MMS last statement Re: Renderosity
This statement is to further elaborate on the MMS Gen4 issue.
First of all I’d like to address the accusations we’ve faced in past few weeks posted on a certain blog, I believe it is time to explain in detail what happened.
On March 15th, I (Minnu Palen) of MMS purchased the Manhattan pack from the Renderosity site.
I came to find out about the accusations through a blog, never did Danae try to contact me to ask for an explanation before the blog went public. I immediately contacted Danae to try and resolve the issue as adults and professionals. I provided her with as much information as I had in the short time we were given to prepare. Since our emails were being shared with people who had nothing to do with the matter, I simply decided it would be in my best interest to stop all communication and seek out a legal representative and let all this be handled by a professional.
I (Minnu Palen) did use rendered pictures of the purchased textures, purchased composing it into derivative work as the license stated I was within my legal right. Furthermore, the important clause in all this is that artist or anyone else can not extract the original work from the derivative work back to its original.
This blog in question also produced pictures detailing which parts were used, and we clearly are here to state that we simply did not use all those parts, i.e. hands, nails, palms, feet and back were not used at all from Danae’s pack. The same hands were used in our previous Generation of skins and did not change at all and that can be clearly verified when PS files are presented and examined, feet were hand drawn by Thora Charron and sourced from personal images owned by Thora and can be found in Gen3 of the male skins.
Items sourced and in question are the light brown eyebrows, lips and belly button, which we altered and modified enough that they are not the same as the original and could not be extracted to its original in any way using the Second Life program.
Furthermore, we would like to state that the license provided in the pack is (poorly) written and is subject to personal interpretation, and we are truly sorry for any grief we might have caused Danae by using parts of her texture but the license simply does not state what the exact use for it is.
The license provided in the pack does not mention character pack and merchant pack as we have learned there was a difference between the two later in this process. We understand Danae’s concerns as she wasn’t properly protected by that license but we also know that MMS as a buyer was poorly protected as well with the inconclusive license provided.
We feel being called hypocrites and questioning our artistic integrity is not only in poor taste but has no place in this discussion because we feel we have done enough to prove our artistic talent with our previous generation of skins, clothes and other items sold on our sim.
We would like to address certain comparisons with content theft issues we were facing in previous months and still are facing now, it is simply shameful to compare hours of work with using a illegal copybot program and literally ripping and reselling unchanged textures by downloading them to your hard drive and re-uploading them again only to present them as your own.
We hope this whole issue is settled to Danae’s and MMS satisfaction because we admire her work and talent as a digital artist. We also hope this poorly written license will cause no other issues and that it will be rewritten to protect both buyers and artists from situations similar to this one.
MMS has decided to take down all previous generation skins, both male and female. We will be starting fresh with a new line called ZERO composed strictly from our own personal stock of photos which will not only protect our integrity as artists but our legal and moral integrity as well. Therefore, Glam World will close its doors effective immediately for approximately 3 weeks, we will use this time to redo our stores and get our new generation of skins ready to be released.
I’d like to take this time to thank everyone who’s supported us these last couple of months; it means a lot to us.
Minnu Palen for MMS
Legal Statement from our attorneys:
———————————–
As stated before, I contacted a lawyer firm for advice, especially to interpret the present situation from the legal point of view. Here follows a summary of their opinion.
With regard to the issue of purported misuse of textures purchased by Minnu Palen, the Korper & Partners law firm states that:
1. To determine the relevant rules, one has to examine the contract, or license agreement which followed the purchase itself. In the case at hand those provisions are contained in the “The license for items purchased through the marketplace at Renderosity”. Among other provisions in that license, it is stated that: “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.”
The wording of the provision is clear, and the criteria set forth for the allowed use of purchased materials is the possibility of extracting the purchased material from the derivative work.
Also, the commercial use of the purchased items is clearly within the allowed use as well: Buyer may use the materials in any personal projects or commercial projects; as long as the Artist’s work is protected from extraction and none of the items above have been violated.
Since Minnu Palen warrants that “reverse engineering”, i.e. extracting of author’s work is not possible, there was no breach of license.
In the end, it is our opinion that the utilization of the purchased digital materials by Minnu Palen falls legally within the contract provisions (in this case “The license for items purchased through the marketplace at Renderosity”), and that there was no infringement of the Sellers’ rights.
