"All your filter are belong to someone else!"

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Sign Guy wrote: instead of prejudging it

Fred, what's left to prejudge???

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: We're not going to restrict the use of presets in any way.

No offense, but what part of this don't you understand??? This trumps everything else.....so there are no other invisable usage lines to be drawn commercially or otherwise.....accept for maybe discounts on number of user packages and things like that.....

You are getting exactly what you want, eh???

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StevieJ wrote: No offense, but what part of this don't you understand??? This trumps everything else.....so there are no other invisable usage lines to be drawn commercially or otherwise.....accept for maybe discounts on number of user packages and things like that..... You are getting exactly what you want, eh???

No, frankly I am braced for a very unfriendly to publishers EULA. I tend to think that the fix will be to simply eliminate commercial use as published textures instead of seeking the everybody wins kind of a solution I've been proposing.

But no, I don't understand why you seem view the preset as having such importance. It is simply the result of the settings you chose to use to demonstrate what you created when you created the filter. As a publisher it is the last thing I want to use. You should, IMHO, be focussed on the filter itself. That is where all of the effort and talent is required.

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Conniekat8 wrote: I doubt that blanked ban of commercial texture sale of presets images would happen. If I were running FF as a business, I would make an adjustment where there would be couple conditions attached to commercial use of preset filter renderings. Wouldn't be a ban, it would be conditional use of either purchasing a commercial resale license for presets as unmodifieed textures, or insisting on specific credits given. This kind of restricted rights of use in world of graphics and similar intellectual property all the time. There is a lot of territory between a 'free for all' and 'can't use at all'.

They've already announced that protecting presets is not part of what they will bve doing.

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Conniekat8 wrote: As far as I know, filters are already protected. Unlike presets, filters and their structure doesn't lend itself to such an easy exploitation, nor do they appear to be exploited.

I would very much differ with you there. The filters themselves whether rendering a preset or rendering something tweaked to be different, are only possible because of the Filter Forge application and the work of the filter author. From that perspective, as a licensee, I would expect the artist/author to get a piece of the pie. I don't expect that to be a percentage of what I make but I would expect to pay a usage fee to the author.

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Conniekat8 wrote: If they're not going to protect presets, how are they going to protect preset tweaks and derivatives? You can't really protect derivatives, if you don't protect the originals. With two directly contradicting statement's from Vladimir, we can hardly say with any level of certainty what the outcome will be.

They can and likely will create limitations on what can be done with the renderings without getting into the quagmire of what is a preset and what is enough of a change to be called a derivative. We do things like this in our clipart licenses where we limit use to single jobs, commercial or not, and prohibit making our images the sole focal point of a job or a catalog item without first obtaining enhanced licensing.

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StevieJ wrote: Craig has been trying to sell me a bridge for quite some time now.....

prime florida beach property, not bridges

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StevieJ wrote: Having the copyrights means absolutely nothing with unrestricted terms of use on the other end.....so we're back to not submitting them.....

yes, i knew what you meant, i was just playing the school marm in correcting the wording... bad habit

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StevieJ wrote: Conniekat8 wrote: Unlike presets, filters and their structure doesn't lend itself to such an easy exploitation, nor do they appear to be exploited.

----I wouldn't say that at all, not at all really, Not to people who know a bit about making filters, to them the internals of a filter with new concepts is even more valuable than any presets from a filter. Which all goes back to one thing, the only solution you're going to find, if you plan to make money/sell textures, then don't submit any just buy the program and get on with it.

jffe

ummmm....errrr.....no comment.....I've retired from involvement in FF politics.....

To Vlad, Bella, GMM, OnyxMaster, the ZZ, Kuchobey, and everyone else at Filter Forge......I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!!! .....and thank you all for what you have done with this program.....I for one, greatly appreciate it!!!

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Sign Guy wrote: They can and likely will create limitations on what can be done with the renderings without getting into the quagmire of what is a preset and what is enough of a change to be called a derivative. We do things like this in our clipart licenses where we limit use to single jobs, commercial or not, and prohibit making our images the sole focal point of a job or a catalog item without first obtaining enhanced licensing.

Yes, we do things like taht in what I do as well.
When you limit certain use or a certain look (obtainable by a preset) you inherently limit the preset, regardless of whether you specifically named the preset or not.
Anyway, discussing this is a bit moot to me, I think FF's legal people know this ten times better then you and me put together.

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StevieJ wrote: ummmm....errrr.....no comment.....I've retired from involvement in FF politics.....

----<Looks at his watch, counts down from 20....>

jffe

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Conniekat8 wrote: When you limit certain use or a certain look (obtainable by a preset) you inherently limit the preset, regardless of whether you specifically named the preset or not.

