Person A has a product which is distributed commercially and purchased legit by everybody except for Bill whos computer cant run the product because Person A thinks he wont need to. Bill continually protests to Person A that he wants to be able to use the product but to deaf ears and to promises which are later broken.

Bill performs an alteration to his computer giving it wider compatibility but not so far as to be able to run Person As product. Steve, (not his real name), makes an alteration to Person As product which allows it to be run at last on Bills computer.

Person A continues the stand on not providing a version for Bill and fails to notice a dramatic scaling down in Bills campaign. Steve, (still not his real name), provides Bill with the newly altered software which Bill uses on his newly modified computer.

The success of the new article prompts Steve (please note this is not the real Steve) to commercially distribute it and retain the proceeds. This acquires the interest of a large number of people with the same computer and alteration as Bills who were not included in Person As original (and only) market research.

All of whom, courtesy of Bill, acquire and use the article for free.

The Question

Who of the above gets banned from Renderosity?

I would say that both steve and bill would be for the following reason. Steve tansfered a copywrited product to another user for free (even though it was in a different format he still transfered the product) Bill knowingly accepted the product from Steve, hence incriminating himself by knowing that it was a product someone made to sell and recieved it by means not acceptible to Person A, else Person A would of done the switch over on their own.

The success of the new article prompts Steve (please note this is not the real Steve) to commercially distribute it and retain the proceeds. Did Steve buy the product from Person A? If not, and Bill supplied it to Steve, Bill and Steve are both in the wrong. Is Steve selling the product which Person A built (and Steve modified)? If so, Steve is in the wrong. Unless you have a different license than the one at Renderosity, you may not sell the product itself, even if you modified it. You buy a product to USE, not to modify and redistribute.

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a sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantoness,
do more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12395

by the way, there's the copyrights forum for these questions where the staff specialising in these questions will be able to see them quicker. :)

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a sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantoness,
do more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part

I think it's clear.... but in the future, it's expected for much clearer spesification of PC requirements, version of any software included, and Renderosity actions to provide a better service when ppl's with Bill case continue to pops up. anything which is not under the commercial add, advertisement, and license agreement are subject to law charges.

"Steve" should have contacted "person A" and informed him of what he had done, then offered to let "A" sell the modified version in return for a small residual "improvement" fee. Who knows, "A" may have said, "thank goodness, you've saved me so much work". At worst, he would have said, "that's great, I can't use it right now, here's my position on redistributing just the modification".

...BTW, in the above scenario, if "A" buys, Bill's problem is solved for a small amount. If not, then Bill needs to open the old brainbox, and do for himself what Steve did, or ask Steve how he did it, step by step. Now, if Steve had just printed the information, "Make program X work for this" with a disclaimer saying "do not redistribute... rights belong to... blabla" it would be all good, especially if he had contacted "A" prior to doing so, and let him know, and gotten an all-clear. If in doubt, ask. And always work with the preson who controls the righs- they are the last word.

If not, then Bill needs to open the old brainbox, and do for himself what Steve did,<< Ah, but that's the problem. Bill cannot do for himself what Steve did because Bill cannot access the product on his computer, which is the whole reason Steve made the modifications in the first place. Kate (not saying anyone is wrong or right and is treating this as a purely hypothetical scenario)

hrmmm... if bill buy's the product, can steve not modify it for him? it seems to me the big transgression here is not modifying the product, in itself. heck, i've gone and modified daio's raven texture for my own personal use, and silverleif studios' mer-hatchie textures, etc. well, i bought 'em, i'm using 'em. i'm expanding them, but i'm not distributing anything. the big transgression, if i'm reading the story right, is that bill did NOT buy person a's item, but steve gave bill a copy, albeit altered, illegally. if i'm also reading the story right (and it gets convoluted), steve seems to be trying to sell his altered version of person a's item, which is also not allowed. but i dont see why bill has to do it to his copy, when steve could do it to bill's copy. as long as bill has a legitimate copy.

i reckon it's all about how Steve is making money from person A's product. if Steve somehow is selling only the DIFFERENCE between person a's product and his modification, then that's fine. ie you still have to buy person A's product before steve's modification works. but that's not what i understand from the scenario given. it seems that steve's modification is bypassing buying person A's item altogether... if he was just making money without a bypass there should be no reason to complain. :)

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a sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantoness,
do more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part

April no flame intended but think of what you said for one second, if I were to buy Michael 2 from Daz3d and then give or sell off the milman.obj as lets say milman.3ds .. I reformatted the obj into a 3ds file... therefore I modified it to allow it to be ran under 3d Max with no use of hadware plug-in ... I then give or sell it to someone running version 2 which allows 3ds files but not obj files and to my knowledge there is no plugin available for version 2. I just broke Daz3D/Zygote's copywrite infringement policy. Therefore I am in the wrong ... then the person who wanted it but couldn't use it so they didn't buy it knowing that it is Millenium Mike's geometry file, accepted goods knowingly and hence stole it from Daz3D/Zygote with me middle manning the situation. In a normal court of law within the United States, which Daz would be following due to it being an american company, american laws would be followed. Which means that both me and the person knowingly accepting it would be liable for whatever the judge deemed punishment, me for trafficing and he for accepting the end product through unpaid means. At least that is how I am seeing it. Dan

??? that's what i said. if he could sell a format that would REQUIRE buying person a's obj to decode into the 3ds format (using your example) then it's okay. but it has to REQUIRE buying person a's obj. ie do not bypass person a's work. but this way you can make money on the work you did to person a's work. therefore nobody who didn't already have person a's obj could have run it in 3ds.

