Hello,

A few months ago a member who was otherwise a lurker entered the one word "Nea" in the shoutbox as though it were a search box.  That was the first time that I noticed dphoadley2.  I sent him a PM asking him what his shoutbox message was about, offering him help locating either NEA or items for herm which ever it was he was looking for.

Then last month he did it again for other models, since the PM was still in my outbox; that second time I sent him the information by email instead.

I noticed nothing more since that time until, until March 19th when he sent me a reply PM to the original PM I sent him on his first shoutbox "search".

Here is the PM he sent me:

Quote:

Dear Pangor;
I'm sorry to have put you out, it was simply a mistake. I was searching as to where I could download NEAena, and mistakenly mistook the shoutbox menue window for a seach window. My prefered Posette is Eve 4.
You youself and the staff her at Posetteforever might like to check out the momodot's thread at the Renderosity Forum:http://www.Renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=2619080
There is a bold new future waiting for Eve 4, and Posetteforever should be a part of it.
Yours truly, David P. Hoadley

This did not feel right, why ask me to post it and not post it himself?  So, I started to look into it, first by reading the thread from the link, I also had chores around the house that day, so that delayed  my "investigation".  WHen finished looking into it, I was going to send Tormie a PM about it.  I was also going to send one to Dphoadley2, I was going to ask him why he "needed" me to post that or any link in the PF forum.  I was going to post it, but here in the staff forum.  But as i returned to PF, I noticed that Thilda had already posted it in the main forums.  It appears that I was too slow for him so he asked Thilda.

Then five days latter, on the 24th of this month he sent me this email:

Quote:

I must appologise, I did indeed mistake the shout box for teh search
box. I've created two new characters in Eve 4, You can find their
strings in the Renderosity Forums, , Links:http://www.Renderosity.com/messages.e

and: http://www.Renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2603639

I'm looking to host these figures in free stuff, and could use some
help. Please contact me at:

Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

On the same day, I sent him this email in reply

Quote:

Hello,

No problem with the shoutbox

About your characters.  That would be fine, if you have them properly
packaged and ready for upload, then you can upload them to
Posetteforever's freestuff.

I skimmed the threads from links you provided.  There are several tutorial
about creating Poser characters as portraits of a person.  Here is one
that I found while seaching for information reguarding skin texturing.
It did not fit with what I was looking for, but it does seem to be close
to what you are looking to learn.

http://www.infinitee-designs.com/Portrait_Tutorial.htm

About creating characters based on real people, it can be tricky.  Not
only from an artistic or technical perspective but also from a legal one.
Consider the problems that resulted when someone created a V3 character to
be a Poser character of Raquel Welch, to solve it the character was
renamed to X1.  Also, the texture was made from photographs of the
actress, it had to be discarded and a new hand painted from scratch
texture had to be created, there were also other problems with the texture
that does not apply here.

In general it is natural to draw inspiration from real people in creating
a character.  Unless you have persmission to do so, it is not wise to name
the character after the person, or feature specific details in the
modeling or texureing that identify the person, or use photos of that
person as a part of the texture maps.  That is why you may find characters
that remind you of a real person, but is not a actual duplicate.  It is
not only because of lack skills or techical abilites that cause an the
inability to create them, it is also for legal safty.

If you have any questions please ask.

I have been looking for Eve 4 and only now discovered that while she was
once a free gift to the 3D CGI community, she is now being sold as a
part of the MorphWorld CD-Rom.  This is a sad development.  Have you
considered using other freely available enhanced Posette models as the
basis of your characters, such as Posette 2003 or Arudino's Eves.

Pangor

This email included my first warning to him.  Latter he discussed and posted images of his "Olga Peter" character.  That character is a Poser character that was made to be a duplicate of a real woman that he thinks has the name "Olga Peter".  The texture is a photoreal made from pictures of her.  Had I read the thread at Rendo better, I would not have had to send him this next email, instead I would have taken other steps to protect PF sooner.

