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"Let’s face it, we are pirates, meaning that we also are ‘thieving, untalented assholes’ (as you say) for them and the majority of creators of 3D stuff."
Totally! However, there is a gigantic difference between passing stuff around for fun, and passing stuff around for money.
I don't mind my IP being shared at all - I have way too much code I've posted on Stack Exchange to answer questions, which in turn has very likely been copied into corporate apps across the globe by now. Yet somehow, I still get paid to write software for a living.
I agree with @bidule , we are no different then the rest of the pirate sites , it don't matter if you charge admission or if you give the stuff for free we are all still exploiting the original creators in one way or another and I can honestly see why some of them are trying to take measures in stopping it from happening.
I should add one more thing , I don't know how much loss of sales they actually experience I think due to all the pirating has actually increased sales for most of them if it were not for the pirate sites (being able to get stuff which most of us could never afford) most would never bother with this stuff I know myself as one. I'd stop buying altogether and drop Daz like a bad habit."Don’t like the way they operate? Don’t buy their stuff, but don’t come and complain about the way they do their bidding if you’re not white as snow, because that’s the pot calling the kettle black."
This isn't a question of hypocrisy (because I'm a way bigger hypocrite than you may realize), nor is it even a philosophical question. Instead, it is the difference between (as a US example) the original creator being stuck with only a civil tort response to a pirate, and the FBI showing up to toss you in prison for up to 5 years for making income off the bootlegging.
I could anonymously drop a dime on 3DUK for IP theft-for-profit right now (if I knew who the guy was), and the results, depending on his local laws, would deprive him of not only money, but liberty. Flip-side, he could report me to the cops here in my country, who would in turn politely tell him to get a tort lawyer and bugger off unless he could show that I was selling his 'work' unauthorized.
Coming back to the philosophical, it's still disgusting to make money off of someone else's work (don't anyone bring up Doctrine of First Sale, either. That is very different and you all know it.)
Edit/PS: No, I'm not going to rabble-rouse. I can be disgusted at someone's behavior without being motivated to do anything about it.
"Don’t flip the discussion onto the legal technicality of it, this is not what we are talking about."
Doesn't make it go away, now does it? I mean, it's inconvenient for your rants, but we can't always get what we want.
"Different countries will have different laws, and in many countries, including the US since the Napster debacle mainly disseminating can have you locked up for up to ten years."
Your evidence for this is, what, exactly? I'll save you the time and say there is none to be had, else the RIAA and MPAA would have had half the US locked up by now (or at least enough people to have a consequential chilling effect on the whole idea.) The absolute biggest result of any not-for-profit pirating was a massive big fat judgement against some rando who shared a pop song or two, but nothing more than that.
You could call the FBI on me tomorrow, and unless my handle around here was "Monk", you'd get told to bugger off and stop wasting their time, even if you were the IP holder. So please, stop making things up.
Here's the tea: The legalities are everything.
I otherwise cannot bring myself to care about your petty purity test, truth be told. Yeah, we all have dirty hands, but the profit is the difference, boyo.
Personally I think going after the vendor who is probably behind all of this doesn't matter either way. I don't think Disney or Warner Brothers are gonna care that the people reporting belong to a file sharing site. How are they even going to know? I actually quite like the content this person puts out so I think it would be a shame, but it's kind of inevitable that all the game and fim asset content will be taken down eventually.
The issue is that the site is vulnerable to anyone who wants to can follow the links and report every post and every picture. In The future it could be someone who falls out with the mods, or a rival site. So the discussion is how do we adapt and get round it.
"How are they even going to know? I actually quite like the content this person puts out so I think it would be a shame, but it’s kind of inevitable that all the game and film asset content will be taken down eventually."
Pretty much this, though they will take the extra step of calling for his/her prosecution (because of the profit motive); they need heads on pikes to caution others from doing the same.
The issue is that the site is vulnerable to anyone who wants to can follow the links and report every post and every picture. In The future it could be someone who falls out with the mods, or a rival site. So the discussion is how do we adapt and get round it.
Yep. Repurposing anti-hotlink code (or if possible, using some sort of URL-obfuscation technique) is likely going to be your best bet. These folks don't have the points to go digging into every file account, so they have to content themselves with laboriously locating image URLs and lodging DMCA complaints. It's petty and stupid, and they will likely tire of it after awhile. If they're stupid enough to use a legal firm to do it, they'll eventually realize that the cost is greater than the effect (it takes nothing for an uploader to re-up a picture and update the post.)
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"And you are right, the person who could be in trouble here is the owner of the site, in this case we’re talking about Hunter."
Yes, because he makes money from the site, even if it's just to operate it. This is part of why I don't go reporting idiots like 3DUK, because it becomes tit-for-tat at that point, and I don't want to go putting Hunter in trouble (though as a side note, if Hunter's site is hosted in a country outside of the Berne Convention, he and it may well be immune from prosecution - though CloudFlare might decide to drop 'em, so there is that.)
