Thursday, April 25, 2013

Update about Flecha Warwillow

Hello peeps,

After a long talk with Flecha Warillow, I will state this:

I have absolutely NO worries about 'losing' face by a possible error. Instead of using the word 'ripped' I should have marked them as "almost exact, sculpted copies" from the PC game called Skyrim. I hereby apology for that and the error in the post has been corrected.

I will post the pictures of the weapons and let people decide if I lied knowingly, which more than certainly was not my intention, or merely let my eyes judge.

Here is a picture of his current sculpted weapon (a freebie called "The Lies of the Blogging Elf" hehe), no credits given, however the original modder from Nexusmods allows the unlimited use of these:

Flechas Weapon

This is the original:


http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3871

Here Flecha shows how he does it:


Flecha's Video about making the sword.

This is one of the weapons from the pack that made me post this, maybe too quickly:

Daedric Battleaxe

Original:

Daedric Battleaxe, Skyrim


I will let you guys decide if my post was purposefully meant to be malicious or just me being too superficial in my investigations.

Here a statement from Flecha Warwillow himself (note that sharing IMs outside of Secondlife is absolutely allowed as per TOS, also note that Flecha is not a native speaker and likely slightly raging, so don't mind his mistakes):

[04:43] Flecha Warwillow: i dont altering textures
[04:43] Flecha Warwillow: I MAKE MY OWN TEXTURES
[04:44] Flecha Warwillow: i see te original so i need to build as close as original

<3 Arica

PS: I really hate when people state that I do not approve comment son my blog. I approve them all. I just happen to have a rl, too.

Yeahright

39 comments:

  1. Are you going to continue with the lies?
    I demonstrated in the video do not rip anything. I build, basing on a photo in effect, like everyone else, but I and textures built up myself trying to as closely as possible. Helps you understand the fuss because that someone reads this blog (14 followers on Facebook not many) and that I could see you use my sculpts in other photos (curious, not going to be ripped too) but your eagerness to launch Lies prove you are letting wrong. As I said I can show who I want when I want and whatever I ask without ripping or export anything. luck and uses the pull of visits I have given you today.

    Ah indeed I am not native speaker, but copy and paste conversations from im without permission and publish IMs is ILLEGAL and can be grounds to report and ban.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are you serious? Read closely. I apologies for the wording I used and accusing you of rippign the models straight of the game. I simply show the pictures that made me think so.

    And no, copy/pasting IMs from SL is only illegal if you do so ingame or on the Secondlife forums, which I do not do. I quite simply posted your statement about making your textures yourself. Nothing wrong with that at all to support YOUR point.

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  3. Im read it in my mobile phone. I read wrong (im not english native as you say). I see now the post. Other day if you want i can show you how i make the textures and teach you to use it. Sorry for my confussion, it's a mistake reading. Sorry.

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  4. Should get one of those oooold phones that I use. :P NO danger of misreading stuff there because they have no internet. :P

    All good!

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  5. pufff I think your advice is good. The phone and now I'm a little unbearable played a trick on me, sorry again :S

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  6. This must be the worst attempt to fool people and especially customers ever. Are you serious, flechawarwillow? After 5 minutes of your video everyone who is half decent in 3D Modelling knows that you have no idea of what you are doing. Your technique is ridiculous..just like someone trying desperatly recreating a Youtube Howto-Video. You took the Skyrim Mod-files and imported them into SL and you charge money for it. Thats the truth.

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  7. Let me add something else that is obvious. If you really made this thing by yourself...you have to have the different stages of the work on your drive. There is NO way you need to redo it at all. You could just show the sword with and without textures and the various saves of the different stages during the modelling process. Pathetic attempt.

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  8. Here's the skinny: every single creator in SL who has ever uploaded a single mesh item, has had to not only take the required test from LL about Intellectual Property and Copyright laws, but they also had to pass it. The questions and answers were written very simply, so that there could be no confusion about the rules. Whether or not IP laws were known at the time of the initial uploading of the infringing items, they remained for sale after the creator had to prove they knew and understood the law. These items are clearly a case of IP infringement, and because this creator has mesh upload capabilities, they know the law. There can be no defense in "ignorance" (which holds no legal standing, either). Not only were the designs clearly that of the Skyrim items, their textures were photosourced from the game textures and then sold under the exact names the owner of original OP trademarked. This is an act of replication, not inspiration.

