Filter Clones

Cloning of filter internals will be seen often in the future, I'd dare speculate. As long as credit is given where credit is due, that shouldn't be too much of our concern.

Well, in accordance with a hidden clause contained in the Upload License Agreement, the perpetrator and all his family will be swiftly sacrificed to Tezkatlipoka soon.

.....kinda like a "McDowells with golden arcs" going up right next to a "McDonalds with golden arches".....

sadly, with the open architecture of this system, it's going to happen more than anyone would want. it's mostly a good thing, the openness, but i saw this a while back also. if you close it up, we all lose the benefit of being able to look at the internal works of others and thus learn and share. if you leave it open, you get what you're talking about, someone does a knock-off and tries to steal your glory or to get a free copy or whatever their motive is. there could even be a benign reason they did it, though that doesnt come readily to mind.

for me, i'd rather have the openness and the occasional knock-off than to lose the former. all one has to do to see who the originator really is, is to look at the date submitted.

there is also a legitimate reason for re-submitting someone else's filter, but if i ever did that i'd probably post here first and most certainly give credit in the filter itself to the originator.

I'm confident that the community will develop its own very potent mechanisms of dealing with copycatting. However, it's going to be quite interesting to see how these cases will be handled by the FF team...

*fetches his popcorn*

stevie,

i perfectly understand.

Sounds like there'll be social pressure vs. blatant copycats, and that someone who copies shamefully is likely to do it again and again, making them stick out more sorely.

Yeah, that may be a good way to reduce the "infractions". (What uberzev suggested.)

Also, if you post saying you think someone copied you, then they can perhaps give their side of the argument. If they admit that it was inspired by you, then maybe they'll feel obliged to update the description to give you credit...(?) -- and all's fine again, yes? (I'm all for people modifying filters -- and giving credit where credit is due.)

Of course it is also possible that two people submit two very similar filters... If the so-called copier uses that defense, then so be it -- let the readers make their own opinion.


I sort of dislike the motive of making a filter to get a free copy. Firstly -- many people will still submit out of the love of making them and showing them to others. Secondly -- there's like 1500 filters already so the probability of earning discounts is already pretty slim...

If someone does earn a discount from one of "your" filters, then maybe point out to the admins that you uploaded a similar filter first. Maybe they'll have the records to back you up and give you a discount of some sort too??? (But still, I really despise the money motive for art...)

And in any case, StevieJ, I sense a certain amount of "love to create" that you seem to have that I really respect. You seem to have a basically healthy attitude about this too. Keep up the excellent filters!
(Sorry, I know this might not be worth $300 to you, but maybe its worth something... I guess this copying is just an "unavoidable evil" -- the more input the better in my opinion...)

Yeah, uberzev, maybe you're right...
It's just that some starving artists know they aren't good enough to win a reward, so we have to rationalize how "it's all okay..." in some way or other...

BTW, I'm very greatful of your "any angle rotate" snippet -- a very cool, useful tool IMO -- so thanks for your help!

Yeah, thanks to byRo too! (You guys are awesome!)

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Crapadilla wrote: Cloning of filter internals will be seen often in the future,

We don't reward technology or ideas. We reward useful filters. If you can 'dress' someone else's ideas into a form which makes them useful for non-geek users, you fully deserve a reward.

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Crapadilla wrote: One thing is for sure: The amount of filters that an author has submitted will always be highly irrelevant when it comes to getting FF for free.

Absolutely true. We're thinking about implementing measures again 'filter flood' -- maybe we can calculate the 'goodness quotient' for every author as a ratio of his/her High-ranked (or Featured) filters to his/her number of filters submitted during the last 6 months.

This can be a double-edged sword, so we'll be very careful here.

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: We're thinking about implementing measures again 'filter flood' -- maybe we can calculate the 'goodness quotient' for every author as a ratio of his/her High-ranked (or Featured) filters to his/her number of filters submitted during the last 6 months.

And how would that 'goodness quotient' affect filter submission? An author with a 'bad' quotient could still submit 20 filters a day. Restricting filter submission to an arbitrary number of filters per day per author probably isn't such a good idea. And an author-out-of-luck being informed that - with his latest submission - he just permanently forfeited his chance to earn a free copy because he has gone way over the 'badness' threshold isn't going to help either.

On the other hand, having an author ranking system 'under the hood' may help in handling 'filter flood', since one could single out authors that have a high quality ratio (and thus a high potential of significantly improving the library for all) and give them editorial and render preference. However, this introduces an unfair bias into the editorial review process for other authors, and especially for those that are new to the game. Again, maybe not such a good idea?

Just out of curiousity, other than the user stats FF collects, is there any other way that "filter quality", and/or "usefulness", is being judged behind the scenes ? Not to single anyone out (or myself for that matter) but I've seen a lot of filters make it through and get listed, that well, I don't think needed to or really should have. Just wondering what kind, if any, of editing/censoring/etc. is going on behind the FF wizard's curtain.

jffe

Vlad, I know you guys don't have the time to review every filter but I think a very simple rating system would be usefull.

