I was wondering if anyone else has been banned from posting images in the DAZ Platinum Gallery?

This is a long story and I do not wish to name names at this point. Briefly DAZ's problem commenced when I kept having images deleted because they had been posted at other sites. Thus, the authorship of the images would be known at the voting stage.

I had not kept up with the ever changing rules which I accept is partly my fault. Fair enough at this point. Keep the images author hidden until after voting.

Shortly after, following another system change at DAZ I found it was possible to obtain confidential information of other Platinum members directly from within the Platinum Gallery.

I reported this in a forum post and was fobbed off with 'it's the weekend' type of excuse. So to prompt faster action by DAZ I posted some authors names of supposedly unknown authorship images.

The problem with DAZ's system was fixed shortly after and before the weekend was over!

I was later informed I was being banned from posting images in the Platinum Gallery and also I was denied access to all the DAZ forums. I was not given the opportunity to put my side of things to someone at DAZ.

In fact it was people who had been involved with earlier events who imposed the ban.

Judge , jury and executioner all wrapped up in one. I always thought justice to be fairly administered in your part of the world.

All this was up for review within about 12 months.

Those events happened shortly before the free 'Sara' figure was released and I was informed that I could not download it from the link in the gallery because I had been denied access.

I asked for an alternative download method for 'Sara'from DAZ sales and no reply was forthcoming.

A friend kindly downloaded 'Sara' to my system and I was subsequently threatened with serious action by a DAZ moderator. The DAZ ban became permanent even though no review had taken place!

I am allowed to vote for images in the Platinum Gallery and post any comments I wish about individual images. I cannot post my own images though! DAZ can't even get that right.

I have communicated with one of their (DAZ) managers(S. Kondris) but his ears are closed or he chooses not to respond.

My feelings about some of the DAZ people involved are they are malicious and vindictive towards me and continue to be so.

One irony though is one of my images recently made it in the DAZ monthly gallery!

Are you banned too?

Message edited on: 08/18/2004 14:03

You're telling us that you posted confidential information on the DAZ site, then obtained (by subterfuge) a copy of a figure DAZ refused to give you, and now you wonder why you were banned? I'd say it's pretty obvious. mac

In answer to your question, I know of at least one other person who was banned, for different reasons. I may know of a couple of more, for still more reasons. No comment on the rest though.

In all fairness, the person that gave you Sara should have been banned as well...

Message edited on: 08/18/2004 14:31

comunism....

Must suck to have the whole world against just you.

Has anyone been banned from the DAZ store? That's what I want to know. ;-)

Why do you care? DAZ wouldn't be a company if it weren't for the Poser app, and P5 has rendered, :O), their overpriced products obsolete.

"Shortly after, following another system change at DAZ I found it was possible to obtain confidential information of other Platinum members directly from within the Platinum Gallery. I reported this in a forum post and was fobbed off with 'it's the weekend' type of excuse. So to prompt faster action by DAZ I posted some authors names of supposedly unknown authorship images" you got what you deserved, tough luck.

Maclean: The confidential information was provided by DAZ! Sara is a free figure and I ensured the download complied with DAZ's license. Check their end user license. In this case no redistribution has occurred and the item remains on one machine only. pdxjims: Thank you. martian_manhunter: Maybe - raises questions about how secure DAZ keep their files. DigitalVixxen: Another post above suggests it just isn't me. Perhaps I'm not just one of the silentees. randym77: My ban didn't extend to the store!

fls13: DAZ productions still make a few nice, value for money items. As DAZ tinker with D/S though, I suppose it doesn't really matter as more companies will spring up to provide Poser content. Farside: What does the person that initially made the confidential information available deserve? Is other information readily available?

So, if I find a site where I can see your credit card info, should I post it so all can see more easily in order for that site to fix the problem?

Two wrongs don't make it right. DAZ very well may have had that problem, but advertising it to all in the manner that you did is not the way to go.

Just my .02. Now worth .01.

Message edited on: 08/18/2004 15:59

Well, it seems to me you have been a bit hard done by; if this "confidential information" is nothing more than the authorship of some anonymous pictures, read off the web site, it's not a huge deal. It might have been more tactful to all concerned to email it rather than post it publicly, and this ought to have had the same desired effect of waking Daz up. Personally I don't have much interest in the Daz forums or galleries. They exist to serve the commercial interests of Daz the company.

Once matters get to the stage of publicly complaining in another site's forums......then I don't see much hope for a solution.

When one carries a fight "across the border", then a solution is still possible -- but highly unlikely.