Quote:

Hello,

I see you have posted in the Posetteforever forums an image of your olga
character as a file attachment.  If I am not mistaken it is a photoreal
texture made from images of the lady who you used as a reference source
for your work on that character.  I am assuming that you have a
permission from the model and from the copyright holder of the image or
images that you used in this project.  Be it a merchant resource at
Renerosity, a human photo reference set from another site or some
other such source; please provide me with verifiable proof of such
permission, such as providing me the URL were the resource is sold.

Otherwise, please do not post or upload at Posetteforever any more images
or free stuff/download items of these characters or of the people they are
based on.

This is for your protection as well of the Posetteforever and all of its
members.

Pangor,
Administrator,
Posetteforever

In the mean time I have been trying to verify if the link that he provided for Eve 4 is alright.  He did mention at Rendo that the person who is the webmaster of the site was authorized by Traveler to distribute Eve 4 agian.  I gave him the benefit of the doubt in accepting that he was telling the truth, but still I have been trying to verify his claim.  With no results thus far.  Now I am assuming that the claim was a fabrication.

Following quickly after my last email to him, he posted another picture of Olga as an attachment, this time with both the character and a pictue of the real woman.  He did it yesterday, but I saw it thins morning.  Last night, he also posted a series of pictures of his Stephanie Swift character and of a woman who he based his character on.  Still hoping that the proof of permission that I had requested from him would soon arrive; I even gave him some pointers on improving the character.   

This morning checking my email, I saw that he had uploaded two pictures to our album.  Also that he had not answered my request for proof of permission.  I went the album to see if there was any possiblity that it may have been an accident theat he double uploaded, such as crossing his midnight.  Noticed that he used Olga and others of he real people based character in one of the works so move it to the testing gallery.

About this time, I mentioned some of my concern about him to Thilda during a chat on MSN.

Still bothered by the file attachment images, but willing to wait a little longer, I started reading the new posts.  That is when I saw his complaint about the his postings being deleated, though that maybe he went too far and so they had to be deleted, but found no evidence of any actions having been taken.  So I thought it was time to investigate more about what he is doing.

Returned to the links he provided to the dicussion at Rendo and do some background searches for the name of the ladies he was making Poser characters of.  I found first that Stephanie Swift, the name of one of his characters really is the name of the lady he was using the image for creating that character.  The same was true for his other characters.  In some caskes I found thier home pages and was able to verify their images matched.  Each are actresses in "adult" movies.  Only onw I was not able to verify this way was Olga.

I also found the same information by reading the threads from the links he posted in our forums for threads in Rendo's forums.  At Rendo, I learned that his Olga character was based on another adult movie actress who nobody in that discussion was able to identify.  It is assume by him that her name is Olga Peter, he saw her in a 20 minute adult movie that he downlaod via a peer-to-peer file sharing network.  The images of her that he has been using are screen capture from that movie clip.  So not only did he not have permission to use her name and image, he use images from a source (the movie) that he most likely did not have a right to have access to.

That was enough.  I returned to Posetteforever and started taking the steps needed to protect PF.  Split the message about Olga from the topic that they were attached to, and started editing his messages to remove images, links, and references that violated copyrights and our posted rules.  Did the same to his Stephanie Swift topic.

When I saw that Tormie was on-line I told Tormie what has been happining and what I was doing.  I also asked Tormie about the deleted messages that DPH was complaining about.  Niether of us knew anything about those messages.  If DPH was trying to create a issue about the phantom messages, it became a prophesy of what did happen today.  Tormie and I completed cleaning PF of the material that could be trouble for us.

Once that information was removed and excluding one post by Posy and one be me, both the Olga and the Stephanie topics had nothing left, so I deleted both of them. Other links and references in other topics were also cleaned from the forums.

Had he been awarded on yellow card for each violation, he would have enough for a who;e collection of red cards today.  But I limited it to giving him one yellow card for ignoring the warnings and continuing to post the images.

Now anytime he posts here, his message won't be visible until Tormie or I approve them first.

I deleted  his image from the testing gallery, this time it is not a question of acceptability, it is about copyright violations.

