im afraid to actually start looking in the marketplaces there because of what i might find.

i wonder what this guys Rosity username is.

Oh, geez.  it never ends, does it?  I'd check the guy's store, though, it looks like this may be a comment on one of your textures on a SL character....just a suggestion.

Gabriel - don't go digging in second life, will ceriously make your skin crawl with the number of violations out there.

Doesn't help much that daz studio has a second life exporter - never tried it myself but when I read the announcement my eyes rolled, my stomach turned.

Secondlife, tubers, warez kiddies, gallery theifs - Poser sure has gone to the dogs.

WTF were they thinking putting a second life exporter in D|S? Daz doesnt have enough infringements to deal with as is, they have to make it easier for thieves?

Wait....WHAT???  Good god, I need to pay more attention.  A SL exporter?  oh my freaking god...shakes head  that's on the top of the list of "Really horrible stupid bad ideas".  Sorry, but it is.

Quote - WTF were they thinking putting a second life exporter in D|S? Daz doesnt have enough infringements to deal with as is, they have to make it easier for thieves?

There are a special set of primitives for SL (I believe the correct name is "sculpties").
The only things exported are normal maps based on the reshaping of the "special" primitives.

does D|S do that ? I know Hexagon will (until I figure out how to get rid of the damn tab anyway)

Better watch out messing around in Second Life -- you might end up with a crazy woman breaking into your apartment, tying up her dog with duct tape in your bathroom, and then waiting around to kidnap you at gunpoint.......but hey: it's all in a day's work in the realm of Second Life.......where off-center folks might come around lookin' for love.  Stealing stuff......?  Yeah, that's a mere hobby in such an immersive virtual world.  Where fake fantasy replaces the nastiness of having to deal with reality (and with real relationships) -- for some.

http://cbs3.com/local/kimberly.jernigan.second.2.801089.html

I don't use daz Studio I've just at one point read the Daz3D marketing about some second life plugin exporter thingy.  Just seemed really bad to me at the time.

It's in Hexagon that I know of, one of many reasons I dropped using hex and since Hex is now turned into a plug for DS, another reason of many that I droped Hex, I would not be surprised if there is some DS/Hex connection to the sculpties.

Remember eF made everyone that wanted to know about the poser launch had to use Second Life and then you were told you needed it for the Faceshop launch. So companies are promoting this thing. Kind of explains ArtZone a bit.

Secondlife sculpties are primitives that export as a small TGA bitmap that can be used to create small building blocks in the program. There's no worry about V4 or anything of any complexity being exported to Secondlife.  Hex can make sculpties. There's nothing listed in the DS features, at DAZ, to indicate that it can export to SL, but I don't know if it's a capability that wouldn't be listed on the website.

SL is a low poly environment with figures on par with Poser 2 figures. You can download those figures and their templates from SL. I looked up the max texture size for the program and was surprised that it could be as large as 1024x1024. I thought it was much smaller.

Considering that you're dealing with a "profissional", who has many satisfied "costumers", it's not likely that this person has the skill to transfer a Poser figure texture to an SL figure. It's more likely he's selling artwork in SL.

About the only thing that can be readily exported from Poser to SL are BVH motions. Models cannot be imported into SL. Although textures could be stolen, it would take a fair amount of work to do it because mapping is different. The problem isn't as big as it seems. The primary amount of theft in SL is from other SL merchants because it's the easiest stuff to steal that is compatible in that world.

I have seen so many secondlife models that are from or based off poser models, textures, etc.

now I dunno how it's done but it's gotta be pretty simple as I've seen several secondlife stores with 'copies' or similar poser models etc.  it's kinda scarey when ya just look and see.

again, I dunno much about it - the very thought of second life/SIMS/online MOGGRGG (what ever that acronym is) scare me.

I'm trying to have a life - I don't need to play one on the computer hahaha.

I didn't know about the SL exporter for DS either.  I've never been to SL either.  Is there a way to find out if other members here are being impersonated there?

*I didn't know about the SL exporter for DS either.  I've never been to SL either.  Is there a way to find out if other members here are being impersonated there?

