The above picture will not meet the new Child Nudity Rule requirements. Why? Not because the picture has no artistic quality, or because it shows a complete lack or skill in the use of Poser (sorry, a 2 min job whilst fuming!!!). Although both of those reasons would be good enough IMO. No, this picture would not be allowed in the store because the new rule prohibits the showing of nipples of those characters less than 18 years old!!! "But, we can't see the nipples!" I hear you say. True but, the rule also prohibits pictures where body parts are used to cover the nipples. The back (or body) is a body part, so this picture fails on this criterion. I have an email from from admin confirming that body parts may not be used to cover nipples, pubis or buttocks. Note this rule only applies to images in the store, at present, but you may wish to ask admin if the Child Nudity Rule or anything like it will be applied to the rest of Renderosity as this might affect the kind of Poser pictures which you produce and post for technical questions/answers. Excuse me whilst I go and bang my head against the nearest convenient wall. Isaac

Okay, you're joking, right? Please tell me you're joking.

Why are you complaining? The new rule is to protect Renderosity itself. While there are always ways to interpret a rule or law in a manner that seems illogical or silly, in this case the rule is in place to protect the site and its owners and operators from outside law enforcement taking an interest in and possibly prosecuting for violation of child pornography laws. I really think that not being able to post an image that shows a minor's bits and pieces is a fair tradeoff to prevent later claims of child pornography. You may complain of silliness, but I think that the reasoning is justified.

atthisstage, Alas no! If only it were so. doppelganger, Complaining? Moi? Naughty old me. I'm 100% in favour of protecting Renderosity. I actually like it here. No, honestly, I do. I love the Free Stuff section and regalarly visit (and even buy from) the MarketPlace. The Forums are a great resource and great fun. The Admins are an absolute hoot! Seriously, can you please explain how banning pictures like the above or anything remotely like them will go one iota towards protecting Renderosity from Law suits for violation of Child Pornography Laws? Quite frankly, it just makes us all look like a bunch of idiots! Personally, I don't like that too much. BTW have you read my suggestions for self regulation guidelines (Thread 79, Post 10). I think that they are a bit more.... er grown up. Isaac

People who follow all laws and rules frequently do look like idiots. Laws and rules are generally not very self consistent. While banning the exact picture that you posted will obviously not cause any trouble, you have simply taken the covered by body parts to its logical but silly furthest extent. The intent of this rule was probably to prevent images with underage (appearing, since they are not real) models with hands or feet strategically placed to block the bits and pieces. Unfortunately, we must respect the letter of the rule, not the intent, to be in compliance with it. While most poses with body parts blocking a child's bits and pieces would not be considered child porn, some foaming at the mouth radical with an agenda could probably find images that could be interpreted as child porn in court. I don't really like this situation myself, but the penalties for child pornography are so life destroying that you can't really blame the operators for erring on the side of caution. If a bad image is posted and prosecuted before it is pulled, the operators could point to the policy as a means of (some small) defense in a courtroom.

Dopple, that's all well and good but let's look at this rationally, shall we? Anyone who found this image to be "pornographic" has more problems to deal with than Renderosity can handle, and there's no reason to lower ourselves to this depth of absurdity. Sorry, but at some point, you have to stop and say, "Now wait just a darn minute here." I have friends in New York who are old enough to remember a city law on the books till 1964 that said it was illegal to serve alcohol to "known homosexuals". The rationale? A drunken gay man might attack and rape the first straight guy he met. I'm not making this up, folks. And it's exactly this kind of hysterical foolishness that's now creeping up all over R'sity. Stop it. Now. Otherwise we might as well return to McCarthyism and the 1950s.

I've already stated that rules and laws are not generally rational or self consistent. Also, with regard to child pornography, we ARE under McCarthyism now. Read almost any computer or tech news and you will see every day arrests and convictions for using computers in connection with child pornography. Child pornographers are the new bogey man to scare the public into all sorts of restrictive laws and this is one of them. However, while McCarthyism was eventually declared to be A Bad Thing, that did not return the broken lives of the people who ran afoul of it. Many many innocent people were harassed, jailed or worse. If Renderosity makes firm rules known now, the operators will not become one of the broken innocents in the future. While that does lead to a restriction on artistic freedom, that is the price that must be paid on the internet today.