    Just because a few people might not think it's a "big deal," it actually is a big damn deal. Whether or not the item was handcrafted, the actual 3d concept, name, and associated textures owned by a corporation.

    And as an FYI, just because history is history, doesn't mean people forget about it. How does the saying go, "once a cheater, always a cheater?"

    ReplyDelete
  9. Absolutly. And the questions are as well absolutly clear about recreating things from common trademarked media like Skyrim would be. Even if you ue the same way of recreation as our "Modeller" in his rather funyn video..it is STILL violating the IP rules. And there are a lot of shops who are doing this.

    Kudos to you Arica. You did the right thing adressing this behavior and it is nice you admitt if you made a mistake. But you didnt in this case. You are spot on and please dont stop pointing those "shops" out. This blog rocks.

    ReplyDelete
  10. First of all: In that video, I´m not making a mesh item, I´m making a SCULPT.

    Secondly: I know Im fast. I know I´m fast and good. I use different skills, depeding of what I need to build. In the case of the weapon of the video, Im using the program TATARA 6.0, a program what i paid for and its legal.

    Third question : a weapon from Skyrim?? The are the most easy to build! They are poligons super simples! They havent complicated shapes.
    For example, this Christmas holidays, i found in my parents house this old binoculars and I took a photo of them, here you can see it : http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/5295/binocularsl.jpg and when i came back to my house, I designed them
    exaclty as the real ones, see this : https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/FLECHA-Sculpted-binoculars-fullperm/4401214
    Really do you think I ripped a real binoculars?? Yes, i dropped them inside the USB on my PC and they magically appeared on SL.. Hahahah dont make me laugh!!!
    I have more than 400 creations, and I started to design Skyrim weapons about a month ago, more or less, because my customers asked me for them, to make a sim based in Skyrim.
    If you want, send me a picture of the thing you want (you can take a picture of a knife in your REAL LIFE KITCHEN) and i will make it for SL. Or maybe you would think i ripped the knife for your kitchen too???

    You are saying LIes and false accusations, is very easy to accuse without proofs. Its not my fault if you cant take a picture of something in RL ( a apple for example) and make it exactly in Second Life.

    About if my work is good or bad, is just your taste. There are good and bad designers, and customers choose.

    And dont forget to send me a picture of your knife!! Bye

    ReplyDelete
  11. Surely you are familiar with the concept of tracing pictures.
    What you are doing with your 'sculpt' weapons is no different than tracing a drawing someone else did and calling it your own. You are using someone else's idea, someone else's texture to create a product that you are selling or using to promote your business.

    That is the problem, Flecha.

    It does not matter what 'technique' you use, how long it took you, where you found the image or anything you keep trying to use in your defense. When you compare the Skyrim sword with your supposed original one, they are ***identical*** and this is ***illegal***.

    Does that make it any more clear to what the problem is?

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  12. You did those weapons yourself? You want to tell me that after "recreating" them vertex by vertex, face by face you then decided to UV map them as well as you claim with photoshop using pixel by pixel the exact same UV map as it may found in the OBJ.files of Skyrim? Are you ****ing kidding me?

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  13. i dont teach how design. You can learn reading a book.

    The knife please

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  14. They're ripped, enough said. No bullshit answer is going to make me think otherwise because they're too fucking close in replication to make me even slightly consider they did it all by hand. Also, like a comment on the youtube video said, there's a folder called "copybot" on fletcha's computer so... hooray? I gotta give them credit though, they probably googled the shit out of how to copy it all just to make that video to prove you wrong and all they did was prove otherwise with their incog browser and copybot folder :)

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  15. Verinne: Read in other post. a few month ago, some stores send DMCA fax to linden labs about coppybotter. I save all information (captures, identiti card and faxes) in this folder, and always we ban this copybot user. All creators do it

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  16. That doesn't answer why you have "Incognito" (a copybot viewer) on your desktop. Nor does anything you've said absolve you of the fact that the DESIGN is the problem. You copied it and sold it as your own. That is IP infringement and ILLEGAL.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Fletcha, all creators do it? Are you an idiot? *I'M* a creator and I don't put that in a folder called copybot, I keep it with important documents right next to all my rl accounting information on a cloud storage. I also label them as "DMCA takedowns".