A month or so ago,  I warned everyone that daz studio was just a vehicle to port Poser content into video games.

maybe I miss spoke  - sorry.

apparently with Daz Studio you can export bvh file for use in Second Life and Hexagon 2.5 has the SL primitives.

All this ripoff is terrible!!!!!!!!

While Second Life, no doubt, is infested with idiots, thieves and non-creative parasites, it would be a mistake for content creators to shiver with revulsion and dismiss it utterly. I’ve heard news that some independent Second Life modelers and texture creators as earning over $40,000 a year.

Is catering to Second Lifers any less noble than trying to capture the imagination of the Poser market  with the 100,000th V4 G string?

Personally, Second Life is off-limits due to my 56k connection. I’m curious about what it looks like there, and how people manage to entertain themselves in a non-game environment.   

Quote - Is catering to Second Lifers any less noble than trying to capture the imagination of the Poser market  with the 100,000th V4 G string?

umm, yes.

Quote - Better watch out messing around in Second Life -- you might end up with a crazy woman breaking into your apartment, tying up her dog with duct tape in your bathroom, and then waiting around to kidnap you at gunpoint.......but hey: it's all in a day's work in the realm of Second Life.......where off-center folks might come around lookin' for love.  Stealing stuff......?  Yeah, that's a mere hobby in such an immersive virtual world.  Where fake fantasy replaces the nastiness of having to deal with reality (and with real relationships) -- for some.

http://cbs3.com/local/kimberly.jernigan.second.2.801089.html

if anyone touched my Fat™ with duct-tape (or even Velcro for that matter) theyd end up fertilizing a remote Canadian muskeg :)

same goes if some crazed Second-Lifer tries making baby Fats with her :mad:

Attached Link: http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat072706.html

I've seen a lot of Poser models based on movies and TV shows and fashion designs. Those kinds of things are going to happen. Fashion design is not yet covered by copyright law in the US, but it has been considered. A few countries have already expanded their copyright protection to such designs, though I don't know if the language is worded such that it would preclude 3D models that don't compete against their real world products.

If a model is similar to a Poser item, somebody in SL built it from scratch with that program's primitives. I suppose that a texture, from a Poser product, could be remapped into SL, but that would take a fair amount of effort. That's more effort than the average SL thief wants to do--or is even capable of doing. That doesn't mean it can't happen, but it'll represent a smaller percentage of copyright violations.

DAZ has an island in SL, but I don't know if they've marketed any products there. SL does represent an additional outlet for talented modelers and texture artists. Businesses that thumb their noses at new technologies and new marketing outlets tend to fare less well than those that seize new opportunities.

Quote - > Quote - I have seen so many secondlife models that are from or based off poser models, textures, etc.

I've seen a lot of Poser models based on movies and TV shows and fashion designs. Those kinds of things are going to happen. .

a Poser merchant creating a 'Sin City' inspired outfit is not the same as a Second Life merchant ripping off a Poser merchant's copyrighted textures, converting it to a lower res, and selling it for profit under their own name.
there have been several cases of direct thefts from Poser content to Second Life content.

noone cares about Second Life merchants being 'inspired' by outfits or characters in the Poser marketplaces.... but they are stealing actual content with no regards to copyrights, and now we even have Second Life merchants criminally impersonating Poser top sellers.

what cracks me up is that when their stolen content is in turn being stolen by other Second Life merchants and/or utilities like CopyBot, all of a sudden they are up in arms and talking about copyrights :rolleyes:

Quote - If a model is similar to a Poser item, somebody in SL built it from scratch with that program's primitives. I suppose that a texture, from a Poser product, could be remapped into SL, but that would take a fair amount of effort. That's more effort than the average SL thief wants to do--or is even capable of doing. That doesn't mean it can't happen, but it'll represent a smaller percentage of copyright violations.

it is a lot easier to take someone else's texture and adapt it to new UVs than it is to texture something from scratch and blend hundreds of little snippets of photos together into an even and seamless skin texture.
despite having radically different UVs, i could take a finished Vicky 4 skin texture and adapt it to Vicky 1 much faster than i could texture Vicky 1 from scratch... and it would take far less skill. same would go for adapting a low-res version of a clothing item - depending on the clothing the brunt of the work could be the textures, and it would be quite easy to make a low-res version of an item and use the pre-made textures.

there is obviously effort saved and easy profits to be made otherwise these people would not be doing it.

