I emailed Byte Me Ok directly but have never heard back from her. Does anyone know what became of her and her products here? Does anyone know if the products are available elsewhere? Djana for Stephanie and the textures set based on her sister were fantastic and I was finally set to buy them. Thanks, if anyone knows. Dave

Been wondering that myself! ;)

Got caught in a copyright violation, and she's no longer a merchant here. Go to the Copyright forum and do a search for Byte_Me_Ok or for Qin (that was the texture that clearly violated copyright by using a SteffyZZ character as the base; there were some other allegations but I'm not sure what came of them). If she's a merchant elsewhere, she's using a different nickname now. bonni

Thanks - that's too bad. I guess she folded altogether because I had looked elsewhere for the products on the assumption that some kind of falling out had happened here. I guess the situation brings a questionable aspect to her other textures because if she'd been doing them well enough on her own to begin with, why would she suddenly use another as her base for Qin... Too bad. David

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=559718&Start=19&Artist=SamTherapy&ByArtist=Yes

Message edited on: 06/04/2004 13:49

Hi Paul, re: the "Attached Link:" It may just become a "classic." It says alot! (um, er, not the "link" ... I mean your pic) ;=] cheers, dr geep ;=]

Quite frankly, I don't believe that she did a BIT of work on her own except to screw over the consumer, from day one. I think that every single item she ever made was a copyright infringement on SOMEONE.

She had a really bad attitude, too. The exact opposite of what a Renderosity merchant should be.

And the thing that got me was that she was CAUGHT and STILL kept on. I mean, of all the stupid things... You get caught at something, you don't DO the exact same thing over again. I got duped by two textures. Qin and Khadijah. Those were the ONLY two I ever bought, but DAMN did it make me mad to lose even THAT much.

actually I did notice the nipples on Suzel came from a model photoset posted on 3d.sk. If she had a membership there (I do) then some parts are legit. I think she was using the Steffy textures as bases to fix seams, also cloning parts of them, but not all of them. Anyway - I like Khadiyah, still use it, but I did buy the Steffy texture Morgana/Midori to cover my ass. I find I use Morgana a lot now too. (though I did have to edit out the funny face wrinkles on the forehead that never did render quite right)

This was all a great shame. One of my favorite characters was Oxana - very unique in that she really captured the Slavic features of the Russian beauty. I would be very surprised if she copied this from anywhere.

"I like Khadiyah, still use it, but I did buy the Steffy texture Morgana/Midori to cover my ass." That was the respectable, ethical thing to do, and I'm sure Stefy appreciated it. However, technically speaking, it's not really necessary for the purpose of CYA unless the situation had gone to trial and a judge had ordered the ripped-off consumers to be notified that they must stop using the hybrid textures or delete them entirely. Renderosity has said that they'd notify defrauded customers in such a case, but to my knowledge, no case of violation here has gone that far. Still, I hear ya. I bought the "AKA" texture set by evodes, which I thought was great, but which turned out to contain bits of Stefy's work. I was advised that it was legal for me to keep using the texture, but I just haven't been able to, not feeling good about it.

Well as the original poster of this post, I guess I'm off to look at the textures of SteffyZ. Sounds like that's the source for a number of textures... : ) Dave

I'm with you, Khrys. IIRC, Byte_Me was the one who said she didn't really copy the textures, she just used the healing brush. Correct me if I'm confusing her with Fyrene/GA or some other infringer. And she spent a lot of time calling Steffy some unfriendly names for being upset about getting ripped off. -Heidi

You're correct, Heidi. Well, she said that "HeryokaBear" (whoever that is; nobody ever found anyone of that name or description anywhere) gave her the base texture claiming he had made it himself and gave her permission to use it. She later claimed that the Healing brush did something or other that made it look like she'd copied the texture, when she was really just sampling it (or something like that; I never did get what she was on about, and I use the Healing option in Photoshop all the time). Fyrene/GA (supposedly just GA, but as they live together as a couple, who knows) used DAZ textures as a "base" for a merchant resource product because although they did use images from 3d.sk, it was just too hard to get the seams to match up, so, what the heck, use DAZ textures... Fyrene isn't a merchant here any more, but she sells their old products at another site under a similar but slightly altered nickname. (I shan't say which site or what nickname, but if you poke around a bit, you can figure it out for yourself, especially if you're familiar with their older products). bonni

