Yes folks it seems that if you ask around people will give you my models for free as "gifts". This is making me come quickly to a decission that I don't want to have to make. Either I will need to remove my store from renderosity or the community is going to have to stop this "gifting". I don't think that the piracy is going to stop just because I am being driven out. So, that leaves me with very few alternatives. For this reason I will be adding no more models to my renderosity store. For those of you that have been good and loyal customers I will keep in touch with you if you will be so kind as to join my mailing list at ironhart.us I want you all to know that giving away my products is a breach of contract between you and I. Therefore, anyone that has given away any product of mine without consent is in breach of contract and is indulging in piracy. if you have recieved any product of mine from anyone other than me or through legit purchase from renderosity you are also guilty of piracy. in either case if you are in possession of copies of my products that are illegal (this includes breach of contract purchased products) I expect you to delete them from your hard drive and destroy any copies you may have. It is my intent to further track down the offenders in this and to consult legal authorities in their areas. heartbroken to have to make this post. ironhart

Oh, I would hate to see you driven off. Your models are first rate, and it would be very sad to see them disappear. This is theft, plain and simple, no matter what pretty excuses people will come up with to defend their bad behavior. If someone wants to gift a model to another person, they should BUY it for them. That would be the honest way to do it. Honesty, I know, is in short supply these days, but I'd hope the community would support other community members by making honest purchases instead of dealing in blackmarket goods. I'm very sorry this is happening to you. Unfortunately I'm sure you're not the only merchant who is suffing from theft.

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Ironhart, I have sent you an IM regarding this matter, and who to contact for help. Love your cottages :) ladynimue

Darn :( I've bought every model of yours, except the last one, and love them to pieces. I hate it when things like this happen. We don't need to lose you.

Oh Ironhart, I hate to see you remove your store, I love your cottages, I will have to go sign up for your mailing list, so I don't miss anything. I hope that you catch whoever has been doing this and nail them to the wall!

Oh that really sucks. Good luck catching up with the offenders. It strikes me as odd that someone who is smart enough to pay for something in the first place would then be DUMB enough to think it's okay to give it away... but I suppose it's the same mindset as folks who buy a CD and then make 10 copies for their friends :/

Hey, Ironhart. Im with you on this subject. We see this time and time again. Periodically, when it gets to be too much, we IM the offender asking if they had purchased this item under a different user name as we didnt see their name on our buyers list. So far, most people have admitted receiving the items as "gifts" from another person. Seems like a lot of people dont understand (or dont care) that it is piracy and not right to accept these "gifts". Some have gone and purchased what they received. Of course, there are the others that do not respond back to the IM's and for those people, we know they know its not right but just dont care. If some of these people just knew what time, effort, and in a lot of cases money it takes us to create these products for them to create the images they envision, maybe then they would understand why we get so frustrated at times. There are a lot of people who have the attitude that we are just in it to make a buck, but you know, the little that we do make on our products, for some of us, will pay our bills or put food on our table, or give us the opportunity to buy our children that extra little gift or a pair of shoes. hugz Fyrene

OH ironhart, I am so sorry to hear what has happened, it is such a shame and really does no justice to you or anyone. I do hope you find those who have taken your work. I am on my way to sign up for your letter. Sharen

i've actually had a few well known people try to give me a character that they were happy with and they thought i might like... once i realised it was something that was meant to be bought i told them that its a character for sale and that they shouldn't be giving it away. i know its not an excuse... BUT... both people who tried to give me stuff... english wasn't their 1st language.... so maybe they just didn't understand....or maybe a friend of theirs gave it to them and they didn't know it was for sale.... like i said.. its not an excuse.. .but its something to think about.

People think they have a right to give a copy away as long as it is for "personal" use. It is a perversion of copyright law that has been passed around the Internet and misunderstood as to its application. It was never meant to be applied to 3D models. I realize people may do these things once out of innocence...but when they do it over and over again, then they are doing it because they can, not because it is the right thing to do.

Hmmm I just went and looked at your maketplace to be sure. Recently I saved a picture from a website that was free, however later I found the site of the actual creator. There was nothing on the site about useage, but I contacted him just the same, awaiting an email answer now. I am sorry to hear that this is going on and making you so upset. Best of luck to you. You won't be leaving renderostiy though right?

Oh, Ironhart, I am one of your biggest fans and I am so very sorry that this has happened to you. I will be signing up for your newsletter and hope you will continue creating the wonderful cottages that I love so much. Genny

I am very sorry to see this happen. I think your models are great. Dropping over to sign up for newsletter now.

This is just awful!!!! Your models are the best, and I only wish I had been able to buy more of them. Be sure that I will be signing up for the newsletter. This kind of thing just should not happen. Kimberly

You are punishing the wrong people. You're just making it harder for people to buy your stuff(the ones not stealing). There's 2 kinds of people. Honest and dishonest. I think we all know this. My stuff is all over the net (Kazaa and WinMX) So is everything of daz3d's. I might sound negative but it's the truth. What are you going to do, get a lawyer and take these people to court? Breach of contract? Half the country thinks the internet is just for stealing music and porn. Everyone hear is saying your models are great. I guess what I'm saying is its happening to everyone. Star Wars Ep 2 was on the net before release. The music industry is beeing totally ripped off. And Renderosity and Daz stuff is as well. Welcome to the internet.

Now let me see if I understand this. Instead of making money on sales of your products, and taking a chance that some of the buyers will give away copies, you will pull the products out of the marketplace and not make any sales. That sounds like a logical business decision. I wonder how many successful businesses use that approach.

