Need help catching mesh/texture thief(s)

jadin · Jan 2011

Hello everyone. I was told that there are some 3D developers from published games that frequent these forums and I'm hoping to get in touch with some of them in particular, but any help at all that I can get would be appreciated in catching one big thief, but also others that I come across, and hopefully also find a person that might be supplying people with stolen materials.

I'm a 3rd party developer on IMVU, I primarily stick to creating clothing meshes, you all probably know about this but recently I've come to find that there are programs that people can use to rip meshes and textures from video games and programs. Most of the time thieves on IMVU steal from other IMVU developers and we just have to tell each other and file our own reports, but....

2 weeks ago I stumbled upon a person's catalog with over 1,100 textured meshes, at least 75% of which are ripped from video games such as Lineage II, Aion, Shaiya, TERA online, Jade Dynasty, Land of Chaos, Soul of the Ultimate Nation and many many others, primarily online games.

This person has been making a significant amount of money claiming these as his own works and in spite of the fact that I have contacted some of the game publishers and some of them have taken action to remove things from this person's catalog, he still continues to publish more stolen material ever week.

Over 400 stolen meshes/textures have been removed so far, I've reported some myself that I can recognize but since they are from so many different games (and for some reason it's really hard to find places with screenshots of all armor and/or monsters in a game), I'm stuck now for IDing any more of the items in this person's catalog.

So what I'm looking for is...

1. If there is any way of contacting the actual developers of the games rather than the producers since I'm sure the developers who made the materials would care more and be better and identifying their own stolen works.

2. If any of you have time to look at this person's catalog and let me know if you can tell me the specific game that any of the items are stolen from and if possible, point me to a screenshot somewhere.

3. Is there a good place/places to find catalogs of detailed images of armor and creatures from games to make my searching easier? I've spent the most part of 5 days over the last 2 weeks searching for sources and it's all so scattered. I'm still finding things from Lineage II that neither NCsoft nor I had caught earlier.

Link to the thief's catalog:
http://www.imvu.com/shop/web_search.php?manufacturers_id=3025777

The developer's name is i2omance and here are 2 examples of the stolen meshes that have already been disabled: http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l303/i2omance/lamia_pr.jpg from Aion, a picture can be found here: http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/996/996938/aion-tower-of-eternity-20090622061158901.jpg

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l303/i2omance/majestic_pr.jpg from Shaiya, a screenshot from the game can be found here: http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff246/Senuma/Shaiya06.jpg

And one from Jade Dynasty that has not been disabled yet but probably soon will be: http://www.imvu.com/shop/product.php?products_id=7797911 http://zhuxian.wanmei.com/resources/jpg/090905/41252129500579.jpg posted on this forum: http://jd-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=211211&page=8

Honestly I can't believe how many people so far really haven't cared and think I should mind my own business. (mostly gamers) I mean, I know how much time and work goes in to these things and I would definitely take serious offense to someone stealing my materials, claiming them as their own and making money off of it. I really hope some people here care enough to help.

My concern is for the original creators, but also for myself and other developers on IMVU since people like this take sales away from us as well.

jadin · Jan 2011

Just wanted to give this a little bump since it was waiting for approval for 2 days so it was on page 2 by the time it was visible.

xvampire · Jan 2011

wait a sec,
why this guy have not banned or blacklisted after having so many stolen material?
no need to point out all 1000 material, 400 is more than enough

Ride · Jan 2011

Wow, what a douche.
Couldn't someone take legal actions against this guy since he's ripping models and textures straight from games?

Yozora · Jan 2011

Yea that is odd. You don't need help "catching" this thief, he is a "known" criminal with 400 previous offences, I'm surprised you either haven't contacted IMVU about it or they haven't banned him already.

And of course gamers don't care. They want someone to bring in models of their favourite games into IMVU. They probably see the thief as some kind of robin hood.

If the only thing you can do is to identify each and every piece and it's source instead of actually getting rid of the guy, then you don't stand a chance in winning and it will just go on forever. Plus it's a stupid way to deal with the problem.
This reminds me of them boss battles where they continuously throw minions at you and you're just killing the minions and not touching the boss

Steve Schulze · Jan 2011

You have proof that the guy is selling pirated items which is illegal for a start, but also, looking through the terms of use, a violation of the EULA for the software. There's a bunch of pages, email addresses such like set up for just this sort of situation. Just contact the administration and get the guy black banned.

oXYnary · Jan 2011

If IMVU continues to allow this person to sell even with that many confirmed thefts. I would think a developer could contact IMVU with a legal warning of action against IMVU itself for not banning such users after confirmed cases of theft.

