The independents are getting ripped off just as the the big corporations are. But instead of having a broad distribution and repurposing network for their intellectual property, the independent has much more limited resources, and a drop of income in licensing means bills don’t get paid.

The DMCA by itself, doesn’t provide any protection from repeat offender or inequitable reporting mechanisms.

The user of a user account on a network may have files he’s posted pulled from the posted message on the website. There is no recourse if this same user account is used minutes later to repost the files.

There is a specific process used for submitting a DMCA Takedown Notice to a provider. All and good if the same mechanism was used to post/validate the product to begin with.  Let me illustrate why this is inequitable.

A Meshbox artist created a model and texture set that a pirate took and reused portions from in a commercial product sold through the official store of Second Life. Although setting up a sales account is very easy to do, and posting a new model through that venue is something you can do in minutes on the internet; to have the stolen work pulled from the site required an official notice be faxed to Linden Labs. This was done, and the file was promptly removed the same day. However, what recourse is there concerning any sales of this stolen property?  There is no guarantee that the same file won’t be reposted minutes later. That the file was pulled and not challenged under DMCA provisions indicates that Linden Labs at least acknowledges that some wrong doing took place.

What makes this even worse is the collusive nature of internet advertising in this kind of piracy. Here is how it works.

A warez site is set up, and the owner gets a page view/click-through compensation account through an internet advertising company. The site receives heavy traffic, possibly benefiting in page ranking on Google to have the stolen IP appear even higher on Google searches than the original IP owner. The network owner isn’t selling the software, but he’s still making money by providing a venue for the theft to occur. The site owner ends up with a domain property worth something on the domain resale market, and an ongoing revenue stream.

What really gets me is Mike Masnick’s statement:

There is simply no reason for ACTA, at all. It is nothing but an attempt by the entertainment industry to put massive restrictions on the internet, place liability on lots of third parties, and do nothing to push themselves to adapt to a changing marketplace with new business models.

Okay Mike, this is not what I and many independents see going on. I think there are inequities in Big IP. When I bought a VHS tape of a movie years ago,  I didn’t sign on for it to  have a variable end-of-life depending on how cheaply made the tape was. To me, I should be able to enjoy that version of the movie – under a software like IP based EULA – perpetually.  I didn’t buy the Blu-Ray version, or the 20th anniversary version of the movie, both of which would naturally have derived but otherwise new original work in it. And I agree, it should be an enjoyment based license I can use on various devices.

Yes, I agree something needs to be changed there – but the often quoted Shakespeare comes to mind – “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport”.  You’d like to smack down Big IP, but you are entirely overlooking the real independent artist who doesn’t want their intellectual goods stolen freely off of their apple cart.

1. You can include modules inside of a Joomla Content Item

I didn’t think this was possible, but yes, you can include a module within a content item, using the magic of creating your own virtual user positions.

REF: How to include Joomla Modules in a Content Item

2. Change columns on the Front Page module to Single Column

Does the blog style on your front page really mess up your front page? This is easily fixed – through a menu.

REF: How to change column sizes on Joomla FrontPage

3. You can find a well organized wiki of Joomla Tips

Although the new Joomla 1.5 section of the Joomla site is much better, finding answers on the discussion boards can be frustrating – especially when noone is willing to answer your questions.

REF: Joomla Wiki of Useful Tips

4. You Can Remove “Welcome to Front Page”

This is a fast and easy one in Joomla 1.5.x.

• Go to Menus >Main Menu
• Click on Home link to enter Menu Item: Edit.
• From Parameters System and change the Page title.

5. Create an Alter Ego for Handling No Editor HTML Situations

Joomla 1.5 has a visual HTML editor that likes to edit your work – it can strip out vital codes, like PayPal or Amazon information. Get around this by creating a second account and setting your edit preferences to No Editor.

6. Purge Anything with the Word Joomla in it

Unless you are using a custom install of Joomla (some template creators make custom installs with different default content), Joomla installs with many example pages – and many links and meta descriptions that link it back to the Joomla site. It is not quite as bad as Wordpress, but still its annoying to find your site link on Google and its filled with information about Joomla. Do this right after you install.

7. You Can Filter Your News

The mod_latestnews module that displays your most recent news, can be set to only display news that belongs to particular sections and categories. Go to mod_latestnews module parameters and you’ll quickly spot Section ID and Category ID filters.

8. Menus, Not Pages

This is a hard concept to grasp when you are just getting started with a CMS – and how Joomla works. A menu item links to a unique expression of items that look like a page. But really it isnt a page until it renders. When you want something to appear on a particular page, it has to be visible on the menu item. Your cool widget in User3 not appearing? Check to see if its associated with the menu item.

9. Uncategorized can be Bad

Joomla 1.0.X forced you to categorize your articles, which means each article is also part of the Joomla hierarchy: article > category > section. Joomla 1.5.x lets you leave a page as Uncategorized. Because Joomla 1.5 now has a wonderful filtering system for only viewing articles you want, it becomes very easy to overlook your uncategorized articles.

10. Stay Away from Tables in Joomla

A lot of template makers are building very modern templates, and dispensing with tables all together. Yet there are some add-ons, like previous versions of VirtueMart, that hard code tables. Before installing a new add-on or module, ensure that it does not hard code tables into its output. The modern architecture of Joomla supports using divs and spans.