    I LIKE THAT YOU DELETED YOUR VIDEO THOUGH.
    HOW IS INCOG TREATING YOU?

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  18. Are you going to make the textures yourself? I mean the rendering and the different light sources and all the stuff that makes the weapons and items in Skyrim look so realistic? Its funny as you have exactly the same illumination..even the same ammount of ambient occlusion and surface map as the game texture itself. One may wonder why that is as you are claiming to do all the texturing yourself. I already pointed out the fact of identical UVs...something that is impossible to recreate by hand. Indeed it is that it takes more time then to make your own textures.

    Well..except you just downloaded them..turned the meshes Polygons into NURBS and made a sculpt map. You said you started making skyrim weapons because your friends demanded them a month ago? Wow...you managed to replicate almost the complete set and for the ammount of work that it would take you sell them cheap.

    Adding the fact you got a copybot folder and a well known copybot viewer installed on your pc there is not much more that needs to be said.

    ReplyDelete
  19. All this Drama only shows one thing: Second Life is full of pathetic people, with boring and empty real lifes, who only can increase their poor sales insulting and damaging other creator.
    Unfortunatly, I saw this before several times: on blogs, on flickr, and in other websites. Dirty game is very typical of those who can not compete by offering good relationship quality - price
    And Flecha, keep up the good work you are providing to your customers. We know the good job you make and we love it. And forget all this drama, as I said before, this only shows how jelous can be people in Second Life.

    ReplyDelete
  20. WOWWWW it's incredible! You are searching the form that attack me! Jealousy? Maybe?
    Incognito file is a manual about to detect a copybotters!!! but better SEE YOU!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnhN4F2GXUs&feature=youtu.be
    This program is in spanish but say "COMO DETECTAR INCOGNITO" = "HOW TO DETECT INCOGNITO" .. (you can use the translator if you want!!!)
    I HAVE A GROUP TO WAR AGAIN PEOPLE THAT USE IT!!! OMG! incredible!
    and I deleted my video when I saw that ignorasteis I do my work and that ye have to look very closely to see my documents. That person is farfetched! I'll deleted this video too. I only create this account for this stupid..

    ReplyDelete
  21. "As I said before"? Have you posted in here before or are you just a BFF of Flecha and are here to add some fluff? Also, if you want to categorize myself and others as pathetic by partaking in said "drama", what does that make you? You seem to be inserting yourself.

    Flecha got caught, proven by the fact that his "proof" video was removed.

    Carry on with your silly anon posts, anon.
    2/10.

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  22. So INCOGNITO became Incognito.exe lol? Yes..incredible indeed.

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  23. Are you blind? Do not you see it?

    you do well. I have to keep working.

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  24. Incognito viewer is for ripping shapes, textures, scupts, whatever you want. I'm well aware of what it does. It's not a manual and what ever lie and/or excuse you're trying to use to explain why you have it won't do anything.

    Also, the easiest way to get a feel about a person is their computers. The fact that you posted that video with the viewer and the folder in open view is a huge signal to me that you bot and rip without caring that you're stealing and it didn't even cross your mind to try to hide them to save face and now you're dealing with the outcome of your own ignorance.

    You've lost this one, Flecha.

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  25. http://images.plurk.com/8DR-2S2o3I6SKAulMPkkpzPDRX.jpg Here is a picture from your video BEFORE you swapped out the .exe (note your file extensions must be hidden by default) and you just replaced it with a text file and didn't even rename it correctly. Smart.

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  26. Flecha Warwillow, whatever else he may be, is a thief and liar. Not only was he selling ripped Skyrim content, he has stolen content from other SL content creators in his shop (full perms sculpt maps, licensed not to be resold with full permissions, that he's re-uploaded). I was able to positively identify at least one item--a sculpt sofa, being sold with full perms...the "acquired" date in the vendor prim is in 2012; I have something a friend did using the exact same sculpt maps that I got back in 2010, the original creator of the sculpts is someone who's apparently not active in SL anymore. Some of his content may in fact be original, but based on the available evidence I am sceptical.