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a sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantoness,
do more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part

ok hold the phone you mean Bil paying Steve for person A's product since Steve transformed it to work on Bill's PC? or Bill paying Person A? Because for bill to use that product he would still need to buy it off Person A. Not Steve ... though if person A allows the redistribution of his product by steve and gives steve the ok to profit.... steve may charge the conversion fee but not the actual product fee. As that fee would have to go towards person a for it to be legal.

bill already bought the product from person a, so yes he can pay for and use steve's addon to make it work on his system. steve had to have bought the product from person a also, to have something legal to do his modification on! so, yep, what steve is selling is an addon only. so long as that's all it is, it should be fine. :)

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a sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantoness,
do more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part

by the way, a neat example of this is the uvs encoding for obj to modified-obj commonly seen for poser usage... i have vicky and i take her into amapi and add more polys and detail to her hip area so she is anatomically correct. so this guy bill can use her, i encode her in uvs and after bill pays me i email that encoded file to bill. now bill has to have the original vicki obj so that he can decode my modified vicki - after which he also has an anatomically correct vicki to play with... daz no complaine. :D i could have encoded her in pcf too, but i would need to pay Maz or MartinC to allow me to use pcf encoding for commercial use... it's okay if i was giving it to bill free though. uvs has no such restriction, as far as i know. readers: i haven't used uvs or pcf for commercial distribution yet, so i could be wrong on both counts - please do the research yourself if you intend to use them.

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a sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantoness,
do more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part

...if Steve is Bill's brother's uncle's nephew, and Bill marries Person A, does Steve still have to buy a wedding gift? ;] Let me simplify what I was saying: If you buy a product, and want to modify it for your use, fine. (Just don't cry warranty if it breaks.) If you want to sell the modification, ask permission. The creator will let you know if they have any restrictions or requirements. (That should cover Steve.) If there is a product out there you want, and it doesn't come in the format you need, either request it, make friends with a guru and ask them how to convert it, or find something else that will do the job. If someone tells you how to modify your own, cool. If they sell you a modification with the creator's permission, and you buy the original from the creator, great. Otherwise, no.(Got it, Bill?) Oh BTW... congrats, Bill. And Steve- try china, it always works. ;]

This acquires the interest of a large number of people with the same computer and alteration as Bills who were not included in Person As original (and only) market research. All of whom, courtesy of Bill, acquire and use the article for free. Did anyone else miss this part? I missed it. Does this mean Bill distributed Person A's product in his frustration of not getting it to work? And now Steve is selling his modification to these people? Is this hypothetical or for real??? There's certainly cause for concern. So any merchant who has had someone complain that their product doesn't work for one of their buyers should check if they are Person A and getting ripped off by Bill and Steve (not his real name)! Anyway, xvcoffee has posted in the copyrights forum and he'll get his official answer there.

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a sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantoness,
do more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part

If I understand this correctly: Bill never purchased the item from Person A. Steve purchased the item from Person A. Steve altered the item, then sold the entire item (not just his alteration work) to Bill. He also sold it to others. Bill is also giving away Steve's altered version to others. Person A only got paid by Steve and hasn't seen a dime from any of the subsequent reselling. == IMHO Steve, Bill, and anyone who obtained the item from them knowing it was really Person A's are all equally in the wrong. Essentially, they are all trading in warez for profit. In the other hypothetical scenario that's been brought up, if Bill had purchased the item from Person A and paid Steve to alter it for Bill's personal use only, that may or may not be OK. It would depend on the terms of use and nature of the item. Generally, unless it is a specificially stated restriction of the license, altering something for your own personal use is OK to do (noting again that you lose any "warranty" protection you may have otherwise enjoyed). Whether you pay a third party to make the alteration isn't relevant as long as you are the only one who uses it. This doesn't sound like the case here, but its why adding a scar or body hair to a texture to use only in your own renders isn't a problem (for example). At least that's my opinion when considering this hypothetical but most distressing scenario.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=595762

I have re-posted the question to the copyright forum.

This is all useful info and I will try to get round to reading it all, perhaps even reading all it carefully (like I do).

It's kind of funny how complicated it gets- I don't see it as being that complex. You buy a piece of software. Purchase gives you certain rights. Those rights are outlined in the liscence. If you want to do something to or with the program or item, look in the liscence if you aren't sure if its kosher. If it has a clear answer, there you go. If it doesn't, ask the liscence issuer to clarify, and go by what they say. If you want rights above and beyond the liscence, work it out with the liscensor- it's their baby. I think "warez" is an inaccurate term to use in serious situations- it's slang, for one; and by its nature it implies that there is a difference between a program that someone "acqiures" improperly (i.e. without payment) and a stereo someone acquires improperly (i.e. through the window). The manner of acquisition may be different, but the action is the same, the intent is the same, and the crime is the same. All fancy slang aside, stealing is stealing. I mean, cmon- do you call a stolen car "wheelz"? ;]