Quote - > Quote - Is catering to Second Lifers any less noble than trying to capture the imagination of the Poser market  with the 100,000th V4 G string?

umm, yes.

There's worse -> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/01/sickos_in_sadville/

Ok, I understand there are some sick puppies at Second Life, but I still don’t understand the point intended. Are you and Blackheart implying that Second Life’s participants are morally repugnant as a group because of the deviancy of some individuals? 

On the face of it, that seems illogical.

If my wallet was taken in China Town I wouldn't hold it against the Chinese generally.

Quote - Ok, I understand there are some sick puppies at Second Life, but I still don’t understand the point intended. Are you and Blackheart implying that Second Life’s participants are morally repugnant as a group because of the deviancy of some individuals? 

On the face of it, that seems illogical.

If my wallet was taken in China Town I wouldn't hold it against the Chinese generally.

We could use the same logic to group them together as one like they do with everyone that uses SL.  Since some poser users render some pretty deviant works, and some have even stolen content from others...they must be doing the same thing as well.  Afterall...if some do it, they all must.  Some really f'd up logic you guys use at times.

im sure theres nothing wrong with the average user of SL. the problem is that both the game and the marketplaces attract the dredges of society and there is absolutely no action by the devs or community site admins to stop it.

please point me to any Poser community where blatant theft, copyright infringements, criminal impersonation, virtual bestiality, virtual child molestation, virtual prostitution, etc are allowed to run rampant with absolutely no action from the moderation.
even Renderotica is a police state compared to SL.

in my very limited exposure to SL i have noticed that the conveniently apathetic attitude of Linden Labs is mirrored in Second Life online communities and storefronts. the more they drag their feet and close their eyes the more money they continue to make. its absolutely disgusting.

Quote - in my very limited exposure to SL i have noticed that the conveniently apathetic attitude of Linden Labs is mirrored in Second Life online communities and storefronts. the more they drag their feet and close their eyes the more money they continue to make. its absolutely disgusting.

Can't someone take legal action against Linden Labs to get them to do something about it or close SL down?  

Attached Link: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1170237755271

If you do some searching about the earlier mentioned forbidden topics and "Poser", I'm sure that you'll find quite a few sites using Poser artwork to represent all kinds of deviant sexual behavior, though they may not be Poser-only communities. Since there is no Poser equivalent to SL yet, there's no way to make a real comparison. Since I'm not an SL member (I looked into it when some friends joined, but was on dial-up till recently, so never joined), I don't know how prevalent the sexual deviancy is. I'd rather people virtually satisfied their deviant libidos than take it into the real world. With the prevalence of nudity and sexual content in even the Renderosity galleries,  there are more than enough ultraconservative communities in this country that would consider this an immoral site. One person's sexual moralities isn't necessarily consistent with another's. As long as a person isn't being nonconsensually harmed, I'm not going to get all bent out of shape about what people do in the privacy of their homes.

I did a search in the Renderosity copyright forum and didn't get a single hit for SecondLife. That doesn't make it sound as if there is a world class problem of Poser textures being infringed in SL. Just because a texture can be copied doesn't necessarily mean that it is happening in a widescale fashion. After all, the reports of rampant Poser infringements are coming from people that aren't members of the SL community. Before everybody gets all accusatory, it would be nice to highlight at least a few specific instances so that a real discussion can take place rather than speculate on impressions of short visits to the site.

