought it would be possible with every version of the IE... My fault, sorry. :-( sneaks away

It's shift + left click for me. Links put into the official link space (for lack of a better word) should open a new window when clicked. AS

Bad derjimi, bad! (grin) (thanks for the tip anyway)

It highlights and does... nothing here. W2k's IE. Not sure what precise flavour.

I appreciate the efforts to protect us but aren't we cutting off our nose to spite our face? I think that downloading of my images for personal use by someone else is a complement to my ability. Art hack that I am, I would be thrilled that someone would think my work good enough to steal. I assume that downloading going to happen any time I put an image up. Changing the galleries would make it harder for this type of casual personal use to occur. It will have a far greater impact on our casual users and do nothing to stop art thieves. Anyone with enough brains to set up their own website and even set up paypal or a merchant account to sell art knows enough code to bypass this barrier. I can come up with at least two ways to get jpg, mpg, mov content off an active browser. Here is one of the latest posted. I shrank it 50% and watermarked it out of difference to what you are trying to accomplish. I remember going to a website and thinking wow this guy's poser work is really great. That was until I recognized a piece by Michael Whelan. I do think this is a problem. But it's a problem that needs to be addressed on the other end. Prosecution and closing of offending sites will eliminate these people while leaving the galleries open for the enjoyment of our own members. We live in a society afraid to take risks. We might get robbed; therefore lets make the gallery images inaccessible. We could prosecute the thief or complain to the web host. What if we loose or the Rosity member decides not to press charges? We leave ourselves open to countersuits and damages. Lets just slap a band-aid on the problem. Lets just build higher walls while the thief runs around outside unchecked. Why don't you just close the galleries? That will make it 100% sure pictures can never be taken from Renderosity again. I'm sorry I don't agree with this philosophy. My wife can't get the drugs she needs for MS because they can be used to get high or cause birth defects and can't be risked. My kids and 50,000,000 others can't use metal protractors in math or wear army or camos because 2kids went nuts three states away four years ago. Everyone is guilty therefore lets take the opportunity away from all.

Big grin to Incarnadine... ;-))))

Well, what with so many browser types and versions and what not, there are some problems popping up here and there with members not being able to regular click on certain things. So, the disabling of right click and the image toolbar is now re-enabled. (for now) There are just too many types of software out there to make something like this work easily, quickly. Enjoy. AgentSmith

This would be an EXCELLENT time to start jotting down any ideas you all may have on this issue; -For it (more than just "good idea"). -Against it (more than just "this sucks"). -Other ways for us to protect your artwork. Staff will most likely put up another (official) post discussing this, and will be looking at suggestions. When it comes up, I'll be sure to announce it/link to it, in this forum. Thanks!! AgentSmith

Thank you for your patience AS!

If someone thinks one of my pics is good enough to be their screen background, then I'm all for it. It's likely they're not making a profit from it, and they get to enjoy my art work. Now if they were to try and put my images on various items for sale and hawk them as their own - then we have issues. But that right click disabled thing while seemingly clever, isn't all that great an idea. Any schmoe worth their 2 that knows how to use a program with a screen capture capability can snag an image. So the point of this is?

Uh. Quite complex theme, I reckon. I won't go into the legal/stealing issues, but I'd like to point out something to all of you: - Is Renderosity so damn slow only in Italy? I'm connected on a fiber-optics with 10Mbit/sec transfer rate, and the pages open like digital snails. Every morning I dedicate at least one hour to view all the images in the Bryce gallery, and for me it's fun. But it's time stolen from my real job time. Even with fiber-optics, without the right-click option that allows me to open 15/20 images at a time, this would become a real pain. That's why in the offical poll I voted against it. And I'm glad to see that we're 80% against it and only 20% for it. S.