That would seem to be the only way to stop these types.

kat · Jan 2011

oXYnary wrote: »

If IMVU continues to allow this person to sell even with that many confirmed thefts. I would think a developer could contact IMVU with a legal warning of action against IMVU itself for not banning such users after confirmed cases of theft.

That would seem to be the only way to stop these types.

It doesn't work like that unfortunately. According to IMVU the only person that has any 'legal' right to say anything are the original owners of the work in question.. users can 'flag' material to bring it to the attention of IMVU staff, but they can't remove it unless they have 'proof' of origination/authorship - otherwise it leads to something called "grief flagging" where users with grudges flags other peoples work for no reason. It's a bit of a catch 22, we can only 'suspect'.

The irony is that jadin would be more likely to be banned for posting these types of 'accusations' on IMVU than the original 'thief' stealing work. IMVU is and has a notoriously poor track record when it comes to 'artists rights' sadly.

@ jadin: have you tried contacting *publishers* of the games, it may be easier to do that and they're typically more aggressive with enforcement. Greets jazzKat

eld · Jan 2011

Since IMVU probably takes a part of the profit from things sold, they aren't very eager to stop these things unless told by owners.

They've pushed it too far, this can only go down in...

polycount style.

eld · Jan 2011

hehe:

thats Really excuse my language crappy you do awesome work and i dont think they should do that to you i hope you are fighting this my Friend you do awesome work and you worked hard on those and i belieive you should keep them and they should tell you how you are infringing on the items when you are making them well i hope you fight this and keep up the great work be well my friend and fight them on this ~ Viperian ~

Greetings my Friend i was wondering what happend to alot of the bundles you had like the inferno lord or the rf bundle ive noticed they are gone what happend to them and are you bringing them back i hope so i was going to buy them for some of my soldiers please respond back thank you

Dear !2omance, I was in the middle of purchasing your Legend DK outfit when it dissapeared from your list, i was wondering if it was for a certain client of yours or something? Sincerely, NeroMagnusTheos

Greetings my Friend i was wondering what happend to alot of the bundles you had like the inferno lord or the rf bundle ive noticed they are gone what happend to them and are you bringing them back i hope so i was going to buy them for some of my soldiers please respond back thank you

kat · Jan 2011

That's where it gets interesting. They haven't, not directly. That's one of the main reasons virtual worlds use a token based currency systems which have absolutely no monetary value (despite being 'exchanged' for real money of 'X' value). It means they don't directly 'earn' anything through the general use of them within the system. Not to mention the T&C basically say "***k you". They're pretty much protected under something that's not to dissimilar to the safe-harbor laws that govern (and protect) ISPs. In fact.. if *you* do anything to interrupt service you'll be hearing from them!

Steve Schulze · Jan 2011

Hrm.

Copyright and Trademark Infringements

Only the intellectual property rights owner or the owner's authorized agent is permitted to report potentially infringing materials through IMVU's reporting system set forth below. If you are not the intellectual property rights owner or the owner's authorized agent, you should contact the intellectual property rights owner and they can choose whether to use the procedures set forth in these Terms.

Notification: IMVU respects the intellectual property rights of others, and we require you to do the same when interfacing with the Site or Products.

Submissions and unauthorized use of any Materials or Third Party Content contained on this Site may violate applicable laws and regulations. You agree to indemnify and hold IMVU and its officers, directors, employees, affiliates, agents, licensors, and business partners harmless from and against any and all costs, damages, liabilities, and expenses (including attorneys' fees and costs of defense) IMVU or any other indemnified party suffers in relation to, arising from, or for the purpose of avoiding, any claim or demand from a third party that your use of this Site or the use of this Site by any person using your user name and/or password (including without limitation, your participation in the posting areas or, your Submissions) violates any applicable law or regulation, or the copyrights, trademark rights or other rights of any third party.

IMVU may, in appropriate circumstances and at our discretion, terminate service and/or access to this Site for users who infringe the intellectual property rights of others.

It's all a bit dodgy, particularly if they haven't banned this user already despite the fact that they're aware he's sold copyright material in the past. I wonder if any of this "it's not our fault if someone is selling illegal items" thing would actually hold up in court. I suppose it's the same kind of deal as with Napster and its ilk. So "no" is probably the answer to that question.

kat · Jan 2011

Yah, although the community recognises that it's a de-facto "unconscionable contract", it's too fragmented to do anything about it. IMVU learned from Linden Labs (Second Life) mistakes on that one and how they deal with their userbase.

jadin · Jan 2011

Yeah, this is what I really can't understand.... why this person hasn't been disabled yet.