Unfortunately.

Becco_UK -- your Uni Flow (1&2) product is great. Thanks.

Jcleaver: If you ever do get to see any of my credit card info' please be sure top it up with some much needed funds. Phantast: Hadn't thought of that way myself. Thanks. Xoconostle. A very balanced and considered reply to my post. I too do not think it is right to name names. It would be better for DAZ to defend there own corner but as you indicate, thats unlikely to happen. I forgot about SIGGRAPH. I've been patient for 9 months so a while longer will not make much difference.

I'll ditto Zeno's thought process...airing ones grievences across a couple websites...rather than at the root of the problem only exacerbates the situation & makes things worse. IMHO...I'm finding myself quite annoyed with all these PUBLIC airings....in my mind it looses a lot of credibilty.

Becco_UK: If I had any myself I would! All of my funds seem to reside at the various Poser stores! ;->

Becco_UK, the nature of your query implies that you are a member of the Platinum Club at DAZ - for which you pay a fee. One of the advertised benefits of paid membership of said club is: - "Members Only" section in the DAZ|Forum If you are a Platinum Club member and you are banned from that forum section, you are being denied a service for which you have paid, and there is possibly a breach of the contract between DAZ and yourself. Of course, if this is the case, pursuing this angle may result in the ending of your Platinum Club membership as well; and perhaps your general store access. I suppose it depends on how important you feel the value of your relationship with DAZ is. 'Not very', going from a casual observation of this thread. I can't comment on the justification of your situation (not being aware of it beyond this thread), but I will say that the mix of 'amateur' and 'professional' in the running of the DAZ forums has concerned me from day 1 - and is the main reason I don't go there much. Indeed, I wrote to Dan Farr this very evening concerning another (unrelated) untidy mix of amateur and professional I spotted elsewhere. I kept it behind the scenes, though. I guess I still value my relationship with DAZ a little.

Apparently, from other threads I've read here and there, DAZ has a few disgruntled individuals in their customer base. I currently am not one of them. The concept that PJF brings to light, about their possibly being a contract violation between yourself as a paid-for platinum memeber and DAZ, is a valid point. However you'd have to re-read the platinum member TOS rules (all memberships have them, whether they're paid for or not). Most of the time, even if you are a paid member, if you do something that goes against the TOS for that site you still get banned, and they don't "have" to refund any portion of your membership fees. However, since there are very few laws that govern the internet, a lot of companies/sites/etc create their own laws which may or may not be in violation of federal/state laws and consumer rights. This means that just because its in a company's TOS, doesn't mean its legal (paypal, for example, is currently dealing with a similar situation where a portion of their TOS did not comply with federal law but no one said anything about it until now). So, just cause its in their TOS, doesn't mean its legal, regardless of whether you agreed to it originally or not. Which means they could still be in violation of something (contract, law, etc), by banning you. Just my two cents. do with it what you will. (there are copyright laws too, which a lot of people don't realize. For example, if you alter something in any noticeable manner, regardless of who created it, the altered version automatically becomes yours, with which you can do whatever you want).

PJF actually From what I hear the forums are a privliage and by paying a membership for the platinum club you are not buying into the forums. Sephyn depends Most TOS are seen in court as a binding agreement and if you agree to it by signing up for a membership you are responsible for upholding your end of the agreement. It does depend on the terms and if they are unreasonable though

"Of course, if this is the case, pursuing this angle may result in the ending of your Platinum Club membership as well; and perhaps your general store access."<< Not necessarily true. Though again, it depends a lot on the current internet laws, which are few and far between. But in the real world no company can deny a consumer the right to buy their products or shop in their store. Example... If you sued walmart for something, whether you won the case or not, walmart cannot prevent you from shopping in their store in the future, nor can they use that as a basis for preventing you from becomming an employee in the future. Its against the law.

If he paid for a platinum membership, and the Sara doll was a product created and distributed to platinum members for free, yet he was still denied access to it due to his conduct in the forums, then daz is clearly violating their own contract. Because, if sara is only suppose to be for platinum members, that means that in essence every platinum member paid for their copy of sara (and any other 'free' item intended for platinum members), which means he's being denied a service that he paid for.

