Despite the fact that I have clearance to model and release, for free, certain items that are copyrighted, and a simple search on the web will show you what you are allowed to release as fan art, I have to withdraw certain freebies I have made. Despite the fact that all the items I have made are available in other formats, legally and without fear of prosecution, I have to withdraw certain freebies that I have made. I do not blame Renderosity for this move, as they are protecting themselves, and it is easier to impose a blanket ban on all copyrighted items than to do the research as to which copyrighted items are allowed under the term "fan art". BUT....... I do take exception to this part of the e-mail that informs you you have to withdraw your items: Quote - "This warning has been noted on your member record." Seeing as I have done nothing wrong, violated no copyright licences, and commited no crime, why would this be the case? Is this the thanks we get for making freebies? Getting warnings noted on our member records? Just in case anyone was wondering, I got early warning and withdrew my freebies before Renderosity could find them, but there are various merchants and freebie providers that were not as lucky. I have also stopped production on 6 other freebies I was busy with, so the Narcisus, Nostromo, AT-ST, Death Star Trench, Colonist Complex Interior and the scene from the battle on the Ice Planet Hoth have been scrapped. You can still legally get the Nostromo, Narcisus, AT-ST and Death Star Trench in other formats, Lightwave and 3DMAX, for free on the net. All my previous freebies will still be available from Vanishing Point. I will still make sure that we release a Freekly (weekly freebie) every week, but some of them may not be anounced on Renderosity, so you will have to make regular visits to the site. Sorry. Helgard.

List of items still legally available at Vanishing Point for use in non-commercial renders, animations and fan films: Aliens Colonist Complex Aliens Dropship Aliens APC Aliens Rifle Aliens Smartgun Aliens Sulaco Aliens Weapons Rack Aliens Powerloader Starship Troopers Morita Rifles (Both versions) The explosion pack for Poser 5 also had to be removed as it contained an Aliens dropship to demonstrate how the technology worked. Sorry again. Helgard

Good to know the freebies will still be available, Helgard, even if we have to walk around the corner to get them.

Keep making all the cool stuff, and please don't let the recent changes get you down. (And please do announce them here. I don't have time to search every site to support the people who help the community out every day, and it would make me very, very sad to miss out on your nifty stuff!)

Best Regards,
Jean

This copyright business has gotten many people hyper-sensitive.

IMHO, it's all gone a bit overboard.

Too bad that a few blantant thieves have ruined things for everyone.

Thanks for the freebies, Helgard. Keep up the good work.

Quote - "This warning has been noted on your member record." I agree that this statement is more than a little heavy-handed. But, I guess they need to keep track of the warnings in case you release another Aliens item. I'm also going to guess that this is why you and I aren't on the front page as "generous Free Stuff providers". We're copyright violators with "warnings" on our member records! :) And just to remind everyone- the Aliens stuff (and all "fan" items) are more than welcome at Vanishing Point. --John

I hate to think what some of the copyright-enforcement types would do with the old-fashioned "fanzines".

Kind of like the old Star Trek fanzines -- where fans wrote and published stories that included all of the characters from classic Trek.

In the old days, Paramount actually encouraged the fans to publish and distribute such material. And artwork, too.

I wonder what would happen today? I haven't seen fanzines in many years..........

I haven't seen any trek zines since, damn, the mid eighties -- when almost all of them were killed off by paramount in a trademark flap (someone filed a challenge to the trademark alleging dissolution). I loved them. Wrote a few, too...

Yeah. Too bad people can't just play fair. Somebody's always out to make a quick buck. This puts a damper on things like 'zines. If people didn't always insist on attempting to take advantage.....then things like fanzines wouldn't be a problem.

