Case Closed

We just wanted to let all of you, who supported us over the last few weeks, know, that we finally have been able to put the situation with the copyright infringement behind. We have reached an agreement with the person that we have filed DMCA against, and she produced a skin that we cannot recognise anymore as our product.

Thank you again for your support and friendship.

 

 

For Comparison’s Sake

Well, I promised some comparison material earlier, and after a good breakfast, dito lunch and a power nap, I think it’s time to write and post some.

For a part I will use the exact same material that is used by the person we filed DMCA against. She uses it to make us believe the material is hers, but there are some typical things in the images that, albeit blurred by the covering up that she tried to do, are still pretty obvious.

[photo collage from counterparty]

Let me tell you a little story about when Hart was making the skin. When he was working on the hands, he got distracted for a moment and his stylus touched the template, leaving a dark mark on the lower right corner, because he was painting the shading on the hands. Now since it would not be visible on the skin, he decided not to bother and did not clean it up. Not that is surprises us, but this mark is clearly visible on the allegedly infringed material.

[photo collage from counterparty]

Another  minor detail, but still significant, is in the fingernail. In the first version of the skin that was out on SLX, it remained untouched, you could clearly see it was identical to the hand painted fingernails on our skin. In the second version there has been an attempt to touch it up, but you can still see that some other nail has been laid over the original, and honestly… is not a job well done.

Linda, our skin, has a faint birthmark on her lower right back. You can see it clearly in the photo of our own skin. But you can also still see it in the first skin that we found in world, that showed another person as the creator, on the exact same spot, and although demo is all written over the second skin, you can still see it.

Another, non sourceable, detail is the elbow, since Hart has handpainted the lines that show on our skin…. and that show on the other two as well, on exact the same spot, exactly the same lines, just further blurred. Now honestly, how big a chance that someone draws exactly the same lines in exact the same spot?

And last, but not least, there is the eye make-up. It has been made lighter, but I think it speaks for itself. The highlight on the upper eyelid, the lashes Hart has drawn, every detail from our make up, we find it back in the 2 other skins.

We have decided that this is the last post that we will write on this issue. It is frustrating, nauseating and it drains creativity to have to be busy with this all the time.  Besides, there are new additions to our skin range on their way and we want to focus on the good stuff, not on the bad stuff. Now that doesn’t mean we are just letting it be, but we just don’t feel like talking about it now. For now, we have stated our case pretty clearly I think.

And again, PXL Creations skins have one creator only, and that is Hart Larsson. They are only being sold in PXL Creation shops, currently at Peronaut, Monarch Bay and Alady Island. Should you ever find one that shows another creator, please contact us so that we can take the actions that we feel is necessary. Do not talk to the other person yourself, it may only antagonise them and make it harder for us to protect our product. Also, be extremely careful with what you buy from SLExchange. Business in a box and similar items are all to often illegally taken copies, made available to make a quick buck and all to often leaving naive new residents with a lot of trouble when it it is discovered that the items you try to sell in world are stolen.
 

 

 

 

The Downside, part II

This is turning into a real nightmare. Apparently, when you file a DMCA with SLExchange like we did, as you could read in the first downside post, unlike Linden Lab^TM (who will notify the person you have filed a DMCA against, retaining your personal RL data according to common privacy standards until the counter party decide to file a sworn counter notification after which RL data will be made available to both parties so that out of world legal action can be taken) SLExchange sends the full DMCA, without censoring it, to the alleged copyright infringer. They state they cannot do it differently in order to be compliant with the act, and that they do not understand how Linden Lab^TM  can get away with it, but other providers are taking Linden Lab^TM’s approach as well, such as Google. 

This leads to the weird situation that Hart’s personal data are now available to the person who allegedly ripped our skin. Wherears previously she was just harrassing both of us in world, now she calls him in his office, remaining,for now, still anonymous to us. We would have to subpoenar/summon SLX to make her data available to us, as long as she decides not to file a sworn counter notification. It is a truly odd and stressful situation.

OK, technicalities aside, where does this take us.. our skin has been ripped, whether this has been done by the person we filed DMCA against or not, is not relevant. She used it, to make a profit out of it, and had it on SLX and before the first version was taken down, we know 2 out of the 10 kits that she made available have been sold.  One case surfaced, which thankfully we were able to have taken down again (allegedly that makes us friends with the person who sold it in world, which is utterly ridiculous, we’re just happy this person decided to comply to our request), others still might… hopefully they won’t… but at this point we can expect anything.

the other thing that remains is that Hart is now being stalked in RL by the person we have filed against and he is currently investgating what can be done to stop this person. He will have to report it to the police, summon the phone company to trace the origin of the calls and have taps installed on his phoneline. These are things to consider.

Later today I will post some more photo material that is a further illustration as to why we are so convinced that the material we found is infringing our copyright, but for now, I need coffee, I have RL things to attend to, and honestly, this whole situation is just making me feel nauseated. Not only does your IP get abused…. but because you stand up for your rights, you get a complementary stalker too? Really encouraging.

The Downside

[update] Rumours have been spread that PXL creations would be associated with the avatars known as Revenge Gears and Ronia Shepherd. Whereas we have spoken with Revenge after discovering skins in her shop that presumably derived from our skin, she took them down when we presented her with our original skin, and pointed out from whom she bought the wholesale material. This has been helpful in the filing a DMCA against that vendor and subsequently the content being removed. Anyway Revenge Gears receive our DMCA faxed on 03/27/2008. Ronia Shepherd is not known to either me or Hart, and we have no idea where it comes from that  she would be involved in any of this. We are not associated in any way with this avatar, nor have ever been in contact with her. 

The Downside of creating a skin that is gaining popularity, is that other people seem to like it to use your skins to make a buck or two. Our customers, thank you for roaming the grid and being so considerate, notify us whenever they think they have found a skin that might be created using our skins. For the record, I state that we have never, ever given anyone inside or outside Second Life ^TM  permission to use any part of PXL Creations skins or our other products.

Fortunately, most of these alerts lead us to vendors that contain skins that, even if they might have a slight resemblance, are obviously not copies, replicas or otherwise skins deriving from ours. However, sometimes you do stumble upon something that is too big a coincidence to be just that, a mere coincidence.

I won’t bore you with the whole process of gathering evidence, and filing DMCA’s and the anxiety of what place our copied product will turn up next, or the insulting and intimidating conversations we have with the people who put these skins on the market. Let me suffice to say that it is a slow, frustrating and energy draining road.  I’ll just post some of the photos that we have used to compare our skin with 2 copies so that you can get to know the original skins better and distinguish them from non originals. PXL Creations does not sell skins on slx, onrez or other websites, and within Second Life^TM  does not have authorised resellers. The only original products can be found in our mainstore at Peronaut , in our shop at Monarch Bay and at Alady Island.

 

 

 And please, support the original content creators by voting for a better system for the protection of intellectual property at JIRA. Also, refrain from buying busniness in a box like items from SLX, Onrez or other out of world sites. They usually contain stolen items, the original creators have not given permission to make these available full perm, and you really are up for trouble when you are selling these things in world. As Sioxie Legend recently stated on her blog: if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is!