Sephyn74 "(there are copyright laws too, which a lot of people don't realize. For example, if you alter something in any noticeable manner, regardless of who created it, the altered version automatically becomes yours, with which you can do whatever you want)." Unless the original that you are altering is in the public domain and if you don't have permission, the above is absolutely incorrect. A derivative work does not become the property of the person making the changes, the only thing they own (& can claim ownership/copyright) is the actual changes they make, not the original they started from.

if you alter something in any noticeable manner, regardless of who created it, the altered version automatically becomes yours, with which you can do whatever you want And it's deliberate misinformation like that which causes so much bloody trouble. There are a whole bunch of merchants in recent months who would disagree with that statement alone, before we even get to the point that it's WRONG. quoteOnly the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create a new version of that work. Accordingly, you cannot claim copyright to another's work, no matter how much you change it, unless you have the owner's consent.*** Want to check that? http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ14.pdf

Oops, sorry Cooler, cross posted. :)

************************************************************ (there are copyright laws too, which a lot of people don't realize. For example, if you alter something in any noticeable manner, regardless of who created it, the altered version automatically becomes yours, with which you can do whatever you want). ************************************************************ Sephyn74 - If you think this true you are very mistaken! I have read a number of art copyright law rulings where people were SERIOUSLY SUED--SUCCESSFULLY- with this mistaken belief that a "30% change" or whatever is enough for you to claim your own copyright. NOT SO. The artist only has to show that you based your work on their work- (not the "idea", which is a different matter.) People have been asked to leave the Renderosity Store after having done EXACTLY THAT- basing their textures on another artists textures. They only need to show provable TINY details of copyright enfringement to make it a copyright violation.

np Questor, fortunately Sephyn didn't post the above in the copyright forum... it would have been a crosspost feeding frenzy :-)

Heh! Looks like we all jumped on that at the same time! I KNEW this would bring out the COOLER!

+++++ "But in the real world no company can deny a consumer the right to buy their products or shop in their store... ...Its against the law." +++++ Nonsense. There is no 'right' to buy anything. A private sector purchase is a voluntary contract between vendor and buyer, and neither is obliged by law to take part.

Phantast: "Personally I don't have much interest in the Daz forums or galleries. They exist to serve the commercial interests of Daz the company." and these forums at Renderosity are not to serve Renderosity ...please...

Sephyn didn't post the above in the copyright forum... it would have been a crosspost feeding frenzy :-) Yeah, I thought of that, too. ;-) But in the real world no company can deny a consumer the right to buy their products or shop in their store I take it you've never seen one of those signs that says, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"? A private company with private property (such as a store) does not have to give access or do business with anyone at all. "I run a business" is not equivalent to "And therefore I'm legally required to do business with anyone and everyone all the time whether I want to or not". bonni

No. you guys are blowing this all out of proportion. First of all, those signs that read "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" are mostly bogus. they're put up to thwart lawsuits. If a store is open to the public it means its open to the public. It can't deny service to ANYONE (durring normal business hours while the store is open for business, for those who want to get extremely technical), regardless of what signs it puts up. 99.9% of the time those signs are enforced and no one does anything about it. However, there are people who have been refused service in the past at various places with signs like that posted, and it becomes a lawsuit. Ask the owners of Denny's who suffered massive lawsuits when they refused service to two specific, and unrelated, groups of individuals. AND THATS NOT EVEN WHAT I WAS GETTING AT. If you go to walmart and cause trouble, yes they can kick you out. But they can't legally prevent you from coming back. Nor can they legally refuse to sell you something (IF ITS AVAILABLE FOR SALE). If you go to walmart and something happens (injury, damage to your personal property, etc), that results in you suing them, they can't use that as a means of doing business with you in the future. (Nor can they use that as grounds for not employing you either). For those of you who like to get technical, i'm just using walmart and denny's as an example. Any store or resturant, etc that is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC falls under the same laws. As for copyright and original owners, etc., I admit I was wrong for generalizing it as much as I did originally. More specifically, If one person created a prop for poser, (an EXAMPLE, people), and another person came along and ALTERED that prop, the ALTERED VERSION would, in MOST CASES, become the property of the person who altered it. (Geeze, now I know why directions on the back of pizza boxes tell you to remove the plastic wrapper BEFORE you put it in the oven)...

**As for copyright and original owners, etc., I admit I was wrong for generalizing it as much as I did originally. More specifically, If one person created a prop for poser, (an EXAMPLE, people), and another person came along and ALTERED that prop, the ALTERED VERSION would, in MOST CASES, become the property of the person who altered it.