Crap
Average
Good
Editors Choice

i've read this and been considering this for a while now and i've a suggestion on how to filter filters within the library. this is fairly simple and shldnt be that difficult to implement. the idea came about through earlier discussions about filters being shipped with FF when someone buys and through other threads.

it occurred to me that FF shld ship with some filters, at least the 'editor's pick' ones, if not more. so, why not make some designations in the organization of the library itself. why not have more than one libary? or, why not have a subset of libraries?

you'd start with a 'general pool'. everything submitted goes there. no restrictions, no limits, anything and everything goes there first and it's all available for download. certain obvious rip-offs could be culled out. i really dont see that as going to be a big problem. as a filter gets used or commented on or noted for being of a higher quality, it would be moved up a tier into a separate library. if it's seen as even better, move it up again or however many tiers you want to put in there.

on the downloads side of this, all tiers would be available to all end users. you wouldnt even have to make a separate category for the separate tiers on the end users FF. but there would be a visible tier system on the server side. or, at least an option to only see certain tiers depending on the user's wishes.

some filters would never make it out of the bottom tier and that's fine. ok, they're clones or of no use to anyone, but at least the person got to submit it and maybe someone along the way will actually find a use for it or upgrade it.

so, basically, this is a reward system for the quality of filters. once your filter makes it to a certain level, whether by popular use or because an FF person makes it an editor's pick, it then qualifies for a reward point.

so, folks that dont want to waste the time and harddrive space on the bottom tier stuff dont have to, but those that want to look around at the new submissions and what-all, can do so.

as to how you determine what filter moves up and what doesnt, FF is taking the poll of your machine on what you're using and that's good. and you've got X number of downloads on filters, so that's part of it and that part would be enhanced by this system, since some might only pick and choose from the bottom tier but take everything above that. and you've also got the FF team looking at the filters and making choices. so, it's a fairly simple system and rewards the things that are used and the things that are liked and shows this in how the filters move or dont move within the tiers.

and, this might also help FF sort out what filters to actually include with the FF package.

folks that are new still get to submit without feeling guilty that they're spamming the system and the cloner-fonies would just never get moved up because the FF team is looking at the filters and the end users are going to normally see through an obvious rip-off for credit.

but, i do think you need a report abuse system in place also. somewhere one can report obvious rip-offs and such. maybe a separate area of the forums or email or whatever, because they are going to occur.

Strangely enough, even the so-called "crappy/useless" filters do prove useful sometimes. While browsing the library or recent submissions, I often came upon very wild or 'unfinished' stuff that served to educate me on what not to submit or - and here comes the good part - sparked off some interesting ideas. While I like excellent filters as much as everyone else, I still somehow wouldn't want to miss browsing through all the rest.

This is a stupid idea, I know...
But if there was a "stupid filters" category (or something similar), I'd have a few creations that I'd upload to it... (And wouldn't mind seeing other people's versions too...)

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Could be quite entertaining to read 'Your filter has been accepted into the 'Stupid' category' in the next email.

Ha!
Yeah, that would definitely make me smile.

Sounds like some of those "stupid filters" need an education. Here's an idea: EXTREME FILTER MAKEOVER! Where sad textures get a new lease on life and become a lot more useful.

well, there's always going to be a few that just try to blatantly rip off someone else's work so they can get a free copy. we dont like those and they're usually pretty obvious.

there's also 'concurrent inspiration' where two folks post an almost identicle filter at the same time. that does happen. and it happens in other areas of life as well. and in those cases, it's usually the first one to get to the patent or copyright office that wins out. thankfully, the EULA of FF allows for this. so, you get two filters that look and work in a similar fashion. ok, it happens.

there's also the whole borrowing of snippets and component trees. this is also encouraged in the EULA and i think rightfully so. the courteous thing to do is to give credit when you borrow another's snippet/routine.

and there's also going to be, like fluxtah pointed out, similar code blocks, where a certain routine is going to be built by two different folks, independently, simply because that's what works best. this isnt 'borrowing of another's code/routine'; it just happens to be the right way to get a certain effect. that someone else also came up with the same routine is going to happen. well, ok. and i think you just have to go 'great minds think alike' in cases like that and move on.

FF really encourages sharing and i think this is one of its strengths. imagine if CF or uberzev put out something and i suddenly couldnt use any part of it or learn from it. you'd see a lot fewer filters and a lot fewer good filters. so, yes, sometimes toes are going to be stepped on or someone's going to look like they're ripping off someone else's filter, but in the long run, it works.

i've got a filter right now where i borrowed CF's 'color shift'. i've cut it in half since i didnt need the whole, but i'll still give CF credit in my 'about' within the filter. it's just common courtesy.

the bottom line on protection and protecting your filter is, if you dont want it copied, dont submit it. filter submissions are a lot like open source, GNU, GPL licensing; once submitted, they are fair game.