Helgard, Illigitma non carborundum est

We're lucky that other industries aren't as stupid as the movie and music biz. Imagine: A restaurant announces on its menu that it uses only Tyson meats. The next day Tyson's SWAT team arrives and padlocks the restaurant for trademark infringement. A rally driver announces that his car runs better because he uses Castrol lubricants. The Castrol agents slam him into jail for trademark infringement. In any other business, showing that you admire a certain brand or title is considered free advertising, and is encouraged. What the #$%$#^%$^@^ is wrong with the entertainment industry???????????

Chicken breeders and lubricant makers don't make the bulk of their money selling the rights to use their trademarks. Although, in both cases, they usually have agreements. (and sorry, I'm just tired and very cranky, lol)

A restaurant announces on its menu that it uses only Tyson meats. The next day Tyson's SWAT team arrives and padlocks the restaurant for trademark infringement. No, but Mike Tyson might show up. I hear he's desperate enough that extortion isn't out of the question for him, at the moment. ;)

Helgard, I raell appreciate your stuff and am so happy it's still available at VP. But why did you decide to scrap the ongoing projects? That's just letting Rosity decided what you do, which is NO good. You make what you want to make and to hell with them. :] Fish

"Too bad that a few blantant thieves have ruined things for everyone." I don't think it's anything to do with thieves, blantant or otherwise. I think it's just due to this "What-can-I-claim-IPR-on-and-get-bucks-for-nothing" syndrome that's sweeping western society at the moment.

There are still tons of fanzines. Including Star Trek fanzines. In fact, they've become public in a way I am not comfortable with. There's a online Web site where you can buy them with a credit card, and they regularly appear on eBay. Including the slash ones. =:-O

A lot of the old fanzines went belly-up, but not because of legal issues. The main reason, I think, is the net. The Internet allows people to download all the fanfic they can read, for free. And it allows fanfic writers to instantaneously reach a world-wide audience far larger than even the most popular fanzine. Dead-tree zines can't compete. Who wants to wait months, even years, for their stories to be published? And who wants to pay $15 or $20 when you can get it for free online?

The old-timers still buy fanzines. (Though these are often compilations of netfic nowadays.) But fewer new fans do. They just see no reason to pay for fanfic.

"Is this the thanks we get for making freebies? Getting warnings noted on our member records?" Hey, why not? Just another pimp-slap to throw on the pile. Freebie-makers get slapped around so bad some days, I'm surprised anything worthwhile gets released at all anymore.

Speaking of "copyrigtht greed extremism", remember that nice "little" animation I did paying tribute to Godzilla? Well, the company that makes the Godzilla movies doesn't want me to show it to anyone, including them! Geesh, it was a "fan-film" I worked months on with absolutely no intent of commercial gain.

oh yeah..there's 'fan fiction on the net', and 'the godawful fanfic page', and others..Paramount has done an aggressive job of litigating against any and all non-sanctioned Trek pages out there..some real goodies have been removed, alas..I call it LFG (Litigation for Financial Gain)

I read about Viacom's going after Trek fan sites in the paper, but from within Trek fandom, I have to say I haven't noticed it at all. Tons of Trek sites are still up and running. Some of them even get interviews with the Trek actors and writers. Others are small personal pages, devoted to particular characters, pairings, or situations. (Pon farr stories, anyone?)

The handful of sites the lawyers came down on were those they considered unflattering to Trek - parody sites and the like. (Which is ironic, because those are the most likely to be considered protected speech.) They don't even go after Star Trek in Sound and Vision, a huge multimedia site. Which makes them more generous than many. A lot of copyright holders allow fan pages, but do not allow video or sound clips. At least not large archives of them.

I don't make models, be they free or commercial; alas, I'm not that skilled or talented. But I do use them in my fan art and I am sorry to see them disappear. Especially since the ones like those very nice space ships (you know which ones) are perfectly legal even according to TPTB providing they are used only for non-profit works. As for my fan art, I am removing it. And I'm less than a stone's throw away from pulling the rest of my gallery and leaving altogether. I mean, who knows what's going to get made illegal around here next? This is not good, people. Not good at all.