If the Supreme's uphold the law, we will be back to HUAC and red baiting. There is going to be a lot of showboating and pandering on the part of Justice Dept lawyers. Best course is probably - hunker down at the bottom of a fox hole and let the loons burn themselves out. Ain't no future in being their cannon fodder. Renderosity is a business, not Lenny Bruce. Isaac, try this: render the picture in TIF - fill the alpha with black with a script in it "juvenile humanoid image was here". Sort of a 'I ain't gonna split hairs with you, I just ain't gonna play at all.' tack. I hate to see you frustrate yourself by trying to bring reason to a situation where there is no reason or logic.

Wow. I've been very busy today, but I thought I'd take a break and slip in to see how things were developing. And what do I find? My worst fears have been realized. So much for compromise. I guess my "Peace Treaty" had about as much chance here as in Israel, huh? Christ, you can see more "pornographic" images in Parents magazine!!! And National Geographic, what a bunch of scumbags, eh? We're afraid of the government kicking us in the shins, so we cut ourselves of at the knees. Brilliant. Well, I guess we don't have to worry about the site getting shut down, at least. Just neutered. I wonder if Daz is going to bother creating Millenium Boys, hmm? If so,I guarantee they WON'T have "wenkies", ... (I love that term:)

Of course in my day it was "winkies". How the language degenerates! :)

You probably stand a better chance in Israel. Those for whom this is a passionate issue are likely subjects of abuse themselves. There is a good chance the the experience has altered some hard wiring in the brain. As far as reason and compromise, they are probably not even on the same continuum. It has all the hallmarks of a zero sum game. Those in power seem to be determined to puninsh wrong thoughts as well as wrong behavior. Punishing thinking is a totally capricious activity and subject to monumental abuses. To criminalize the possession of any image, no matter how odious, crosses the line into punishment for what those in power imagine is wrong thinking. Those in power must project onto their victim, that they imagine he is thinking and destory him for that.

Amen, Jaager. You know, I feared this, but I also expected it. Just not quite so soon, nor quite so harsh. There's nothing more depressing than thinking you're a pessimist and being proved optimist. Sigh. OK, who wants to lay bets on how long it'll be before they ban ALL nudity? Come on, people, the Puritans won completely. Anyone who thinks they're going to stop here is laughably naive. Guess Syyd and Catherina better break out the boxer shorts...

Okay...Daz seems to be taking this all quite calmly. That's good. I think that renderosity is hoping to prevail a greater degree of sensiblity on its vendors, than its common unwashed masses. They are not cranking down on those folks who frolic about making mutilated looking vaginas, etc.....still within our tos...and posting in the galleries. Geeze, I was busy today, myself...How is that anal probe in freestuff doing? Even though I abhorr the thought of "secret" forums, here. My sympathies are leaning with the vendors, on this one. I had Maury Povich on, in the background, today....Since my project was going sucky, I kinda watched it. I saw REAL LIVE NAKED BABIES ON NATIONAL T.V. (Honest, y'all...If I had known the number I was supposed to call to stamp out such pornography....) In the meantime, for you vendors....I look at nipples on textures for older folks because of the aureola...size, color, blending, etc. For little ones, this is not an issue. So, maybe, all could work out all right? Just a thought. OMG...a solution....yup....PUT the PICTURES OF THE NAKED TEXTURES UP IN FREESTUFF...FOR DOWNLOAD. THAT WOULD COVER YOUR BUTT WITH R IN THE STORE AND STILL LET FOLKS WHO WERE INTERESTED SEE YOUR WARES IN TOTALITY. Sorry about yelling...but, that could work. ;)

What the Hell?.... Somebody said there were biscuits here! ....and I brought gravy...... Southern Fried Scarab

No, no, Scarab, he said they TOOK the biscuits. I didn't get one either. To hell with it, I just got the Carrara/Amapi package, I am so OUT of here!