NO! it would not. The ONLY way a derivative totally becomes property of the person making the changes is if the original has been released into the public domain. Otherwise you MUST have permission from the copyright holder before you can distribute the original as part of your derivative. edited to correct the inevitable typos**Message edited on: 08/18/2004 23:23

Sephyn74- You have obviously NOT been around the Poser Forum very long. There have been MASSIVE discussions in great detail about this subject. You cannot alter and redistribute someone else's work (Mesh, Textures, etc.) WITHOUT their permission. It's a COPYRIGHT VIOLATION. BTW- this also applies to FREE STUFF. Free models, meshes, textures CANNOT be redistributed, even for FREE, without the original author/artists permission!

the ALTERED VERSION would, in MOST CASES, become the property of the person who altered it. No it wouldn't and the law is quite clear on this. You are wrong. It's a simple matter to check it - against current international copyright laws even, let alone more localised laws - I suggest you do so. As for refusing service, I can't comment regarding US law, but in the UK you'd be wrong, very wrong. A company can refuse service to whomever it chooses to refuse it to - with or without a deep and involved explanation. The only cases where this can be a sticky point is in the case of race or gender. In the case of "Denny's" you might need to be more specific. The only cases I can find relate to accidents in a couple franchises and one which is a racial situation. In that case it is entirely irrelevant to this thread because Daz are not refusing service based on race. Denny's Race Discrimination Case http://racerelations.about.com/library/weekly/aa032700a.htm and http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/9/19/201745 But, as there is more than just the restaurant chain I'm extremely curious what you are on about. In the second link the case was dismissed.

And just in case you mean the racial case brought by nine Chinese and African Americans for a "beating", that case was dismissed too.

http://www.asianam.org/updateon.htm

edited to add In 1994 Denny's restaurant chain paid out 54 million USD in racial related charges because they made black customers pay before they could eat. Again, irrelevant to this thread but...

Message edited on: 08/18/2004 23:38

If i took vicky and made her arms a little thicker or a little longer, and changed her name to vallery, then no. she'd still be vicky from Daz. But if I took vicky and made her 400 pounds and put warts all over her face, made her a bit shorter, gave her a different skin tone/texture/etc. and changed her name to 'jenny from the bronx' (heh), then 400 pound jenny would be mine. period. Otherwise, daz, and anyone else out there making figures, clothing, props, etc from the original materials/models that curious labs created are ALL in copyright violation and owe curious labs royalties. For that matter, anyone out there whose ever created an orc and called it an orc owes tolken royalties (or whoever owns the rights to tolken's work now), or anyone whose ever created a vampire that turns into a bat owes stoker.

Sephyn74 - you may be confusing refusal of service with discrimination. No company can refuse service to an individual or group of individuals solely on the basis of their race, religion, sex or disability. Saying "We won't allow you to shop here because you're Asian" or "We won't take your money because you're Jewish" would be illegal. Saying "We're not serving you because you just gave the cashier a mouthful of abuse" is within any company's legal rights.

no, one point there was a group of blacks, another there was a group of lesbians, both at completely different denny's locations, both cases were won. I'm thinking it was sometime between 1993 and 96. I hadn't heard about the asians and blacks.

If one person created a prop for poser, (an EXAMPLE, people), and another person came along and ALTERED that prop, the ALTERED VERSION would, in MOST CASES, become the property of the person who altered it.

If this were true, then someone could purchase any product in the Marketplace, make a few changes to the product, and then offer it for sale in a modified form.

To coin a phrase: it don't work thataway.

As for the Denny's example: Denny's did not "refuse service" to anyone -- rather, they discriminated in the sense of forcing certain people to pay for their food before they would serve them -- while at the same time permitting other customers to eat first, and then to pay afterwards.

If everyone in the restaurant had been forced to pay first (I.E. - treated equally) -- then the Denny's case probably wouldn't have gotten very far: as no discrimination would have occurred. Of course, such a practice would have been bad for business, but it would not have been discrimination.

In any case -- a website is not a "public accommodation" in the same sense that a restaurant or a WalMart store is -- anymore than a commercial wholesale warehouse like Sam's Club or Costco. Such businesses are perfectly within their legal rights to restrict access to members only.

Besides which -- Renderosity doesn't provide public restrooms.

exactly. and they can make you leave. but they CANNOT prevent you from coming back. I worked at walmart for years, i've dealt with these situations FIRST HAND.

Oooh, my turn to cross-post with Questor :D And regarding the changing Vicky thing, you're still wrong. Daz make their own original models these days, and when they were (or were part of? not fully up on their company history) part of Zygote, well Zygote were official content providers for Poser. Changing significant part of an original work and redistributing it remains a copyright violation, no matter how much you change it. This is why clothing creators for Vicky often use a "quicksuit" which is a mesh made for royalty-free use. You cannot take Vicky into a modelling program, chop off her arms, legs and head and remake the torso into a vest top. You can only use her mesh as a guide for making your own models -by which I mean laying your own original mesh down.

