Not to be confused with Common Sensible, which is an excellent read by Ari Blackthorne.

Contrary to what anyone else may say,  taking other people’s artworks and making out they’re their own is in no way a new trend, as me and Ryker Beck found a year ago today on this very blog. In fact, it’s been going on much, much longer than that.. way before SL even got going with a vibrant art scene.

I’m not going to get into the whole debacle yet again, because it’s freaking old now. People steal – either they knowingly do it (in which case, rumbling them is probably the only way they’ll stop) or they have no idea what they’re doing is wrong, and have no idea what constitutes as fair use. Unfortunately for them, ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law.

Which is where this blog takes over – introducing our old friend: Creative Commons!

Law teachers often dictated “Assume everything on the Internet is copyrighted!” which isn’t a bad theory until Creative Commons came along and shook the entire copyrighting system. Audio, music, video and yes – photography and art – have all been swooped into the Creative Commons rage, as artists use this alternative to traditional copyright licensing.

The Creative Commons website explains it neatly:

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.”

The whole CC thing kicked off in late 2002, so it’s a relatively new thing, but 50 countries have incorporated it into their copyright laws, so it’s a real thing.

But what does it mean?

Well there are currently six types of Creative Commons licenses:

1. Attribution alone
2. Attribution + Noncommercial
3. Attribution + NoDerivs
4. Attribution + ShareAlike
5. Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivs
6. Attribution + Noncommercial + ShareAlike

Looks a little awkward, huh? Where’s there’s four phrases in there – Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivatives and Share Alike.

Attribution means:

You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work – and derivative works based upon it – but only if they give you credit.

Noncommercial means:

You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work – and derivative works based upon it – but for noncommercial purposes only.

No Derivatives means:

You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike means:

You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

So just to spell it out clearly – if you see the words “All Rights Reserved”, that means you can’t use it without the express permission of the original creator. If you don’t see anything written at all, assume it has All Rights Reserved and that you can’t use it.

There’s millions upon millions of artworks out there that have creative commons licenses on them. For example, pretty much the whole of my Flickr photostream is on a Creative Commons license. Try the following websites to find more examples of CC licensed work where you can find photography and artworks which the author allows you to build upon, provided you give attribution.

• Flickr
• Deviant Art
• stock.xchng
• Wikimedia Commons
• Creative Commons Search
• Every Stock Photo
• FreeFoto.com
• Dreamstime
• CGItextures

In some of the above websites, you may find works that have been released into the public domain and hold no copyrights whatsoever, so you can do as you please with them. Politeness dictates you give attribution anyways, but then, not everyone is polite!

Of course, Creative Commons does have its critics. Some think that it’s a daft idea which serves to feed greedy corporates or deprive professional photographers of income. Some think it doesn’t go far enough. Either way, it’s there and there’s no excuse for anybody to be lifting copyrighted work where the author has expressed there is no permission to do it.

Use a bit of Commons Sense, and you’ll be fine.

Anyways, Maddox Woodhen showed little remorse and that annoyed me. I sent him a polite Flickrmail telling him to take down the image I spotted, and he did so. On spotting a second image that was stolen, I sent him another message telling him to take down any stolen images he had up. Alas, he’s gone quiet so with the help of Ryker Beck and Stephen Venkman, we’ve traced back many of the original images from which he’s stolen his work.

Below is the image that was the first one I spotted (and was removed when he realised he had been rumbled):

The original image is here.

Copyright is copyright, and the original image (below) was not available on a creative commons license. But this guy didn’t care.. I can’t see exactly what gain he was getting, or what his objective was by doing this. It’s beyond my head..

I can talk about copyright theft and IP rights until I turn blue, as I’ve suffered at the hands of thieves on numerous occassions. But I think the fact that this guy has had an example made out of him is enough to warrant off anyone thinking of doing the same..

You can see the other rips done by this fool over on Ryker Beck’s Flickr stream.

Please do come along if you so wish to =)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vehicle/163/106/22

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The sixth and final night of The Photo Institute’s Speakers Series concludes with Second Life builder and photographer Prad Prathivi who will talk about his work and answer your questions.

We will also be announcing the winners of the Koinup.com’s Quintessence Contest.

The Photo Institute is Second Life’s premiere photography instruction school. From beginner to advanced, TPI can teach you to take better pictures. We’ll help you to better understand the nature of and intricacies of Second Life’s unique photo-taking system, to learn more about such subjects as composition and lighting, and expand your knowledge and understanding of photography in general.

As of this date, TPI is entering it’s fourth semester of teaching. We’ve already helped dozens of students become better photographers in Second Life. Our classes run the gamut from beginners’ courses for those who want to learn the basics of the SL camera functions and capabilities, to advanced classes in composition, lighting and other technical issues, and intensive workshops in subjects such as portrait photography, landscapes, and shooting the nude.