Cool, X2000...Congrats. ;)

This is of course an incredibly complex subject, Amurikuh's Hot Spot for the Year. With Shrub (not quite a Bush)in the Off-White House, the supression of "dirty" art is only going to get worse. I think it is safe to say this without it being considered an invitation for a political flame war, despite the little dig. I have nothing to add to the discussion, it seems complete to me -- I don't think I've ever seen such a reasoned, MATURE discussion on the web, which seems to have been taken over by hysterically insecure 12-year-olds. Which of course would mean they couldn't put up nude self-portraits, not even waist-up back shots... At the same time, I can't argue with what some are calling Ren.'s paranoia. Last year in CT, a guy jumped in front of a train to kill himself, somehow survived, then sued the train company for not having better fences at the platform he'd jumped from. He won, of course... Dan

Ya know.....I have to wonder what this law would have had to say about the old Coppertone ad, where the puppy is pulling the little girl's bathing suit down........ Sheesh! Melanie

that's just stupid, Besides it was not passed as law yet, It is a litagation of a possible law that will fail based on the fact that it is unconstitutional to violate the rights of creative expression if the work is not ment to harm or damage another persons rights.

Don't like it. Simple Pony up and build your own site. Then you can set your own rules. Put the server in Tailand, they don't have the rules we have.

...which seems to have been taken over by hysterically insecure 12-year-olds. That'd be the site/store admin you're refering to Dan, yay? The ones over-reacting to a problem that isn't there in an effort to protect the business from a threat that isn't coming.

In his sulky posturing, jamball77 has (completely inadvertently, of course) pointed to an interesting solution. Vendors objecting to this ridiculous and extremist approach should yank their stuff out. That really would be funny.

PJF, your attack on site policy and in particular, its personnel is unfair and uncalled for. Advertizing copy is a strange place to be taking a stand on Bill of Rights issues. The nature of advertizing copy at Renderosity need only be based on issues of taste and not related to campaigns of reactionary forces on national political levels. The mil kids have probably brought this issue into focus more than the pending Court decision. There were no significant problems with juvenile subjects for sale before this. A policy has become necessary, a decision was made. It is not necessary that we agree with it, or approve of it. If you start having problems with official acceptance here, because of disapproval of content on your personal web site, this would be a different matter.

Obviously someone somewhere used a model of a child to portray a sexual act of some kind....else why would this have all started. There is no way that bashing the store will make them change their policy, and I think if people pull stuff out of the store they will be in effect as me old mother used to say, "cutting off their nose to spite their face". You will not change any laws by bitching about them here, and it's really getting old. Marque

Mesh: Welcome to Culture Shock 101 I knew a woman who came to the United States from Poland shortly after graduating from college. She was completely amazed at how STUPID the people were around her. Naturally, she concluded that Americans, on average, were pretty damn stupid compared to Western and Eastern Europeans. The average art or political science student may agree with this accessment, but a statistician knows the real truth... That is: People living in a college town are on average, a LOT SMARTER than those NOT living in a college town (especially if the town was built around the college community, and not vice versa). That would mean that folks living in Ann Arbor would be drastically more intelligent than those living in Flint (U of M-Ann Arbor is a residential college; U of M-Flint is, and will remain, a commuter college) Since the Flint lifestyle is geared towards industry, manufacturing, depression, and unemployment; and Ann Arbor is primarily geared towards academics--it would make sense that folks interested in doing that "thinking" thing might consider Ann Arbor as a place to live. The same goes for artist communities. In an artist community, the sanctity of expression is a much stronger value than outside that community. It may seem absurd that a bunch of loosely defined criteria may actually become law--but given the hysteria of the masses, especially when it comes to "protecting the kids," it's not unreasonable to expect that our politicians might rally to pacify the voters by enacting completely useless laws. Renderosity is not condemning artists, or suddenly taking a holier than thou attitude--they're protecting their assets against public hysteria. Should Renderosity fight the mob rule? Why bother. There's the ACLU and an endless supply of equally hysterical art students willing to become cannon-fodder in the fight for free expression. The point is, a real artist will continue to create what they feel needs to be created, and a smart artist will be very picky about the audience that views his work. As my Polish friend assures me--Anti Communist art thrived in Poland before the fall of the USSR...they just became more creative in how they presented it. And--as far as the vocally conservative tone of this country, remember...during the 80's, while Jesse Helms was publically freaking out over the Maplethorpe exhibit, Reagan was busy castrating the FCC. It wasn't until the late 80's/eary 90's that some anonymous politican's wife started bellyaching about the violence in rap music. Under that conservative administration, everyone had their say, the government did nothing substantial, and Ice-T went home and had a good laugh.