I forgot to mention, I have written to MomCat and Traveler for confirmation of the free distribution of Traveler's Eve 4.

Quote:

Hello,

I am an administrator of Posetteforever.  A new member has posted in our
forums a link to freely download Eve 4.  We were told that you have
authorized MomCat to freely and widely distribute Eve 4.  None of our staff
have seen anything written by you about this.  Were these claims true?

We have removed the link, pending confimation of these claims.

You can contact me at

Thank you.

Pangor
Administrator,
Posetteforever

and to MomCat

Quote:

Hello,

I am an administrator at Posetteforever.  A new member has posted in our
forums, an internal link to your web site to download Traveler's Eve 4. We
were told that Traveler has authorized you to freely and widely distribute
Eve 4.  We have also been told that the internal link to your site that is
not linked to by your site's regular pages is the way that you intended
to distribute Eve 4 to all who desire to have a copy.  It this true?

We have removed the link from our forums, pending confirmation of these
statements.

Thank you.

Pangor
Administrator,
Posetteforever

  as you can see from the closings, I wrote them in my offical sounding voice.  

Waiting on reply from both of them.

Thank you pangor. In my humble opinion is not to be bad or good with an user, the problem is that we can't continue to come to the site and check persistently the posts of him. Everyone of us have his or her own life and can't dedicate a lot of time on "patrolling".

As I already said about it in the thread, as long as Eve 4 is a part of a commercial product , the link to the file is obviously considered illegal, it's the same if I find a link to download Microsoft Windows XP and write it here saying that I find it for free, there's no differences. I don't mention the "moral" part of the matter but we could face big problems   ...

Another strange thing, as mentioned by pangor, was to ask to a staff member to post a link to a discussion outside Posetteforever. dphoadley2 has clearly the capacity to do it himself, if he asked it he asked it for some kind of obscure reason, my opinion is that in that thread there were violation of our TOS but as I said a link outside PF is not a smart way to avoid our rules. I don't have the link aforementioned here but I'll write it later in this thread (when I'll find where I put it   )

I said in another thread in this forum that we are facing the usual "porn lover". We talked about the topic a lot of times   . I'm not a prude, but when I want to see a porn thing or a pornstar I go in one of the gazillions site on the net not on Disney, we discussed about it in a hard (...) way when we faced the "borgs" and I think that we find a nice, common solution.

However, after pangor talked me about the problem my personal steps where to put him in "approval" status. it means that his posts has to be approved by the webmaster before posting and I'll keep him in this status for a period of time checking his behaviour. When he'll post a message the PF system  send me a PM (I think Posy   do the job)and ask to watch the post for approval. I don't know if it send a copy to the other admins too, I think that it simply sends it to the user number 2 (the webmaster), so I'll have to do the job     .

Last consideration: we're a group of people that "works" in this site in their free time, we earn nothing from it but we give a lot to it so it can't be asked to us to spend a lot of time on checking this kind of things, expecially when a user got offended because of a warning or when he or she don't accept our TOS and search a way to avoid them (for example opening a discussion on another place and linking it here).

I would know your opinions friends. I think that dphoadley2 will leave the site soon because he can't find here what he is searching.

This is the PM I sent him yesterday, I've to go now, talk later.

--------------------------------------------------
Hi

Dphoadley2, you're acting here in a way that we don't think we can stand.
You wrote a link to download illegally a product that it's sold as a
commercial package then you posted picture of characters which textures were
made of real people without asking for their permission. These people were
pornstars.

We simply think that you have not accepted our simple rules and so you're
trying the limit of the site. If you're doing it you'll find that it will be
very easy to reach it. We're an open community but we'll close as an oyster
if we're attacked. You can see that we are not selling anything here so it's
not a problem or a loss of money.

You're not the first, you'll be not the last, we're tempered from this kind
of situations, so you're warned.