Huh?

Here's one for you preset protectionists?

Let me start by saying that I typically start with any filter by exploring it to gain familiarity with it. I then open the filter, save it so it appears under My Filters, then delete all the presets, and finally create my own presets as a permanent record of the settings if I need it later. So when I make a post that points out how one might go about doing something controversial, I am not talking about what i do ... only that it can also be done with presets.

In this example, I am pointing out the opportunity for anyone to use two presets in creating a texture rendering. For example, today I rendered some really nice textures of grass using the new Monocoytledonous green plants filter by Sjeiti. Because that filter allows the user to use a background or to substitute an image of their choosing, I was able to drop in an image of muddy dirt I had already rendered previously. The combination of the two images works well. The renderings, had they been done using presets, only required enough creativity on my part to realize that the combination would be good.

The result is certainly a derivative but, had it been presets (according to the positions, as I understand them, taken by StevieJ and others) would not just be exploiting an artist ... but now two artists.

I got a piece of related news yesterday. The multi-million dollar corporation mentioned earlier in this thread by me has decided to license Genetica instead of Filter Forge. Part of the reason was the cloud hanging over the Filter Forge product.

First of all, forgive me for adding to this thread. I'm brand new here and although I've read a good few posts on this thread, I confess that I haven't read all.

This is what I'm seeing :

The filter authors originally entered and offered their filters to Filter Forge because they thought it was a good and nice thing to do. No one was looking to make a fortune out of doing so, is that right? Now, I come from the Open Source movement and so recognise and appreciate those sort of motives.

Now, I also reckoning that although those same filter writers don't begrudge the odd graphics guy making a few bucks here and there, that they don't like, as graphic guys themselves, seeing someone else taking credit for their unaltered work. Even much more so, they object to some company selling unaltered renders of them for 300 bucks a time?! In other words, they feel that they are being taken advantage of.

Someone, a Moderator I think, said 'and we would like to note that texture selling is completely legal under the current EULA.' Yeah, and a lot of things were completely legal in the old USSR. Did that mean it was right? You sorta kow what's right, don't you? You don't need no lawyer to tell you.

The Open Source movement has faced similar problems in the past.

This is what I'd suggest. By all means rewrite your EULA to offer better copyright protection to filter authors. By all means bring out a new version of FilterForge that breaks the old version and filters and gets users to agree to the new EULA.

But, I tell you this...it will never stop. This is how this game works. Graphics guys primarily like/want/need/enjoy doing graphics, if they can make a living out of it? great. But the prime aim is to create, not spend their lives looking through legal papers or looking over their shoulders all the time.

Then there is another type of person. Someone with zero talent, whose sole aim is to make a greedy living out of the efforts of others, any way they can. They will never stop, they will twist, turn, writhe, use every legal loophole they can find (they have a lot of time to do this, remember) to achieve this, until the end of time itself. They will even suggest that you just make it easier on yourselves, give in and join them, and just be grateful for the few bucks that they deign to part with and somehow, you, the guys with the talent end up as the slaves of the guys with zero talent. Not ideal, is it? Not really what authors had in mind when they first offered their filters for nothing to this fine program.

There is another way. Flood the damn market with your textures, which seem to be the ones that are causing most 'trouble' here. Put them on every and any website with a price tag of $5 max. Make them Open Source under a GPL license and give them to to OS sites to distribute for free. Anything, but playing along with this game or getting into bed with these people.

Make it unprofitable for them and they will simply vanish, never to return.

Check out, I don't say join, the Open Source movement. Check out Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Miro, etc. We may not ever make a fortune, but we are free men and women. Free to design, create and make. Free to not have to worry where the next leech is going to spring from.

Frank

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James wrote: Well said Frank thats exactly what i think, about spreading the textures for free i think thats a great idea and something the creators should do for sure, im curious as to if the sites the packs being sold on would allow the submissions, because what im thinking is they like getting there share of the royaltys from the people taking others work, that would be a total joke huh if they didn't allow the original creator to submit to the site because they like making money.

Good points Frank and JEff!
Jeff, your'e onto something here . It can cause an interesting situation where the first seller (instead of a filter maker) could claim copyright on the images.

Person "A" makes a filter and some presets.
Person "B" downloads it, renders out presets, and proceeds to sell them at an online marketplace, and claims copyright on the images.

Person "A" decides to render out their own filters and attempts to sell (or offer them for free) at the same online marketplace.

Marketpace could tell person "A" (the filter maker), sorry can't do that "B" holds the copyright to those images.
Or they could tell them, sorry, this will be unfair competition to "B".

Not right, is it?

Interesting reading...

Clicky!