This whole business has the symptoms of mass hysteria.

It wasn't until the late 80's/eary 90's that some anonymous politican's wife started bellyaching about the violence in rap music The anonymous politician's wife was Tipper Gore.

Would someone like to explain what the position is now with this picture?

Not that I can add anything to a series of excellant points presented. Renderosity, wether I agree with the rules or not is moot(and I don't) - it's the price of doing business, must foremost cover it's backside from potential hysterical idiots past, present or future so as not to loose it's investment. The rest of us should just go about our business and make change from within. In this case, I don't feel that renderosity is at fault, but the law makers, thier wording, those 3 idiots in Long Island and the general conservative streak in the US local population are. Go to the source of the problem not the periphery.

Phantast, How dare you post such... such ....Art! Well, lemesee; ... nipples = banned ... nipples covered by arm = banned ... buttocks = banned I think I can safely tell you that this.... this ... Art would be banned from the Store. But, fret not! Poppi has come up with a workaround... at least someone has some brains. Post the pic in free stuff along with those other less savory items. Then there will be no problem, for the moment at least. Hi Jaager, old friend. Good idea; someone else with brains. Hey, you and Poppi should be Admins and then this whole mess could have been avoided by some clear thinking in the first place. Though in fact, looking through my stuff, I can't find a single image that would break the rule. Damn! Although, I have been warned that my Grey Alien, in the Store, might have to be scrutinised more carefully as a special case. I'm not really sure what they could find in it to ban, it hasn't got any nipples, no navel, no genitals.... ah wait, it has got a butt and that is only covered by the front of its body.... poot, I think they've got me there. I may have to re-render it with a grass skirt or something... No, panic over, I just remembered, its over 18 years old... any fool can tell that... it drove here all the way from Alpha Centauri in its own little space ship, so it must have a driving licence!!! Whew, that was close. Still, if I do want to post something a bit near the knuckle, I'll remember your suggestion. Have fun, Isaac

Phantast, I was just reading something Dmentia wrote in another forum, about fountains, namely the free one DAZ gave away awhile ago, which had a nude cherub figure. Dmentia pointed out the problems now of making textures for such items (I hope she doesn't mind me mentioning this). That reminded me of the Mannekin Piss. No, I'm not swearing, that is the name of the statue. As you can see, its a statue of a little boy urinating. It is the pride of the city of Brussels (which for any Bush or Reagan fans, is the Capital of Belgium), its unofficial symbol. I fear that this picture, which is perfectly acceptable to the vast majority of the 'civilised world' would be banned outright at the Renderosity Store. So you may want to think twice about spending a lot of time making a nice texture for it, and as for making a morph to make a character model of it... forget it, you'd probably be "Arrested on charges of an unnamed kind..." (Chuck Berry) Cest la vie!!! Isaac

Jaager wrote: >>>> PJF, your attack on site policy and in particular, its personnel is unfair and uncalled for. <<<< Unfair and uncalled for? It's in a thread created for doing the same friggin thing! Didn't notice you whining about it then. >>>> Advertizing copy is a strange place to be taking a stand on Bill of Rights issues. I don't remember mentioning the 'Bill of Rights', but thanks for putting words in my mouth. Renderosity can have any kind of requirements on advertising design it likes - but if they are astoundingly stupid I'll always be happy to mention it. This is one of those occasions. >>> A policy has become necessary... <<< Only by virtue of a self instigated panic. No new laws have been passed, no advertising at Renderosity has transgressed established (child-porno) laws. blud wrote: >>> Go to the source of the problem not the periphery. <<< Part of the problem is people rolling over and accepting this minority interest extremist crap and saying things like 'just keep your head down'. Extremism always gets its foothold when the level-headed sit and do nothing, expecting it to go away. It doesn't go away, it just gets bigger until you make it go away. Still, all this is hilariously funny and illustrates that 'Online Graphic Artist's Community' is rapidly becoming a misnomer for Renderosity, which is falling over itself to be a timid little shop operating at the lowest common denominator of, so called, 'family values'.