Slow? Could it be there are 1500+ members surfing? Just guessing. The entire staff is FULLY aware that disabling right click and the image toolbar does NOT keep people from taking images and using them illagely if they truly want them. On this fact we ALL are on the same page, trust me. But, disabling does makes it so these people cannot do it so freaking EASY. It shows the evil-doers that we will do SOMETHING to help protect our members' artwork. And, it shows the members who have great concern over their stolen artwork that Renderosity is indeed doing something to help them out. Now, those good points aside, I realize it sucks to have the pics disabled. I myself do not care for it personally. But, this problem is getting worse, fast. That last illegal pic website taken down, actually had the site owners name on the pics with a symbol on it. Like he made it and owned it. Talk about some pissed off artists... Not making an argument one way or another here, just commenting out loud, so to speak. Hope we can all find a great solution to this. AgentSmith

I do not consider myself a thief, but I regularly save images from one of my favourite artists Occdoug. From one of these saves I made a height map of the sculpted form he had made and turned it into a terrain which I proceeded to make an image with. The thing is that I made this as a tribute to someone who's work I really admire and when I told Doug about it and asked if it would be ok to post it he was more than happy to give me his permission. For what I have done here am I a thief or an art admirer? It's almost the same as cutting images out of magazines and making a collage, traditional artists have been doing this for years and have been praised for their work. I just don't feel comfortable with this blanket ruling and the implied guilt of anyone who has done as I have done, as in not asking for permission first. Catlin

Well, basically what conflicts against anyones copyright here is when someone saves your picture and THEN uses it for anything public without your permission. You had permission, so no prob. You are an admirer. Anything else is illegal, so our TOS reflects those copyright laws. I can't speak for an artists collage on a gallery wall in an actual building. I can only speak for what we do here in reflecting copyright laws set forth by our government. Does that make sense or maybe I'm not understanding the wording of your last sentence? AgentSmith

Yes, AgentS, often there are more than 1,500 surfers online. This doesn't change the fact that it's terribly slow and, frankly, sufers' number can't be an issue in a community like this one, that __ with reason __ consider itself one of the widest (if not the widest) graphic-related community in the whole web. I worked for two years for a big web community, with over 3,000,000 nicknames registered and over 20,000 online at the same time, and we had some slowness problems, but not that bad. I'm speaking of 1999-2000, so the average connection of the users was 14.4 or 28K dialup and we were using a content management system very similar to bondware, only a 1999 version of it. Renderosity it's by far the slowest website I check regularly. I just can't imagine how it could be to check the galleries with a dial-up. I know that Renderosity is heavy on the graphics, mind me. And I'm not complaining because it's slow. It has been slow like hell from my very first day as a member, so I'm used to it, I never said one thing about it and wouldn't have if this issue hadn't come out. But some time ago, when I began to right-click on the gallery pages to download in my browser's cache 15/20 images at the same time and I discovered that I could see them, commenting them and ranking them in 1/4 of the time, I was happy. It's just this. Since this solution seems to do very little on the images' theft problem, my question is: why make slower an already very very slow website? Then, on a final note, I'm with catlin in not feeling at all comfortable for this decision taken without asking first. Now that there's a poll about it, I'm much more at ease with that. Stefano

Ooops, I misunderstood Catlin's last sentence. Really sorry for that. She was talking about asking permission to use another member's work, I was talking about the decision taken without asking the member first. I know that images theft is a problem. And I can't relate to the fact that I'm a hobbyist and don't care if someone steals mine, because if someone stole my writings (my real job) and claim it his own, I'd go immediately to a lawyer and I'd take all the necessary steps to prevent it. Just to make my words straight: if this will prove a solution for it, or will improve the security of other artists' work, I will renounce gladly to my right-click-based navigation speed, that's for sure. Problem is that this doesn't seem to be so effective to the purpose. S.

It actually would slow down the image theft problem here quite a bit...having to screen capture, crop, re-save a pic versus "right click, save" is a BIG time difference. Once again, I'm not truly for disabling at all, but I feel I have to look at both sides of the fence, see all the pros and cons of both sides. Again...Renderosity staff has talked with many members over the past year or more about this problem, it's not really a sudden thing. The members who didn't have stolen artwork never said much, but the ones that were affected always talked about it/wanted it. The discussions were big enough for so long, it seemed like all that had to be said, had been said. But, I guess NOW...more people are speaking up...(that's good) AgentSmith

I've been saving images from this site ever since I found it.....yup! It's a fair cop, govner! I copy and save to my hdd all the time. I look at the images and think 'One day, maybe one day, I'll get to do something that good.' I also pass this stuff on to a friend of mine in the states who simply adores horses. She doesn't have the time to find them for herself so I do it for her. In this was the 'Rend has been a great source of joy to her over the last couple of years..... Time will catch up with the bad guys....just leave our good guys alone. If something bad is going on, why not just tell us?