You know, I thought I saw her over at... you know where! I didn't bother to click on the ad to be sure. I can't believe they don't have a problem with her history. Guess being kicked out of multiple sites for infringement isn't a deterrent over there. Oh well, maybe she can blame karaoke bear if she gets caught again. ;-)

-Heidi dang typos!

Message edited on: 06/05/2004 04:58

Oh well, maybe she can blame karaoke bear if she gets caught again. LOL!!! Now I have the silliest mental image.... :-) Thanks for the giggle. bonni

To be fair, StefyZz was also flinging around insults and didn't handle it professionally. Neither would I, however, if I found out someone used one of my products as a base for theirs. Especially if this someone did something like this: Stefy releases a texture set. A month or so later, BMO releases a texture set. Stefy releases another set. BMO does, too. They look similar, but that happens often. Stefy goes into hybernation for a while, working on a texture. BMO continues to release high quality textures that just HAPPEN to be pirated from other people's hard work. Grr. Stefy releases a new texture. BMO releases a new, comperable texture and finally gets caught. All hell breaks loose.

We are NOT going to sling mud at her yet again, are we??? Come on, it's over and done with and anything more is so effin' unsporting!

[Rant mode on] WILL THE ----ING LYNCH MOD SHUT THE ---- UP! DIDN'T YOU DO ENOUGH DAMAGE THE FIRST TIME AROUND?!?! I MEAN EVERONE INSTANTLY TOOK STEFFY'S SIDE AND GOT OUT THE TORCHES, PITCHFORKS AND THERE WAS ALSO TALK OF TAR AND FEATHERS! STEFFY SHOWED 4 LITTLE PICS THE SHE "CLAIMED" WERE FROM BOTH HERS AND BMOK'S TEXTS AND ON THAT TRANSPARENTLY THIN EVIDENCE SHE BADGERED, THREATENED, BROWBEAT, AND RAILROADED HER SECOND VICTIM OUT OF THE TEXTURE CREATING WORLD. STEFFY HAS ALL BMOK'S TEXTURES SO IT COULD HAVE BEEN A QUESTION OF WHO WAS RIPPING WHO (yes, I know that's incorrect grammer) BUT THE ONE WITH THE LOUDEST MOUTH AND BIGGEST EGO WON IN THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINON, WHICH APPEARS TO BE ALL THAT COUNTS HERE. [/rant mode]

Charlie, dude? All of Stef's textures CAME OUT before BMO's. And it was a LOT more than four pictures. Let me see... There were the seams, there were the hands, there were bits of face and nipple and the like... And BMO OUTRIGHT ADMITTED SHE DID IT at one point, so STOP with the little whiney 'BMO GOT LYNCHED' BS. She DESERVED to get lynched.

That's YOUR opinion, my true opinion of the whole mess will remain unprinted since to air it here will most likely cost me my account so I won't say it and give the mods here any extra work. Case Closed END of interest

Actually, JenyK did a detailed examination of the textures and came to the conclusion that Qin was, indeed, directly based on SteffyZZ's work.

The other allegations had inconclusive evidence.

And by the way, I did NOT "take Steffy's side" immediately. I was one of the people getting flamed for telling people to calm down and let the administrators do their work in examining the claims. I only came to believe that BMO was, indeed, guilty of infringement after she came out herself and basically admitted to using "base textures" from sources she couldn't confirm.

bonni

Message edited on: 06/06/2004 01:03

Same here, Bonni. I'm all for giving someone a fair chance. I took BMO's side originally, believing her lie. Stupid of me.