There are quite a few copyright infringements mentioned within the copyright forum for products in that have been in the Renderosity store. The admins work to fix those problems, but they still occur fairly regularly. There will always be somebody out to make a quick buck and doesn't have the moral backbone to be concerned about how that buck is made. The posts I've read have mostly been fairly simple thefts such as stealing a V4 texture for use on a V4 character. Although it's certainly possible to remap a V3 texture to use on V4, most thieves aren't interested in doing a lot of work. Maybe somebody has stolen a V3 texture and remarketed it for V4, but I'm not aware of it happening. The same practices will happen in SL because it's a lot easier stealing an SL texture and remarketing it than trying to remap a Poser texture into SL. It's not enough to speculate what can be done and then jump to the conclusion that there's a horrible problem with everybody stealing Poser works in SL. It may well be happening, but having real cases to talk about still beats imagined wrongs.

Some quick Google searches on Linden crackdowns found articles of the company going after in-world banks, gambling, sexual activity, and a variety of other things. It doesn't sound as if they're allowing lawless activities to occur without penalty. I don't know if Blackhearted made an official report to have them cancel the account of the user stealing his identify. It would be good to know how long it takes for them to ban the account.

SL users purchase a million dollars in goods every day. That would indicate that a lot of honest users are spending a lot of money at the site. If it was easy to steal everything, that much money would not be changing hands because everything would be free.

over the years ive read of several examples of Poser -> SL infringements, and there have been many threads about it. there is one example posted above. i dont have the time to go digging for more, this guy has already wasted enough of my time.

i have sent the site administration a letter -- waiting to see what sortof action, if any, they take. my guess is that they will go for the typical internet cop-out that they can do nothing unless presented with an official court order.

people purchasing millions of dollars a day does nothing to prove the honesty of legitimacy of Second Life... only that there is a massive market and that there is a lot of money up for grabs -- which will draw thieves, scammers and infringers like shit draws flies.

Hmmm... much like the Poser community if you look at it from the outside only. And quite frankly I thought we weren't supposed to bash other sites in the forums here in the first place!

Quote - Although textures could be stolen, it would take a fair amount of work to do it because mapping is different.

Well that just changed -> TC2 - Second Life Avatar

nruddock, you beat me to posting that!

youve gotta be fucking kidding me.
its not bad enough that people are stealing it on their own, we have to make it even easier for them?

but its more money in daz's coffers so its all good, right?

From the DAZ sell page:
*Ever wanted to use one of your favorite Poser textures in the Second Life world?  TC2 Plugins add the ability to convert to and from an additional model type. This particular plugin adds the ability to convert textures to use on your Linden Labs Second Life Avatar.

**ON ITS FACE **this endorses and encourages violation of copyright.  "Your favorite Poser textures" are copyrighted material, and this kind of use is very plainly illegal.

Quote - youve gotta be fucking kidding me.
its not bad enough that people are stealing it on their own, we have to make it even easier for them?

but its more money in daz's coffers so its all good, right?

uh, yeah that pretty much sums it up.

Quote - From the DAZ sell page:
*Ever wanted to use one of your favorite Poser textures in the Second Life world?  TC2 Plugins add the ability to convert to and from an additional model type. This particular plugin adds the ability to convert textures to use on your Linden Labs Second Life Avatar.

**ON ITS FACE **this endorses and encourages violation of copyright.  "Your favorite Poser textures" are copyrighted material, and this kind of use is very plainly illegal.

Naaa there are notices about copyright and not selling etc the SL converted texture:

http://textureconvertor.com/plugins.asp

Linden Labs - Second Life Avatar*

Second Life is a phenomenon that has swept the globe, and now finally you can use those favourite Poser world texture sets on your Second Life Avatar! Male or female Second Life figure textures can be created with this plugin. For more information on using your textures in Second Life - click through to our* Second Life Walkthrough*.

Unless you are the original copyright owner of the textures you converted - Second Life textures may only be used on your own personal avatar and may not be transfered, shared or sold in the Second Life online world.

*Here is a gun and a lot of crack.....now play nice :P

**Quote - ON ITS FACE **this endorses and encourages violation of copyright.  "Your favorite Poser textures" are copyrighted material, and this kind of use is very plainly illegal.

any way you look at it its infringements galore. even if the person converting it for Second Life is not selling it and is only doing it for personal use, once it is in Second Life it is easily available to anyone that 'sees' your avatar ingame: there are copy bots widely available that harvest SL content.

this is against the Poser EULAs. i cant believe that
a) 3D Universe created this bullshit
b) Daz is actually selling it, knowing what will result (theyre not stupid)

but hey, itll make money... because thats all its about: making your 50% cut off a $5 plugin and fucking hundreds of texture creators in the process.