Changing significant part of an original work and redistributing it remains a copyright violation, no matter how much you change it.

Try this idea with the music industry.

Modify the words to a #1 hit song, and then attempt to claim the "modified" song as your own property. Try to sell it.

See how far that idea would get you.

The same principle holds true for 3D meshes and artwork.

A) Up until P5 most of the figures for Poser were made by DAZ (then Zygote :-) & they still hold copyright over them. Needless to say you can't violate your own copyright :-) B) "Orc" is a term Tolkien "borrowed" (like most of his names/languages) The earliest confirmed reference to orc as an evil creature date back to Old English glossaries circa 800A.D. I believe 1200+ years is a sufficient period for any copyright to have expired :-) C) The term Vampire dates to 1734. Ditto B "if I took vicky and made her 400 pounds and put warts all over her face, made her a bit shorter, gave her a different skin tone/texture/etc. and changed her name to 'jenny from the bronx' (heh), then 400 pound jenny would be mine. period." Try doing that to the original Vicki mesh & distributing it as your own creation & I'll bring the DMCA powered +30 damage "hammer of god" down on you so fast it will make your mouse spin :-) D.M. Gorski Copyright Enforcement Agent DAZ 3d Productions Inc. abuse@daz3d.com

"But if I took vicky and made her 400 pounds and put warts all over her face, made her a bit shorter, gave her a different skin tone/texture/etc. and changed her name to 'jenny from the bronx' (heh), then 400 pound jenny would be mine. period." So very wrong. The texture, if it were totally your creation, would be yours. Changing the apparent weight and skin condition and renaming the character would not relieve DAZ of their copyright. Just making these assertions doesn't make them so. Actually believing them would be no excuse in court, should they lead to action against someone believing them. By the way, one of the persons correcting your misinformation in this thread is DAZ' copyright agent. I wouldn't suggest continuing on this gravely mistaken line of thinking, and more importaintly, don't even consider trying to get away with actually doing something like that. It WILL be noticed by this very aware community, which does not take kindly to infringement or the sort of "reasoning" that infringers use to justify their errors.

Oops, another cross-post. Well, now you know who I was referring to. :-)

Bloodhound Gang asked for permission to use a piece of music from an old '80s cure song, the permission was denied. so they changed one, maybe two notes, and used it anyway. it went on their first cd. They also noted all of it in the sleave of that cd, along with some choice words for the cure. pansy division rewrote the words to nirvanna's song "smells like teen spirit" and released it as a single, then later on a greatest hits collection called pile up. Then there's weird al yanchovik from the 80's & early 90's, (who mostly became a puppet for spoof songs, but started out on his own). It happens all the time.

Sephyn74, Copyright law is unique in that it allows the original holder to decide where & when they enforce their rights. If nirvana & the cure decided it wasn't worth it to pursue either case that's their decision & in no way diminishes their ability to sue the next person who tries it. That doesn't make it legal, nor will it protect someone if they do the same thing at some point in the future. and just as an FYI "Weird" Al gets permission from everyone of the artists whose songs he parodies.

"first, remove the pizza from the wrapper..." "but why?"

***"first, remove the pizza from the wrapper..." "but why?" *** Because "people" are inherently STUPID, fucked in the head and ignorant. Also because there is a compensation culture that is out of control in the US and infesting other countries faster than bubonic plague, driven by ambulance chasers with no regard for common sense. So, in an attempt to foreclose certain idiotic law suits, basic common sense instructions are placed with most items.

Nirvana loved "Smells Like Queer Spirit" by Pansy Division, they considered it a tribute to their pro-acceptance politics, which it apparently was in part. Kurt Cobain said in interviews that he considered it a flattering parody. The two bands had friends in common, one of whom is a longtime acquaintence of mine. It seems probable the the PD members knew very well in advance that there wouldn't be any trouble. Anyway, as cooler mentioned, Nirvana could have taken action if they'd wanted to, but they didn't want to ... context was understood and appreciated. I don't know anything about the Bloodhound Gang / Cure situation, but sometimes artists choose not to pursue the legal route because of the headaches and financial and time costs involved. Maybe that's what happened there. Anyway, you've got some very wrongheaded ideas about IP and copyright. Do some self-education on the subjects, as others have suggested and enabled with links. Nobody is blowing anything out of proportion. Don't let false notions lead to a situation similar to your most recently posted render. :-)