When I first contacted IMVU about the problem, citing that there were hundreds of stolen items and attaching pics and links, they told me to file a DMCA, so I contacted some game publishers and filed some my own. I thought after a few dozen or at the very least after NCsoft filed some DMCAs themselves, they'd disable the guy and his items, but nope... he's still there... so I kept reporting.

IMVU rarely bans people even for multiple serious offenses. Doesn't make sense to anyone.

Maybe now that he's had so many hundred items disabled I can try writing again and see if they will disable the whole account... so I'll try again.

He's a 22 year old guy from Thailand. Probably depends on the income by now which is why he keeps submitting new items even after having so many removed. I know by experience that it takes a while to build up a catalog enough to start getting consistent sales and be profitable and he's been stealing for as long as I've been meshing.

He may try to start a new account if that one gets banned, but it takes a while to start building up income that way if your products are fantasy, as opposed to people who post items that are illegal in IMVU like ejaculating penises and actual sex acts, which make a lot of money very quickly before they get caught and removed. But by then the person submitting has sold his credits and made his profit.

But still doesn't solve the problem of, if he was buying the meshes rather than ripping them himself, I hear there are so many of them now that I don't stand to make much of a difference but I'm going to try anyway. On my other computer though as I'm sure I'll end up with some viruses lol.

jadin · Jan 2011

LMAO Eld, I know, isn't it great? hehe
I have a guest account in his group and to check his homepage for new items and Im' really surprised that everyone seems to think this guy is legit and extremely talented. No one mentions the huge skill jump from his mediocre original items that he actually made himself, to the high quality products he started stealing.

really the items, while they are high quality in shape and texture, when you wear them in IMVU's client since the meshes have to be re-rigged to work with IMVU's skeleton and clearly the guy is no good at rigging because many of the meshes distort rather badly, plus he never edits the meshes to match up well with other IMVU items, so there are a lot of empty gaps.

Also funny that he has a requests thread, yet never actually fills any of the requests since he can't make anything on his own hehe. He claims that he'll only do things that he thinks will make a lot of money.

Xenobond · Jan 2011

Uhh, WoW.

http://www.imvu.com/shop/product.php?products_id=4075722
from
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/june/argent_alliance_deathknight.jpg

D4V1DC · Jan 2011

Not sure but hmm maybe?

MySpace before he deleted It because he would probably get caught.
photobucket with all the material laid out

So yea this sucks to hear, It seems to be a never ending battle with people like this & It seems from every angle artists are getting f-ked, even though they already got paid and It's the companies material now It still would suck to see anything I've created ripped from a game. Anyone see there work in that photobucket?

Shogun3d · Jan 2011

pathetic...

Couldn't you expose him on the IMVU boards?

greevar · Jan 2011

It's difficult to deal with this problem because it's hard to prove when someone has violated your copyrights. An IP address (which is dynamic in most cases) linked to your ISP account and some infringing content associated to it are not really sound and reliable evidence that you committed infringement. In this case, there is a catalog of infringing content posted at a single host that is only accessible to the account holder (and anyone that might hack into the account). So it gives probable cause to the rights holders to file an infringement claim. If IMVU doesn't investigate the issue and allows this user to continue after the claimant has provided clear evidence of the user's infringement, they can lose their safe harbors protection and be held liable for the user's actions. This is assuming that all of this is happening in the US's jurisdiction.

I'd suggest that you keep informing the rights holders to the infringement and hopefully one of them will take action that would get this guy banned.

kat · Jan 2011

kaburan wrote: »

pathetic...

Couldn't you expose him on the IMVU boards?

You could, but you'd get banned for doing so.

Lazerus Reborn · Jan 2011

Some people need to be cock slapped repeatedly for retardedness. I really dislike leeches like this. Bleh ;E

Racer445 · Jan 2011

when dealing with these social gaming type deals (imvu, second life) i found that the only way to actually get infringing content removed is to be the original copyright holder and file a formal DMCA takedown request, otherwise they will do absolutely nothing. me and some friends have had tons of content stolen from us and posted on second life, and even with formal complaints we only got a couple things removed and ended up just giving up after a while.

nooby game development forums (fourms dedicated to super fps maker 2000 or whatever) are even worse. someone stole some of my work and put an ugly camo overlay on it, then the admins would not remove it because it was "clearly different." go figure.

Bigjohn · Jan 2011

Racer445 wrote: »

when dealing with these social gaming type deals (imvu, second life) i found that the only way to actually get infringing content removed is to be the original copyright holder and file a formal DMCA takedown request, otherwise they will do absolutely nothing. me and some friends have had tons of content stolen from us and posted on second life, and even with formal complaints we only got a couple things removed and ended up just giving up after a while.

nooby game development forums (fourms dedicated to super fps maker 2000 or whatever) are even worse. someone stole some of my work and put an ugly camo overlay on it, then the admins would not remove it because it was "clearly different." go figure.