Quote - Naaa there are notices about copyright and not selling etc the SL converted texture:

http://textureconvertor.com/plugins.asp

It is very irresponsible for DAZ to not put those warnings VERY PROMINENTLY all over the sell page - obviously making a sale is the big priority rather than complying with copyright law.  Very disappointing, DAZ!

Just transferring the texture files to the Linden servers, even if no user ever sees them, is a violation of copyright (it's a copy!).

Quote - Unless you are the original copyright owner of the textures you converted - Second Life textures may only be used on your own personal avatar and may not be transfered, shared or sold in the Second Life online world.

from the Rosity EULA:

Quote - The Buyer may not redistribute this archive file, in whole or in part. The Buyer may not store it any place on a network or on the Internet where it may be referenced by a third party. Buyer acquires the copyright to any derivative works created using this work, provided none of the original materials can be extracted from the derivative work by any means.
If Artist can show that any of the original material can be extracted from Buyer's derivative work,
Artist can demand both the original and derivative work, and all copies thereof be deleted.

by converting it to a Second Life avatar skin, you are violating the EULA in several ways:

1. you are essentially 'distributing' the texture to anyone that sees your avatar
2. it is extractable through copy bots that run rampant in SL (and always will)
3. by uploading your avatar skin you are actually granting Linden Labs a royalty free license to use and distribute that content - even to third parties. you do not have the right to grant this.

Quote - Recently, the topic of intellectual property rights and virtual worlds has taken center stage. On Monday, Linden Labs reported that Second Life had been invaded by a “copybot”, a nefarious program capable of duplicating resident’s creative content. Because the Second Life economy is propped on the sale of user-generated content, the copybot was essentially stealing people’s intellectual (or virtual) property. In the copy-bot’s wake, Second Life residents were finally challenged with the predicament — Is the content that we create in a virtual world our own? Or does it belong to the owner of that world?

In Second Life, residents create unique clothing, buildings, hairstyles and artwork, etc., to sell for virtual dollars that can be exchanged for real money. As a result, virtual intellectual property is tied to a real-world dollar amount. Yet, Linden Lab’s terms of service agreement has the following to offer:

“…you understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the service, you automatically grant (and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant) to Linden Lab: (a) a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to (i) use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service, and (ii) use and reproduce (and to authorize third parties to use and reproduce) any of your Content in any or all media for marketing and/or promotional purposes in connection with the Service;”

and 4, sending it to the Linden servers at all is a copyright violation all by itself.

Quote - > **Quote - ON ITS FACE **this endorses and encourages violation of copyright.  "Your favorite Poser textures" are copyrighted material, and this kind of use is very plainly illegal.

any way you look at it its infringements galore. even if the person converting it for Second Life is not selling it and is only doing it for personal use, once it is in Second Life it is easily available to anyone that 'sees' your avatar ingame: there are copy bots widely available that harvest SL content.

this is against the Poser EULAs. i cant believe that
a) 3D Universe created this bullshit
b) Daz is actually selling it, knowing what will result (theyre not stupid)

but hey, itll make money... because thats all its about: making your 50% cut off a $5 plugin and fucking hundreds of texture creators in the process.

As I already said, You've been bashing SL for all this BS that exists right here at home. Frankly I'm no longer surprised by anything that happens in this or any other online "Community".

I thought the TC2 SL plugin would just create a render for your avatar in SL.

I know nothing about SL other than when Poser creators get ripped off and there is some hub bub about it.

HEY!  it's September!  something had to go to hell right?!  hahahaha.

Quote - I thought the TC2 SL plugin would just create a render for your avatar in SL.