In most case the Japanese Anime & manga industry is much more tolerant against fan art, fiction. There are lots of fan comics, garage made models and more stuff. But even there are more intolerant against the fans. Example one sailor moon dress at the market plays here at Renderosity was removed.

I just want to point out again that this issue is NOT because Lucas or Paramout or anyone else is cracking down on fan art. Your stuff is perfectly safe until you hear an official statement from them. This issue of deleting free stuff items is solely the responsiblity of Renderosity- they want items removed from this site before they are discovered by Lucas or Paramount. I mean, who knows what's going to get made illegal around here next? It all depends on how skittish the website feels. If they feel that the mention of "Star Wars" in the forums can get them into copyright trouble, then the forums could be editted. If they feel that images of X-Wings and TIE fighters could get them into trouble, then those images could be removed. But that is the key question- who knows what's next? --John

Out of curiousity, just how big is the "fan art" section of the gallery anyway? Also, why did they even bother to have a film/tv category in the first place? I mean, surely somebody must have known -- or at least had an idea -- such a place would by its very nature contain material that could be construed as possible infringment/poaching of other folk's IP. Dunno about you guys & gals, but that makes no sense whatsoever to this little ol' featherhead.

Message edited on: 11/29/2004 11:55

Huge, Byrdie. Huge.

The handful of sites the lawyers came down on were those they considered unflattering to Trek - parody sites and the like.

A lot of fan fiction is so awful as to amount to a self-parody -- although unintentional.

I've been out of the loop on Star Trek fanzines for a couple of decades, so I am nearly oblivious to the current state of affairs.

It stands to reason that tons of "unapproved" Trek fan sites can be found all over the internet. One can find most anything all over the internet.

Sites like Renderosity don't want to make themselves into a big, fat target. Frankly, I can't blame them.

Attached Link: http://rendervisions.com/

Feel free to post them at http://rendervisions.com/

Message edited on: 11/29/2004 12:03

"Chicken breeders and lubricant makers don't make the bulk of their money selling the rights to use their trademarks." I teach my students about "product placement" when we look at arguments and support in visual mediums. It's almost impossible to get any corporation to tell you what they paid to get their product into a hit movie, but I know that Nike paid well over a million dollars U.S. for half a dozen quick shots of their shoes in a recent movie, and everyone got several pair of free shoes as well as clothing items. I wonder if the same could be worked out in the 3D community?

Maybe it could, but who's got the bucks for it? Other than Dr. Geep's Poser millions, that is ;-)

Aspect of scale, actually. Well, that and, as ever, knowledge. Knowing who and how to approach a company for rights is, essentially, half the battle. The one who gets in first, with the best offer, wins. Just get a good offer. It isn't always upfront, either.

Best offer? Offer? What? I was supposed to have offered them money? Wow.. And to think all I did was "ask"... geesh, if I'd known I could have paid for the privilege I would never have just asked, not when there's a cheque book to hand. I wonder why out of 42 companies I approached 38 said "yeah, fine but not the logo" and the rest (four) even allowed me use of their logo provided they got a copy of the model. Who would have thought that simply "asking" could achieve anything? And I don't even know HOW to approach companies, I just wrote to their legal department and marketing. I knew I was doing something wrong.

lol -- oddly enough, Questor, you did know. Im just a greedy witch, though, and am waiting to hear back myself from the companies I've written to. Dang nabbit. Now I'll have to actually compete. And where's the fun in that!?

And that, my dear, was how the free country called World Wide Web was taken over by nitpicking law interpreters, imposing their totalitarian reactionist hyper control on those naive softhearted anarchistic dreamers who lived there peacefully. The fun is gone here at R. This is the end.