Did they rip the models from a game?

D4V1DC · Jan 2011

kaburan wrote: »

pathetic...

Couldn't you expose him on the IMVU boards?

no im not a member there and the thread starter can do the rest if that was directed to me. Plus what kat said.

jadin · Jan 2011

XenoBond thanks! Another I can add to the list.

Yes BigJohn, they are ripped from multiple games.

I really thought this armor set looked like it was from WoW as well, but if it is, I hadn't seen any screenshots of it when I looked http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l303/i2omance/divine_pr.jpg

Finally found that this one http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l303/i2omance/elven_lord_pr.jpg is yet another Lineage II rip.... http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/37005?size=_original

I think when NCsoft representative submitted their DMCA, they either thought the dev would get disabled after they just reported a few, or the person submitting the DMCA wasn't familiar with that many of the game meshes.

Yozora · Jan 2011

It's not worth your (and everyone else's) time and effort to track down every piece of theft... You can use that time to do far more productive things.

I take my boss-analogy back. You aren't killing the minions of the boss, you are killing the minion's minions

And the boss is invincible! It's a broken game, go play another one

eld · Jan 2011

What pains me the most is that there probably is some proper artist on there, who actually works on his own stuff to sell there, but gets drowned away by stolen things.

Gmanx · Jan 2011

This kind of thing really pi55es me off. The only way (I can see) to directly affect a change is to sell the same sh1t as cheap as possible and kill the douch-bag's sales. Which is a totally stupid idea.

Xenobond · Jan 2011

Another one, this time from Unreal Tournament.

http://utunlimited.beyondunreal.com/wp-content/gallery/mr-crow-harlequin/mr-crow.jpg

jadin · Jan 2011

Thanks again Xenobond!

I also know about this armor set on the right from Atlantica: http://images.mmosite.com/photo/2008/06/26/atlanticas12_a14W0162q83.jpg

I can't help it.... I have a rather obsessive personality so I can't help being persistent. I think getting 400+ items removed from his catalog has gone a pretty good way to hurting him at least ^_^ I also contacted the person he sold his credits to, but I don't know if they will continue to buy his credits or not in spite of the knowledge.

xvampire · Feb 2011

after i check what imvu is,
im pretty hopeless.

hahhaha

jadin · Feb 2011

Oh happy day!

NCsoft is actually still filing DMCAs hehe. They emailed me back again saying that it's taking longer than they thought to gather the proof to send. So at least one other person is doing something.

Decided to write a few more publishers today too. *crosses fingers*

haikai · Feb 2011

jadin wrote: »

Oh happy day!

NCsoft is actually still filing DMCAs hehe. They emailed me back again saying that it's taking longer than they thought to gather the proof to send. So at least one other person is doing something.

Decided to write a few more publishers today too. *crosses fingers*

Good news. I don't really know what this IMVU stuff is all about, but it's terrible that the people in charge aren't even trying to regulate or protect content, especially if user generated content is supposed to be a big part of their business.

dennichristianthegreate · Feb 2011

if you already have an iPad then that sorts it all , no need of anything else. is it just me who thought iPad was a hilarious sounding name for a product when it was released? hint: femininePeace

Shinobubu · Feb 2011

Yep I used to do some developement in IMVU and I noticed all of i2romance's work and most of them are just resource rips from games. I knew this day would come. Time to watch the fireworks as I wave my finger at the people who made him profitable.

also DMCA process is a 7-14 day process it is a federal regulated time. so yes this will be interesting to see. I've had a few of my Meshes stolen before and I tell ya. They don't disable/ban art theives anymore.

Also IMVU does not make money from Product Sales.. Developers are just credit sinks. They make direct profits from credit purchases.

Shinobubu · Feb 2011

His new IMVU account is called Playhound
Posting mostly the Final Fantasy stuff.

http://www.imvu.com/shop/web_search.php?manufacturers_id=68239947

It appears he started commissioning 3D artists to do his meshes. Using the profits he made from ripping games.

jadin · Feb 2011

Ug thanks Shinobubu, a friend of mine pointed out Playhound the other day.

I notified NCsoft about the wings that were ripped from Aion and they said they were on it. Hair from Kingdom Hearts, etc. etc.

*sigh* It saddens me greatly though that now that he's amassed a lot of money from his ill-gotten gains he can use it to hire people to do legitimate work for him.