Regards


and here is his reply

Dear Sir:
I am sorry, but I have absolutely no idea of what you're referring to. What commercial product? Eve 4. The momcat link is authorized by Traveler to dispense the figure freely among the public. If you wish I can show you momcat's communique' t that effect.
As far as the faces are concerned, I've seen Dorks styled after leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock -Star Trek), Micheal 3's styled after Alan Blackman (Snape -Harry Potter), and at present there is a Posette figure in 'rosity's freestuff stylized after Melanie Sirtis (Deanna Troi -Star Trek); so in all due respect, I was acting in the good faith that such behavior is not only acceptable, but laudable for its artistic aspect.
I would appologise, but I truly fail to see where I have done anything wrong.
I remain, respectfully yours
David P. Hoadley
--------------------------------------------------------

So friends, what is your opinion ? Give him another chances or not? However he has already another another chance, we'll wait and see...

Have a nice day  

____________

Well I think something has gotten a little screwed up in the e-mail department. I agree  as far as the charaters are concerned, if they can build them in fun I don't know where we fit in as Police running down all those who make these. When you make a picture of a likeness then it is showing that you can come up with the knowledge to do it. It's a form of flattery. No reply with Traveler so we don't know if what he is saying is true. You just can't say it isn't as well. The only thing I can see is copy rights with the Eve 4. But he posted it out here and again we are not responseble for him posting it. Thats where we are free. If Tormie posted it and it was his site then yes there would be some legal things happening here. So in all we may have gotten rid of an enemy or ran of a friend as well. Here we go again.

On the issue of permissons, i would just like to say that the 2 latest items that i have uploaded to free stuff here contain skintextures based on photos. I have permission of the owner of the photos to redistribute them as textures. Just so you know that they are safe to use. His name is in the readmes.

Quote:

But he posted it out here and again we are not responseble for him posting it

Hi Kenny,
I doubt that nothing will happen to Posetteforever if someones posts links to copyrighted material in the forum. Obvioulsy I'm not responsible for the personal opinions of the users, but I become responsible if I don't stop them when they do something illegal.

You can't see the link to eve 4 posted here because I deleted it and obviously I'm not responsible (and I don't care about it) for what he write out of here.

"Here we go again", you're right my friend, it's all the same every time: what an user can do and what he or she can't. Everyone of us has his or her own opinion, and this is why we've this place.

About his reply, it's not true that posting a file with a morph of known actor or person is ok, the "escamotage" usually is to call it "it looks like..." or with a name that remembers the actor, or maybe with the name of a character of one of his or her movies. I can call a "Leonard Nimoy" morph "Kirk" but not "Nimoy" or I think, nor "Leonard" in order to not have problems.

Thanks Thilda, it's "legally" enough for me to have clearly written in the readme's of the files that you've the permission of the "owner" of the skin to use it for your creation.

However if one of the member has a doubt about it, there is nothing wrong to ask the author, like pangor did with dphoadley2. At last he is not a well known user.

In this case I want to know your opinions.
About the pictures he posted and that were not approved we'll wait for pangor (he is sleeping).

However I prefer to put all those things in "suspended" status and debate the matter here before start any kind of action, probably I already made something wrong, so we'll write a "memorandum" or "what to do" when someone has "doubts" about a post, a file, a picture or an user

This things when they happen are troubolesome, and we spend a lot of time in debating, editing, clearing, warning etc. when we could use this time for fun. Actually I have a free day and I've already spent 3 hours on this thing when I could work on my picture or prepare the site for the anniversary that was what I planned to do today, now I've to go to the mall and soon the sun will set and I will spend another day in useless things

____________

Davide is right! He did what he had to do. This kind of things happens in any forum and most the webmasters what I know do the same thing!

About the pics I also agree that is better wait for Pangor!

And Davide sorry about your time loss! I   your pics and hope to see a new one soon!

____________
Here we go!

in the rules we have:

Quote:

Posetteforever takes no responsibility for the content of any of the messages and pictures posted in the forums/album or of the authenticity of its authors. All opinions and views expressed in the forums are solely those of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of Posetteforever or its representatives.

This statement and other like it are in the rules and TOS of most forums and even the old BBS systems from before the growth of the internet.  But it is not as binding as it sounds.  It will protect us in the case of an argument between two members.  It will not protect Posetteforever or any of us from in the case of illegal activity by any of our members or guests when they post that information (including images) at Posetteforever.