No fun at all, ynsaen. Don't worry though, my competition isn't anything to worry about. I don't do "stores". :) Quite honestly first thing I did when I decided I wanted to make models was to approach the companies I was pinching ideas from. That started with the obvious gun companies and also interested in what I was doing. They were extremely helpful and very friendly people. That moved on to a couple games companies - who, while guarded were likewise okay about it, and a few others since then. I've got full permission from one medieval clothing manufacturer to make 3D representations of their clothing (if I ever manage to get my head around it). Heck I was even making a Lara landrover to go with Ironbear's Project Lara as an add-on and LandRover bent over backwards to help, sending me production photos of the vehicle they took while building it. Unfortunately that's proved to be a massive challenge and currently beyond my ability - though it's slowly progressing. This started about 4 years ago. When a very similar argument to this one erupted. Funny how things repeat all the time isn't it? At that moment I thought, well, if there's a risk. Ask, it can't hurt to ask, and if they say no, I know never to go near it. I find it quite inconceivable that most people just go off and do things without ever thinking about doing the decent thing and asking. Quite inconceivable. However, I don't make money doing this, so perhaps there's the difference. I don't have to care whether anyone will think my stuff is cool and spend bucks on it, so there's no risk if I'm told "no, you can't do that." shrug Strikes me that while people are extremely, rabidly defensive of their own things and that of friends, they hold so much else in utter contempt. That's not an attitude I can fully understand. But then, I'm weirder than you are. :)

The fun is gone here at R. This is the end. Oh stop being so bloody melodramatic. The fun left this site years ago. I won't repeat my particular description of rosity as it appears to upset Spike considerably, so I'll save him the pain of blowing a fuse again. This hasn't been a "fun" site for ages. It's a commercial site, a commercial site entirely reliant upon commerce to survive. As such they can't afford "fun", it's business. That business must be protected at any cost and if that means a few freebies ripped from a movie or whatever have to go, then too bad. I recall a time, many moons ago when a massive row blistered these forums, a row over "the store"... some of that is still here, most was deleted with C&D. Everyone said then the fun was gone from the site. Hell, there was a time when people said all the fun was gone from the site when it split from PFO... Then there was the Pink Pony event, or was that several events? I forget, legume was always far too busy to manage things in one go. The fun is gone, woe is me.... Should I shed a tear now?

Oh, and I won't even begin to try to remember the row over ... faeries...

'Scuze the ignorance, but what's the Pink Pony event and why was there a row? Um, don't answer that one here if it's gonna give anybody headaches. Just PM me with all the scandalous details. ;-)

Heh. Just run a forum search here and in the Community Forum for "Pink Pony". If you have any sense of humour at all, you'll die laughing. In a nutshell though, legume took over the gallery and Hot20 with a horse, gaudishly painted bright fluorescent pink and created a shit storm as a result. not the first time he's done that either. :)

Actually, it was the Magic Pink Pony (MPP).

MPP has ridden off into the rainbow/sunset.

Ahhhhh.....the good 'ol days. C&D........the blood on the floor.........such sentimental memories.......I get misty-eyed just thinking about it all........

As far as I know, the MPP never rated his own website.

Creepy has his.

I'd rather not go into details concerning MPP.

Ancient history. Buried with the Pharaohs.

In Poserdom, if it's more than a year old -- it happened in antiquity. Sometimes, if it's more than two or three months old: it's moldy.

Sorry, my apologies, you're right. Magic Pink Pony it was. Sometimes, if it's more than two or three months old: it's moldy. It takes that long still? I've been out of touch, I thought it was just a couple weeks.

Legume ... fluroscent pink pony...I think I saw one of those not too long ago. On the other "R" site, if I'm not mistaken. Definitely eye-boggling :-)

There are different rules for commercials and freebees? Imp not sure watt is ok for a gallery picture. Can I in a picture have a gigantic Coca-Cola logo as in the bladruner? Can I make fanart with charters from Star trek, or an anime? On rotica its not ok to use trademarked charters, but that is a different thing.