I can accept that people have very little sympathy for very large corporations that derive exceptional, or obscene profits from intellectual property of all kinds (big pharmaceutical, large music labels), but that doesn’t jive with the photographer, musician or small content business that as a result of a lack of paying customers (but plenty of non-paying pirates) have to reduce or fire their creatives staff.

There has been an inverse relationship between the friendliness of a brand and the size of the owning company’s pugilistic legal team when it comes to traditional marketing. Great examples of this are Mattel’s Barbie and anything created or acquired by Disney.

What I find particularly interesting about the SXSW revelation isn’t the tactics that they employ, or that they employ them. It is that some members of the press are either blind to modern marketing methods or just like to play along and smile.

The interface for building characters and comic strips is a very clever, easy to use set of tools that uses Flash – Flash without the pain of having to use Flash the product (vs Flash the player). It lets you resize, flip and make other transformations to your characters.

Toonlet is a lot of fun, and it has tools for sharing your creations with others – on your own website, through feeds and the like.

I would also estimate that a portion of this will get rolled into Microsoft’s XNA game strategy for creating Xbox 360 and PC games.

The 3D graphics market has been in a constant state of vigorous consolidation following the early price wars between Alias Maya and Lightwave and the subsequent acquisition of Alias by AutoDesk – owners of Discreet and 3D Studio MAX.

In the 3D mid-market, recent years has seen the collapse of Eovia and the acquisition of its products by DAZ Productions and e-frontier. The majority of e-frontier America’s products were then acquired by Smith Micro.

This bloodbath will continue.

NOTE: I am not a lawyer; don’t take this as legal advice. I have negotiated many contracts involving intellectual property in the 3D industry.

For all of your User Materials that you post or otherwise submit to the Site, including (a) comments to Communications Venues, (b) feedback, (c) bug reports, (d) piracy reports, (e) product suggestions or (f) gallery submissions, you grant DAZ 3D and the users of this Site an unrestricted, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and fully paid up license under all Intellectual Property Rights to use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, copy, edit, modify, translate, reformat, transmit and distribute such User Materials, with or without having your name attached to such Images, in any manner or form and for any purpose, with full rights to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of distribution, and you also acknowledge and agree that DAZ 3D is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that you provide for any purpose without any compensation to you. You acknowledge and agree that DAZ 3D shall not be liable for any failure to store User Materials on the Site at any time.

Lets start with the governed works: (a) comments to Communications Venues, (b) feedback, (c) bug reports, (d) piracy reports, (e) product suggestions, (f) gallery submissions.

This encompasses just about everything you would submit to any DAZ venue and roughly mirrors what you would find in any agreement with any book publisher or hollywood production or distribution company (provided you aren’t a Rowling or a Lucas!) before you actually meet with them – or something very similar. In short – this is the summation of anything you’d care to share with them through the specific venue. This is very important to understand – the venue. If you use the ArtZone venue – whatever you transmit is subject to these terms. This ensures to the publisher – in this case DAZ – can treat all content other than its own or what is transmitted through another venue, to be governed under the same umbrella agreement.

…an unrestricted, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and fully paid up license under all Intellectual Property Rights to use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, copy, edit, modify, translate, reformat, transmit and distribute such User Materials…

This portion is also understandable. ArtZone is a branded venue, that it turn could be recompiled into future formats. Imagine if ArtZone were considered a single work – like a single edition of a magazine or book in a single language. What these rights granted do is allow ArtZone to be recompiled into various formats that could, in the future, be considered new creative venues. Consider a new version of ArtZone that streams data through a video configuration on an iPhone, which may, at runtime, modify file formats, separate user information onto separate screens. Or, consider the attachment of a translation module that reconfigures the site to automatically appear in a foreign language – foreign translations are typically considered derivative works, but not necessarily in every legal jurisdiction. Without securing these future venue rights, DAZ could find itself required to contact and renegotiate these rights with each individual contributor.

…with or without having your name attached to such Images, in any manner or form and for any purpose, with full rights to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of distribution…

We already covered the name attachment above – a reconfiguration for new devices could result in a break between the work and the contributor, which even if by accident, could in turn be considered a breach of contract.

Sublicensing is tricky, especially with this multiple tiers of distribution clause. DAZ is protecting itself in case it needs to sublicense ArtZone in whole or in part, for it to reach new venues in a clean way. Such a sub license may be necessary if DAZ wanted to have a Chinese partner that wanted run a collective DAZ China/ArtZone China.

…you also acknowledge and agree that DAZ 3D is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that you provide for any purpose without any compensation to you…

The inner artist is screaming – how dare you steal my ideas, DAZ – but this is a necessary protection both for you, as an artist, and for DAZ. When it comes to ideas and processes, there are legal jurisdictions to consider regarding rights. This is simply to avoid any question of ownership under any legal jurisdiction. This is an end-run around messy legal confrontations that could occur that could bring its business down.

If you are in the United States, you are probably already aware of the huge number of frivolous lawsuits that end up crushing the innocent under legal costs -the innocent that are just trying to defend themselves.

So – how does this protect you? Set your expectations about the information you share in any public venue, that your ideas were meant to be shared freely and willfully. If you come up with a technique which is critical to your success as an artist or designer – your secret sauce – don’t share it on ArtZone or any public venue that you do not own yourself.