If it were an serious enough issue or could be made to seem to be to the public; as the activities of dph here thus far and what is has stated that he wishes to do can be so made to look.  If those activities were permitted to continue, Davide could expect a knock on the door by people with no humor.  The site could be shutdown and the data, and other materials taken and find himself as a defendant in court.  And who knows how many of us too could expect that knock on the door.  In a situation like that, even if Davide wins in court.  PF would have been lost, reputations ruined, and who know what else.

Why did so few BBS system fail to survive the transition to the internet?  One of the reasons is the issues like this.  The danger of leaving images that violate the copyright laws on-line here is that even if it is stored in the closed to the general public testing gallery, it is here.  While we are reviewing it and debating the fate of the image, a search could be performed by law enforcement officals (at the host site) and when the image is found the knocks on the door would soon follow.

What could alert them to doing the search in the first place?  A tip by a disgruntled member who is offering "state evidence" and so is protected, even if he is the one who uploaded the picture.  Has this ever happened?  Many times, I remember a number of BBS systems lost this way and their sysops doing time in jail for having such material on their board.  Even when the material was in the invisible unchecked uploads category and it was uploaded that very day by the person who reported its existence on the BBS.

Preventing that possibility from happening once again and this time to Posetteforever, Davide, and us; is what I meant by taking actions to protect this site.  I would have referred to handle those pictures using the method that we worked out for questionable picture.  But for safety, they had to go, and go quickly.

The two deleted images contained copyright law violations.

One picture was by contained some of his Poser characters and textures created from real people and using their names, without their permission or the permission of the copyright holder of the source images.  One of these was his Olga character, who was made, including her texture maps, from the direct images that as he has said publicly that he acquired of her via illegally.

The other picture was uploaded as an intended slap in the face to us.  It was also another copyright law violation.  It was a rendered picture of a planet with other planets in the background and a cloudy starfield behind that. It showed a level of skill that did not agree with his other works.  So what? People have different styles etc.  The problem was that it was not his picture, it was a picture that I first saw as a book cover in the late 1980s.  Latter I saw the same picture as a computer graphic, it was a promotional image for ether Vivid (or was it for VanceRay?) both are now forgotten raytracers.  Either way, it is an image that I saw at that time signed by the artist with her copyright.  This copy was cropped to exclude that information.  He placed it in the Model Beauty of the Week Gallery and titled it "Not Nude Vickie In A Temple With A Sword."

If this was not the same picture, it certainly was a perfect imitation, and considering DPH's other problems with respecting copyright laws, I thought it was best to protect Posetteforever by deleting the image right away.

Now off I go to find those deleted links.

Oh, one more thing.

The software does sent to approval notices of DPH's forum posting to the admins also.  I got three of them last night.  In each of them he was extending the argument of his private reply to Tormie into the forums.

Here are the forum links:
http://www.Renderosity.com/messages...Message=2601494
http://www.Renderosity.com/messages...Message=2603639
http://www.Renderosity.com/messages...Message=2619080

This has been a rapidly escalating development.  With the anniversary date approaching I've noticed many more users on-line here.  With this many eyes, I believe the actions taken are very prudent.  

I haven't been watching quite as close as I could have been, trying to get my own project done, but should have picked up on the post about EVE 4 saying something like "get it while you can", and then going to an ftp like directory instead of a normal web page.  Luckily, I haven't installed the files, and shall delete them after I get off-line.

Will try to help keep a closer eye on things over the next few days, mostly evenings as I am working 12 hr days till Saturday.

____________
Too many projects, too little time.

Thank you friends. We're a lot in the staff , for example now here is morning and there is night we can be cheated only for a short period of time. However all that an user can do is to mess up the forum with posts and pictures but they can easily edited or deleted later. The problem, obviously, is that we can't spend so much time in this kind of activity. The site has been hacked for some hours in the past but I think that today we're almost safe because after that episode we enforced the security.

____________