You don't think Ironbear is making a living off the models, do you? He has provided these beautifully designed models out of affection. Don't make the victim the bad guy because some thieves caused the problem and ripped him off. I think what is the issue is his disappointed in the ways some community members treated his creations. Is that so difficult to understand? I also don't buy the idea that the Internet has to be a den of thieves and poor behavior. We may make it that way because we either indulge in poor behavior or excuse the bad behavior in others. It isn't the Internet's fault if people deside they don't need morals as soon as they go on line. The Internet doesn't cause bad behavior...the bad behavior is in the people who use it.

All i can say is do not let the useless bastards in this world get you down. Then they have won already.

I hate this, ironhart. Really hate it. I hate it that people's art gets stolen, too. I sure wish I had the solution but it seems to be one to elude just about anyone victimized. I wouldn't try to talk you out of your idea. You gotta do what you think is best. However, you DO know that people who sign up for your list might be some of the ones doing it, right? Anyway, you can count me in on getting on the list. I have just about all your work and I don't intend to miss out on the opportunity to get more. So, any email from your site wouldn't be spam, it'd be good news.

It sux when this happens but unfortunately you have to expect it if you try to sell anything like this on the web. Having said that I don't know why you'd quit selling stuff, the only person you are hurting by doing that is you. The people who are giving it out don't give a rats ass if you quit.

I can understand your disappointment and anger - If it was me, I think I'd feel the same way. On the other hand, Your cottages have been on my "future purchases when I actually have money to spend" list and I'd hate to see them disappear from the marketplace because of someone else's irresponsible behavior. :( Any way, whatever your decision, thanks for all the wonderful work. Rob

You are all correct. it is a bad thing. there is no reason to punish anyone over it and the truth is I had a bad day, jumped to conclusions and should have kept my mouth shut. as for future ironhart products, I don't know what I am going to do but those products that are in the renderosity marketplace will remain as long as renderosity doesn't delete them. thank you all (mostly) for the show of support and compliments on my work. I really did need that! it is good to hear sometimes and it is good to know I have a talented and mostly loyal following. my warmest regards to all. ironhart (who is feeling a little better now.)

Glad you are feeling better ;O)

It's a shame that supposedly intelligent people can have such a blind spot about somebody's work. As somebody has already said..don't let 'em get you down. For those who 'give' stuff away..STOP THIEF!

No fair! I thought there waz gonna be at least one freebie. I feel cheated and tricked and... well it made me go look at the store . You've got some good looking buildings there! I'm another one of those deluded fools who thinks that just because theft is rife on the net that you have to just accept that it'll happen and not even complain about the unfairness. I don't have THE answer to immorality on the net, but I'm pretty sure that "oh well, let 'em get on with it" isn't the answer. The idea that it's OK to pass on anything copyrighted - even down to .MP3's on the net or taped copies of vinyl records - is simply wrong. Copyright law allows one to make a personal copy for backup purposes - not for giving away the original or copies to your mates. Glad you're feeling better, but if you actually have a lead on the culprits (at least one of whom must be masquerading as a "legal" customer by buying the originals!) please don't shirk from nailing them to the wall just because there's a high tolerance factor in some circles. IIRC legally "Ignorance is no excuse" - and it's pretty gosh darned hard to be ignorant of copyright facts on Renderosity (IMHO).

Even if you took them to court you'd spend more money your self. We are not talking BIG bucks here. The court would find they might owe you a few hundred dollars in damages. Probably wouldn't want to bother with you. Maybe if the culprit was doing allot of this and to many merchants. Especially if he or she was profiting. You might have a case then. You need some solid proof too, the person would probably deny everything and this stuff is hard to prove.

oops, typo. Correction: I'm another one of those deluded fools who thinks that just because theft is rife on the net that you don't have to just accept that it'll happen and not even complain about the unfairness. What opportunities are open to ironhart will depend on what information he has. He might be able to do so little, for example, as refuse to sell to certain specific people if he feels that he doesn't want to sell to them. Or of setting up his own club and selling only to people he feels inclined to sell to. At the end of the day it's up to each merchant to decide how to deal with thieves.

I guess how he handles it depends on if he can identify who is giving away his items to other people...something the receivers might be reluctant to reveal. Probably it will end up depending on people having a conscience. I'm not betting the farm on that one.

Happens all the time, This is the internet, I would not be suprised if all his stuff were posted on some website for free someplace, He wouldnot be the first person here to discover that kind of thing happening to him. Which would mean that maybe noone here is gifting, Maybe they downloaded it someplace posted up for free? It's not the first time that has happened around here. Only thing you can hope for is to hope that most are honest. But don't blame everyone and punish everyone for what a few people may have done. And definitly ask where they got it if they are willing to tell you, Because you definitly want to know if some news group or website has your stuff up for free.

I am glad you changed your mind ironhart. I think I own all but the last and I just love them and always lok forward to your next one. Sad thing is even if you just sold them at your site you would have those that would purchase them and then give them away :(

I'm not sure if ironhart HAS stores anywhere else? Whether he has stores elsewhere or not it would seem he's fairly convicned that R'Osity members are the source of the spread (and obviosuly if he currently only has the R'Osity store then that's pretty conclusive). However even before his improved frame of mind he wasn't going to take away anything he'd already shown - he was merely (and seemingly somewhat sadly) contemplating not making more stuff for sale. It can be very disheartening seeing something you've slaved over passed around for free if you've gone to the effort of making it a for-sale item. IMHO just because people do "stuff" doesn't make it tolerable. I keep being tempted to use outrageous examples to hammer the point home, but they shouldn't be necessary. Theft is bad. Being the victim of theft is unpleasant even in the remotest version of theft. ironhart, AFAICS, has done a good job of preventing this getting to him too much, which has to be the first consideration.