We offer several types of classes and workshops to meet every student’s needs: From semester-long classes of six weeks each, meeting twice a week, to one-hour lectures featuring some of SL’s finest photographers, and short-term workshops that can take as little as one to three hours, or sometimes an hour a week for two to four weeks.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vehicle/163/106/22

SL Photography is a whole industry in itself in Second Life, with thousands of residents having Flickr streams and Koinup accounts, and businesses in world which make their trade from the viewer’s snapshot function.

But how ethically are these businesses behaving? When you take a photograph for financial gain, are you not making a direct profit from other people’s creations in that picture? For example, you’re doing a modelling shoot for a client who wants a series of pictures done for a portfolio. You quote a price to them, but will any of that money go to the designer of the skin/eyes/hair/accessories/clothes/shoes?

If you take a nice scenic shot of a beautiful sim, and then frame it and put it up for sale in a gallery, shouldn’t the owner/builder of the sim get a cut? Should you not at least ask permission to use the land for a commercial artwork?

Lets look at this from a legal point of view according to US Law. If a photographer creates photographs in their own interest, in their own time with their own equipment from public land (or private land where they have the required permission), the resulting photographs are clearly morally and ethically the photographers property.

So it’s okay to take pics and sell them on?

Not quite.. we need to bring “copyright” into this. In the past, you had to specifically state a copyright. However, since 1989, almost everything created originally and privately is subject to copyright by default, regardless of notice. Additionally, it doesn’t matter if you charge for it or not – by giving it away for free, you’re still attaching a value to the work, albeit a null one.

The section of copyright that concerns us is that the copyright owner has exclusive rights to reproduce their content, and photographing this content is considered a reproduction.

But don’t assume the copyright owner is the content creator.. that needs checking out too. A lot of people think that all content in Second Life is owned by the creators of the platform – Linden Labs. However, the Terms of Conditions state:

3.2 You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create in Second Life, to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. However, you must make certain representations and warranties, and provide certain license rights, forbearances and indemnification, to Linden Lab and to other users of Second Life.

Hmmm.. that’s rather vague. Lets read on:

Notwithstanding the foregoing, 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.

Okay, so apparently Linden Labs are allowed to reproduce our content and use it however they wish. So if you work for Linden Labs, you’re allowed to take pics and sell them on. But what about the rest of us?

(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, provided that in the event that your Content appears publicly in material under the control of Linden Lab, and you provide written notice to Linden Lab of your desire to discontinue the distribution of such Content in such material (with sufficient specificity to allow Linden Lab, in its sole discretion, to identify the relevant Content and materials), Linden Lab will make commercially reasonable efforts to cease its distribution of such Content following the receipt of such notice, although Linden Lab cannot provide any assurances regarding materials produced or distributed prior to the receipt of such notice.

Okay – the term “third parties” is pretty vague again, but it could be argued that that includes other SL residents. So while other SL residents have the right to sell photography which may feature the works of content creators, it’s within the copyright holder’s power to notify Linden Labs to stop the works being distributed.

You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service.

By about this stage, my head exploded and there are huge red stains across my bedroom wall. This paragraph seems to undermine everything we thought was protecting the copyright holder’s content, by opening it up to a royalty-free license to all other users of the “Service”. That basically means that SL residents can take photographs of creator’s works and sell them within Second Life, without the need to pay royalties.

However, automatically granting a user permission to use the copyright holder’s content does not mean that it can’t be withdrawn.

4.3 You will comply with the processes of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act regarding copyright infringement claims covered under such Act.

I’m pretty familiar with the DMCA, so I pulled this paragraph out of it:

Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying (“Copying” is used in this context as a short-hand for the exercise of any of the exclusive rights of an author under section 106 of the Copyright Act.

Consequently, a technological measure that prevents unauthorized distribution or public performance of a work would fall in this second category.) of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second.

That’s right – the content creator can file a DMCA and give Linden Labs notification to take down the infringing work, which would be the photographs up for sale. I’d imagine it would be a lot more difficult for a content creator to file a DMCA against a user who does photography for a model’s portfolio, or something which is not sold as an object in world, or stored in inventory.

So there you have it – unless a content creator specifically files a DMCA to take down infringing content, you are fully within your rights as an SL photographer to sell your works in world without having to pay any royalties.

Disclaimer: This article is the author’s personal interpretation and should not be taken as a legal clarification. The author is not a qualified attorney and will not be held liable for statements made in this article. The article is simply a personal interpretation. This article is not endorsed by Linden Labs, and has no legal value or significance. Basically, if you get sued, don’t bother trying to blame me.

References and Interesting reading on this topic:

10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained

The Law For Photographers

Second Life Terms of Conditions

Digital Millennium Copyright Act