Yeah, the worst part is; there are really only a small number of people who mistreat the artists copyright, and it unfortunately affects ALL of the members. AgentSmith

I for one missed most of those discussions. I do remember some though. I have had works stolen before (scanned from magazines) but they were taken down upon contact with the site owners. I wouldn't have bothered but they clipped off my signature. To me as long as it is publically stated as my work then I am usually pretty cool with it. I agree on the site case with the forged copyright you spoke of AS. That violates my one rule rather explicitly. Considering some of the BYOFlamethrower discussions I have seen in the FRorum News this has been handled in a remarkably adult manner! Richard

I've read and contributed to lots of these discussions on piracy, but those most prone to this crime seem to be in the Poser gallery. I sympathise with those who's work has been taken by these scum but the thing I don't like about what's happening here is that this is a cover all ruling and we really should have a say in whether it affects our images or not. I really don't see the point in doing this because it brings more grief than solution to the problem it's supposed to solve, and as has been said on numerous occassion these people know enough to get past this little glitch in their plundering habits. Catlin

I personally am ALL about Agent Smith and others smoking other websites trying to claim our art as theirs. That rules. No-one can gainsay them in this. I like saving images to my disk so i can show them to my friends, and rant and rave about how cool this or that Renderosity artist is! Can't imagine stopping, but if the people at Renderosity want to keep the dummies from right-clicking or whatever, I say go for it.

Oh, that is my pipe dream to actually be able to reach out and touch these idiots who trample over the artists rights here. Just a simple $100 fine...per picture...would make a lot of these creeps think twice. I would MUCH rather do that than disable saving! (I too have a lot of your kids' pics on my hard drive!) AgentSmith

And if you have any of mine, you are more than welcome!

I don't think anyone would think mine good enough to steal anyway......

I do actually. BodyPaint, Veruschka (tribute), The Pit (Updated) and Frosted Glass have been my recent fave saves. My girlfriend likes "For Frogdot". ;o) AgentSmith

Damn, AS, you's gone an made me blush!

Well, I have my images up on my site to download as 'personal' wallpaper, I have no problems with that, and my IP tracks all those that hit the site, and my license states that IP addresses are logged and the images watermarked and tracked.... However, should someone download my galleries and put them on CD, or the texture libraries for that matter, and offer them for sale, or state publicly on a site the images are theirs, well, THAT I AM NOT alright with....and I would cast the bones for them to have ill fortune, not to mention prosecute for theft... This is an issue that will not be fixed with a simple disable, the only way to fix it is to make it unprofitable for those who do it, hit them in the wallet, sites and webmasters who steal images should face massive fines, and they should be inforced by law, and their paychecks garnished, make it hard for them to pay their rent, and they might think twice about doing it....

I have saved pics from, I think just about everyone! ;o) What Catlin says makes me think though...what if say, in our member profile options we could make our own individual pictures in our own gallery save-able or not? Hmmmm....I like that. I wouldn't do it myself, but for some it would be a great option. AgentSmith

You're more than welcome to save mine, I have some of yours...8)And the profile options is a way to go....

If it's possible. Well, I know it's possible, but would it be a giant pain, or just a few hours work to code it into the site? Guess I better ask the man behind the curtain. AgentSmith

I've always gotten the images on the screen. I think it's great that they are making an effort but it won't stop the more experienced "thieves". You can still view source and look for the image, they can solve that with an html protector/scrambler. Other artists splice up their images into many pieces to prevent it from being stolen but you can still use Print Screen and paste it on a bitmap program, even flash files can be screen captured, same goes for java applets. To try it out Windows Users: "Print Screen" button on your keyboard, Open MSPaint "Ctrl+V" to paste, voila! you got your pic. I don't know if you guys are aware of this. Sigh! I really wish a better idea will come out of this discussion.

If this topic had been put to a community wide vote then perhaps we would have had this discussion earlier and a better solution found. I'm in total agreement with slinging a noose around the necks of these thieves it's just that I think this ban on right click isn't the right way to go, it's not enough and won't stop determined thieves. I hope this discussion does bring a better solution to light and I think what AS said about being able to allow or otherwise from member profile options could be a step in the right direction. Catlin