As far as the 'site war', I sincerely doubt that Renderhub itself did anything at all. Their house is definitely not in order, and they know it. They are -far- more vulnerable to bad consequence than even Hunter could be. I daresay the leadership of Renderhub is in far greater danger given their commercial for-profit nature. Nah, this brouhaha is all 3DUK and perhaps a friend of his or two, because, for lack of better explanation, they're petty and stupid. They're stupid because there is a paper trail of payment that, with a simple subpoena of Renderhub's records, can dox 3DUK and his vendor buddies outright, making him a very easy target by any law enforcement agency that cares to go look. This direction is where your argument actually makes sense, since he's the pirate doing the antagonizing, and because he's doing it for-profit, can face far more serious consequences than you or I.
The original storefronts/vendors were not used to acquire goods placed here. Goods purchased those storefronts/vendors are released, which often puts them into the hands of other sites such as Render-State or GFX-Hub as a result... taking potential sales from creators/vendors. So yes... I agree with @bidule and going after the vendors doesn't make sense if we're cutting into their profit and that of individuals who've made that content accessible, whether they be asset thieves themselves or by blender.
I also agree with @diviniren in that we need to take precautions sooner than later, in forcing login in order to see blog posts (unless its original content). We also need more stringent membership requirements, as every time I see an influx of new members, I worry how many are set up just to report content to the vendors.
I think the more we fumble around discussing legalese and semantics rather than tightening up, the more we leave ourselves open to more deletion.
Someone went around again recently and filed copyright strikes with postimage and imgur for a bunch of posts. There are a large number of posts form the past couple days that are missing images again.
I should add one more thing , I don’t know how much loss of sales they actually experience I think due to all the pirating has actually increased sales for most of them if it were not for the pirate sites (being able to get stuff which most of us could never afford) most would never bother with this stuff I know myself as one. I’d stop buying altogether and drop Daz like a bad habit.
I view sites like this one as "try before you buy." When I use an asset I downloaded several times or plan to use it multiple times in the future, I go back and buy it. I usually wait until its on sale, but I still end up buying it. There are other assets I downloaded from here that I thought I'd use and never do. I don't buy them.
I also do something similar with software that doesn't have full featured trial versions. I ended up spending a few hundred dollars on software last year after finding a crack for it and trying it before I bought it.
@bavor I have been doing the same and try before I buy this is a good practice imo.
@Goblyn , I feel the same way this site needs more security measures to protect it's members and weed out the trouble makers , maybe only sharing by pm would be the way to go and change every link sent for said product could show who is targeting the site.@Bavor I do the same thing. I'll support vendors that I like if it's on the blog or not, but will sometimes download it first on here to see if it's any good. I do the same with video games, the pirate version or game pass verison is almost like a demo. If I like it I'll pick it up legitimately.
I personally don't think (some certain) vendors lose as much as they think to piracy. The prices are so high most of the people downloading wouldn't be in the hobby at all in my opinion.
"I personally don’t think (some certain) vendors lose as much as they think to piracy. The prices are so high most of the people downloading wouldn’t be in the hobby at all in my opinion."
This is how it was when Poser, Bryce, and Vue about the only games in town for the low-end hobbyist. Everything else like 3DSMax, Maya, Lightwave cost thousands of bucks. While Poser was only a couple of hundred dollars, it was still too much for people who just wanted to try it, so they got it off TPB/eDonkey/whatever, and those who liked it usually went back and bought it from the store.
I do it even now. I'll buy from the vendors I find the most useful and most skilled, and the ones that turn out less than stellar simply get ignored (I won't even download their stuff for free at that point.)
i also agree on making posts viewable for approved members only (not every new member, for instance many forums require accounts to be a certain age and/or have a minimum of number of posts - usually 5-10 - before having access to the rest of the site) due to many new accounts can be made just for takedowns, which would make the whack-a-mole/hydra effect much more harder to stop. piracy sites have been fighting takedowns for decades using similar tactics that pro-copyright groups have been using so making it harder for new accounts to just join and take down content would be easier to track since we'd know who is doing it by the age of said account and posts that were created.
true original content (not even content that's converted) should be the only items viewable from everyone since it'll make the site more of a "freebie 3d content website" than a piracy website from an outsider perspective)
Just dropping in for a sec will read through this later but based off what little i saw.
There's a few different kinds of theft.
Theft because you want to harm someone.
Theft because you need something like food.
Theft because you want what someone has and can't afford it.
Theft because you want what someone has and can afford it but just don't want to pay for it.
Theft because you have a mental issue.
Theft because you like the thrill.
Theft to sell the item to resell it to buy something you want like drugs.Probably a few others
The all result in the original owner losing the item regardless. But they are done for different reasons.
Some can be more harmful since it cost the owner more money. Losing a wallet with 1k in it is probably less impactful than losing an apple. Some places see this differently since sentencing is based off the cost. other don't care and see all theft the same.I'm of the opinion that pirates buy a small percentage and pirate the rest, I think it unlikely they will buy 90% of what they actually download. I have a limit to what ill purchase and that doesn't change, what changes is what I spend it on. If X gets posted I'll buy Y. If X doesn't get posted ill buy X.
All are wrong I suppose but I think some are more impactful and some more ethically wrong.
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