Quote - Ever wanted to use one of your favorite Poser textures in the Second Life world? TC2 Plugins add the ability to convert to and from an additional model type. This particular plugin adds the ability to convert textures to use on your Linden Labs Second Life Avatar. 

Always open

What's Included & Features

Features- Adds Second Life Avatar to the TC2 Human conversion category

• Includes head, upperbody, lowerbody and eye texture conversion.
• Output saved automatically as transparent .PNG so that default Second Life eyelashes still work.
• Single way conversion - will convert from any other compatible human figure
• For more information please visit: Texture Converter.com
• Note: Simplified Poser format Avatars can be downloaded from http://secondlife.com/community/avatar.php

Note:Second Life Avatars use the same texture map for both feet, this should be taken into account when converting more detailed textures.

"Avatar" in Second Life terms is not the same as a forum avatar here - it's a 3d model that is rigged and animated, basically just like a Poser figure.

It's clear Daz doesn't care if people use their textures for their personal avatars at Second Life. Second LIfers should be advised to steer clear of Renderosity and use Daz products for their avatar skins.

Should Daz ever decide they have a problem with the redistribution to Second Life servers, their selling of the TC2 SL plugin would get the case laughed out of court. 

These people at second life are amazing they sell my texutes and their dman excuse is oh I am just sharing.  My answer to that is sure buddy for a price you are.  At least I had them removed but believe me when I say they have stolen heaps from vendor they have no damn talent and are complete fools this is why they do it.

I dont call them second lifers I call them Second Losers.

Angela

What I want to know is why is it that Daz did not get the point that this program will be used to rip of vendors characters.

I'd like to know why any Daz vendors who object  would continue to distribute their textures through Daz while this SL texture convertor is being sold by Daz.  

Send C&D's to DAZ and 3D Universe.  They are facilitating copyright infringement. 

DAZ's problem is they dumped a lot of money into their Second Life Island that is more deserted than Gilligan's Island.  And less interesting.

Attached Link: http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2007/10/herman-miller-c.html

The point I'm trying to make is that the problem in SL does not equate to there being a worse class of people who use that online community than what exists outside of that community. I'm always concerned when people make wide aspersions against various groups. I was amazed at the amount of vitriol I received when I announced that I'd created a Poser forum in MySpace. People need to separate emotions from logic and not so blindly accept media hyperbole that is used to sell circulation to advertisers. The vast majority of SL members are not thieves or bad people. The million dollars a day being exchanged in that world attests to the honesty of the majority of members. Where there is a lot of money changing hands, there will be thieves. It doesn't matter whether we're talking SL, the net, or real world.

The real solution to the copyright problems in SL would be for Linden to eventually do away with converting their SL money to real money for the general in-world populace. That wouldn't stop all thefts, but would minimize it because there would be no real world profits to be made. They could then authorize real stores on a case by case basis that could earn real money from Linden sales. Controlling who can have a store reduces the amount of copyright violations and makes it easier to control when it happens. That would take more work for them, but having a virtual environment that can readily compromise copyrights puts more responsibility on them to protect copyrights. Other virtual worlds are controlled wholly by the companies that run them and users cannot introduce or readily change elements in those worlds.

I'd have to agree that the new texture converter plug-in is going to be subject to rampant abuse. I'd at least hope that it downsizes the texture to the low resolution of a P2 figure.

Furniture maker, Herman Miller, took an interesting approach to SL vendors selling knock-offs of their real world products and I've provided a link the article. Herman Miller took a nice proactive direction to solving the problem by selling offical wares in SL. I have no idea how that approach worked in the long run.

I wonder what went wrong with DAZ's entry into SL. They invested a substantial amount of time and money to establish a presence there and abandoned it (though they must still be paying the monthly fee for maintaining the island). It seemed they were hoping for merchant support that never came.

Well if you read the DAZ threads on TC2 you'll find that apparently nobody believes that there are "CopyBots" that can capture any texture uploaded to the SL servers. Maybe someone needs to provide links to the proof that those bots exist.

Maybe it would be a good idea to add a new paragraph to the license stating that converting a texture purchased in the Renderosity Market Place for use in SL is a violation of copyright and not permitted.