Hi, I wish I could have pissed that far as a kid, I would have all the marbles I could carry, (and then some :) later jb

Now ain't that the truth!!! :o) Isaac

Attached Link: http://www.aclu.org

It only takes a few bucks to keep the artists free ... or take what comes

Huolong, I hope you are right. I hope it is not already too late. PJF: Debating the policy is one thing, attacking the admins personally because you disagree with it is someting else. Stick to the policy itself. I am not defending the policy. I don't care what it is. If they opt for good taste, then a greater number of people would be more comfortable. Most don't shop where they feel uncomfortable. I got my circuits crossed over the pending court decision and a site policy decision that is probably not related to it , but is brought about because now there is kid stuff for sale, where before there was not much.

LOL. Jaager, feel free to insert your patronising instruction where the sun doesn't shine. The policy is stupid because it is founded in stupidity; a stupidity possessed by the admin implementing it. It's all the same stupidity, no matter how polite you want to be about where it's coming from. This stupidity has already spread to being applied to images in the forums, whereby non sexual incidental nudity of 'children' has been censored by the admin. The impending Supreme Court case was offered, stupidly, as justification for the censorship. But you roll with it, and keep your head down. It would be such a terrible shame to upset the shopping.

There is always merit in even the worst of arguments. To expect tolerance, one must exercise it. Adding flames to the fire will not quench it, here or in the courts.

Tree hugging nonsense. If you appease intolerance your life will eventually become intolerable; and you'll deserve that predicament. But it doesn't really matter in this instance because this place is just a shop.

Well, when Rubens gets banned, the book-burning is just around the corner.

But it doesn't really matter in this instance because this place is just a shop. Renderosity is more than a shop, but those that don't ever leave their bitching in the forums long enough to explore other avenues of the site probably don't see that. If this were just a shop, there wouldn't be forums, chats, art galleries, and the sense of community that surrounds this place. It would just be like Daz, a place to browse and hit checkout. Even so, no community oriented site on the net (or in real life either) can survive without funding. The store provides that funding and I commend the Renderosity administrators for keeping the site afloat in the midst of the dot-com shakeout by looking beyond non-working banner ads, etc. This site is costly to run, and we can't expect the admins to pay for that out of the goodness of their hearts so we can have a perfect site void of all monetary concerns. Thinking that this could be such a place is pure fantasy...

Your heartening rendition of the company song is lifting my spirits, ShadowWind - I'm laughing as I type. Trouble is, the tune is out of date and off key. Now the admin have started censoring the art in the forums (and elsewhere?) to fit in with the needs of the shop, all those other nice bits are exposed as being mere window dressing for the shop - they are part of it. Still, as you disagree with that I assume we'll soon be seeing your valiant defence of artistic expression in the 'community'...

Well, for what it's worth, the original image has been up for three days now, and admin hasn't taken it down yet. Just an FYI, nothing more....

I think I must be half asleep. I only just noticed that this thread has been moved to Complaints and Debates. Now, this is not entirely unexpected. But what really PISSES ME OFF, is that the Poser Forum moderator who did this, doesn't even show the common curtesy of e-mailing me to inform me of their actions!! How much would a little thoughtfulness cost? By the way, guys. Take heart, all is not yet lost, there may be some good news coming. I'll leave it to the Admins to tell you what action they are taking to deal with this issue. IsaacNewton

This thread is where it should be, according to current practice. And, it's the best place to leave your message if you wish to have it ignored.

Censoring? Someone tell that to mono....and someone else in the beginner gallery posting nude bondage images. It looks to be getting "more free" in this place than it does "censored."

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12360&Form.ShowMessage=379831

http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12360&Form.ShowMessage=379831