"There are different rules for commercials and freebees?" The rules aren't different, the level of tolerance is. "Can I in a picture have a gigantic Coca-Cola logo as in the bladruner?" Yes. Be sure to accurately note that the trademark in use belongs to the coca-cola corporation. "Can I make fanart with charters from Star trek, or an anime?" Yes. However, your ability to display and distribute that fan art may be limited according to the needs and perspectives of the owners of the trademarks and copyrights concerned.

"Yes. However, your ability to display and distribute that fan art may be limited according to the needs and perspectives of the owners of the trademarks and copyrights concerned." Can I display that fan art her at renderosity? In fact I have post some anime fanart here and nobody have complain. Of curse different corporation, different tolerant. I have no intent to post Disney fanart. If so my head will get loose.

Can I display that fan art her at renderosity? given recent events, I'm going to say that the answer will soon probably be no. It appears that renderosity is tryuing to eliminate copyright and trademark infringing properties -- even allowed ones -- in order to become an "important 3d community".

"On rotica it?s not ok to use trademarked charters, but that is a different thing." - Torulf

Beg pardon?

Ummm... assuming "charters" = "characters": both correct and incorrect.

1. We do not accept trademarked character likenesses in the two DTG Studios stores, Renderotica or Animotions. [Assuming we catch them in testing] Those are fan art, and we don't encourage the sale of those. Ditto for celebrity likenesses.

2. We try to frown on pr0n using likenesses of actors, actresses, and other celebrities. Legume gets cross when Angelina Jolie's agents and lawyers call him up asking why there's a 26 image series of "Angelina Jolie: the Minotaur Buggering" in our galleries.

A cross Legume is... well... you don't want to go there. ;)

1. We have no problem with freebie fan art characters in our freestuff. Fan Art images are more than welcome in the galleries at Animotions, as are fan art characters in Animotions or Rotica freestuff. [Disclaimer: Manglement reserves the right to refuse anything at whim. ;)]

Going back up to the main topic post... Helgard, you're more than welcome to list your free items at Animotions if you'd like.

• Ironbear
  DTG Studios Renderotica/Animotions Admin

Once upon a time I posted a manga (hentai) fanart on renerotica. But I vas told in a comment it was not ok to use trademarked charters. Its god to her from the admin something ells. In this case I understand its different. The maker of the manga (OMG) have not made any protest against the flood of dirt amateur mangas in Japan with his characters. But different writers, corporations have different ideas.

Im an animator who has used audio from movies an television in my animations linked in the rosity animation outlet. will this "100% your original creation" policy effect us animators who borrow sound clips/music to use in poser animations clips??

I don't know -- but I would, personally, expect the answer to be somewhat similar to, um, yes.

Thanks to everyone. Ironbear, my freestuff is still available at Vanishing Point thanks. Just in case anyone was wondering, I do have permission, official, to make and give away Aliens meshes, textures and animations, on the condition that they are non-commercial. Now, if only Renderosity had asked........... Their loss.

Can I in a picture have a gigantic Coca-Cola logo as in the bladruner? Can I make fanart with charters from Star trek My guess would be NO, unless you have explicit written permission from Coca-Cola and give this written to Renderosity so they will not be sued by Coca-Cola for displaying your image. But, this is only my interpretation of things. Maybe you can get by if you call it "fan art", or maybe you can't. I do have permission, official, to make and give away Aliens meshes, textures and animations Yes, but you have permission from 20th Century Fox (or whomever owns the Aliens copyrights)? And did you a send written, notarized license from Fox's attorneys to Renderosity (via certified mail) certifying that the items made by you are cleared for non-commercial use? --John

John, part of the problem seems to to be that the Renderosity admins have changed their de facto policy, without bothering to ask anyone if they do have permission to distribute the material. They possibly don't have a procedure to deal with snail mail. And, incidentally, be careful about such terms as "notarized" -- in some countries a notary is a very rare and expensive sort of lawyer, while in the US a notary may be a relatively junior member of office staff.