Made this page for better comparison http://antiarttheft.freewebspace.com/index.html

It really kills me just how many people think it's ok to steal like this and bash people that get angry about theft. After seeing that page, I really don't think anyone can deny that the meshes are ripped. It's damn near impossible to replicate things that exactly.

There has been a lot of success in dealing with this matter though that I can't mention even here right now

jadin · Feb 2011

Oh, also, do you know where he is commissioning out of curiosity?

Steve Schulze · Feb 2011

Sounds like IMVU needs to get sued. If you run with that Unreal Tournament character, I can't imagine Activision would have any qualms about it stomping in and raising hell.

almighty_gir · Feb 2011

wait... i could make money selling shitty skins on IMVU?

acarr · Feb 2011

Is this real money, or funny money?

jadin · Feb 2011

Hell yeah, I'd like to see at least one good suing to see them get more serious about their policies, not just copyright ones either.

Yep, real money, but it takes quite a while to build up enough work and clientele to really see gains. Takes most people about year of putting a lot of hours into it to see any decent income.

The system runs on credits, customers buy credits, either at full price from IMVU, or there are resellers that buy credits from developers and sell them to customers at about half the price that IMVU sells them. These resellers have to be approved by IMVU or they get taken down. Heh, that's one thing that they are actually pretty good about keeping track of.

So developers depend on these resellers to turn their credits into real money.

I doubt that really bad skins would make much money on IMVU though because there are some pretty damn good ones on there now lol. One person in particular practically has the skin market cornered at the moment.

The resellers were notified and most of them replied saying they would no longer do business with this thief.

Shinobubu · Feb 2011

Most likely he commissions them from some chinese workshop. It is very very hard to get that kind of information. However he has told his "fans" in his group that he has stopped stealing meshes to avoid DMCA take downs. Though one thing to remember about Copyright is. Regardless if its stolen mesh or not if the products he has resembles that of a copyrighted Intellectual Property you can still SUE.

jadin · Feb 2011

damn I wish someone would sue.

Still REALLY kills me how man people think it's ok to steal and make money off it like that. You know, it makes me want to find that program, rip the products from the people that are condoning theft and advertise the hell out of it and try to make more money off their products than they are making.

But then I'd be joining the amoral generation that I complain so much about.

Skamberin · Feb 2011

Wow, what a cunt, hope his arms get crippled.

NoctyQ · Feb 2011

This kind of stuff gets me so fucking irritated.

Shinobubu · Feb 2011

Good news his profile has been locked down and his catalog has been inaccessible. However I will stay vigilant. These idiots have a tendency of popping up with more stolen crap.

jadin · Feb 2011

Unfortunately a friend of mine had written to an IMVU employee asking about it and it's confirmed he's only on a temp ban.

I'm pretty sure it's because he had submitted a Pedobear mesh lol. Looks like someone had reported it to Photobucket and IMVU both. Saw that the photobucket picture had been removed for violation of tos, never got to see the picture though. Even though Pedobear is an internet joke, I guess it's still a big no-no.

I just hope this temp ban doesn't interfere with the gaming companies' investigation and reports ....

Shinobubu · Feb 2011

jadin wrote: »

Unfortunately a friend of mine had written to an IMVU employee asking about it and it's confirmed he's only on a temp ban.

I'm pretty sure it's because he had submitted a Pedobear mesh lol. Looks like someone had reported it to Photobucket and IMVU both. Saw that the photobucket picture had been removed for violation of tos, never got to see the picture though. Even though Pedobear is an internet joke, I guess it's still a big no-no.

I just hope this temp ban doesn't interfere with the gaming companies' investigation and reports ....

I know I flagged his Pedobear suit.

Of course not as long as we have a hold of every product PID's in there we can still have them removed. Though I recently realized that sometimes IMVU glosses over DMCA request, missing some of the items you have listed. It is frustrating but gaming company lawyers have more legal power to exercise than any of us. Keep up the pressure. I would actually like to see NCSoft sue IMVU for damages. :> I would ask this IMVU employee why a known mesh thief and copyright violator is not permanently Banned. That in itself IS a violation of the T.O.S.

If they don't ban him after all this knowledge IMVU is liable regardless of what the TOS says. They are perpetuating theft.

oh and I shall deliver thee a screen shot of my Cover Flow history thanks to Safari.

Autocon · Feb 2011

sounds like a great time to rouse the polycount art theft pitchfork mob once more!

but seriously this is really crappy to hear

jadin · Feb 2011

lol, thanks both for sharing the pic and for all the help.

STILL no idea as to why he hasn't received a permanent ban yet.... It makes no sense at all. A few hundred offenses definitely warrant a perm ban.

Need help catching mesh/texture thief(s)

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