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  27. I have been reading all of this closely, as I have been a customer of Fletcha's.. and a reader of this blog for some time. lol funny situation it puts me in :P I dont want to get engage in an argument with any of you, but after reading all of this I do want to say, one thing is very clear to me. The written word is as powerful as it always has been. One quick judgement.. one little blog written in haste without first speaking to the person in question.. one word (still present btw) - Ripped... and you have potentially destroyed something I once enjoyed. Your blog, and his shop.
    I am sure you are all going to say - yes but he is stealing designs so you shouldn't buy them - that's not what i am getting at here. People need to be very careful about what they say about others. Be careful your not judging too quick.. making accusations on what may have been a bad day.. cause now as we see here it is far too late to take any of it back.
    Sure he is making replica's.. but from what our blogging elf stated.. its content that the permissions are given to do what you like with. Is it original? No, but he never said it was.
    I don't particularily enjoy negativity, or drama.. I may have chalked this all up to a bad day, and trashing about the faire's design, and some of its content creators a bit harsh.. but ok, bad day? But this goes beyond a bad day.. its a clear demonstration of how easily a person can destroy another with hasty words... and has moved on to - was I right? You be the judge. Is that an apology.. Is that correcting your wording.. or is it trying to "win"? Sorry for the long post, but as I said, words are powerful and i think it needed to be said.

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  28. I got a notice today, that some of my sculpt-textures were being sold by Mr.Flecha, and indeed the sculpted couch2 had some sculpt-images that exactly matched some of my sculpties created back in 2008, the only thing different now; that the watermark was removed and replaced by 'Flecha creations'
    http://i.imgur.com/nAHOrqb.jpg?1

    I guess I will check again within a few days; since it will be weekend and Queensday soon here in the Netherland.. Party-time ^^ If my work is still up then, I guess I gotta spend some time filling in my dmca template, and mail it to the Lindens. Wasting my precious euro on a post-stamp.

    You must know, as a creator here in SL, I dont have money for lawyers like Bethesda Softworks, but I don't complain, that I'm living below poverty level sometimes, since I`m independend artist,
    run my own company and are free! And got all the time in the world sometimes, to do some research on the internet about subjects I like, or in this case trying to find the background of the person that is trying to rip me off, and other creators. Somehow it's amusing for me, but sametime quite sad, and I must say Mr. Flecha you got a bit of a sad face when I look at your photo's, hope your life goes better for you; when one day you will clean up your act.

    Back in the days around 2007, LindenLab would not ban repeat dmca-offenders,
    glad they changed that in the spring of 2008, when I guess 'Loni Arado' was one of the first to get banned as a repeat dmca offender. And the number of DMCA takedowns I had to send out went down. But before that, the only thing what worked for me was tracing the real-life identity of the person causing the grief, and asking them politely to stop selling my work (and strangly that worked all of the time). Some were harder to catch though, but in the end they all went down. And to be honest, tracing you down Mr.Flecha was rather easy, your real name/adress/company/ and the websites you registered. Your personal G+ and youtube accounts etc. You did a bad job on that, stepping into this 'game' like you did.

    It was funny when I was watching, some of the personal video's
    of Mr.Flecha, this song was on top of the list suggested by youtube.

    Coz The Boys In The Hood Are Always Hard
    You Come Talkin That Trash, Well Pull Ya Card
    Knowin' Nutin In Life But To Be Legit'
    Dont Quote Me Boy Coz I Aint Said Shit
    Eazy E - "Boyz-N-The-Hood"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPMKozHPCM

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  29. Yes, the written word is strong and my apology about the misnomer was sincere. Otherwise I would not have written it, and the word 'ripped' does not appear in that context anymore.

    However, I am not a liar. And F.W. stated on his blog, in my comments, which I all approved despite his accusations on his own blog, on youtube, in his group and several other venues (one of that being the Fantasy Faire itself) that I am a liar. I am not. I will let people make up their minds themselves about that, and so I did.

    I am absolutely not ashamed of this post. Mayah and Flecha themselves were those that made this post exceedingly public by posting it. I wasn't the one dragging it into groupchats/blogs, not the one who went on tirades about it and tried to guild-trip people. This post was two days old and hardly anyone had cared so far.

    Trashing the faire? No. I expressed my distaste for a SINGLE sim out of so many with harsh - too harsh- words. It is a matter of taste, no more. I expressed my pleasure, my admirations several times before. Mind you, content creators of the faire itself have expressed their rather big displeasure about that sim before I ever wrote about it.

    If a simbuilder leaves in a fuss and forces organizers on a guilt trip of days over a SINGLE opinion on a blog that certainly isn't Juicybomb, and has the audacity to trash a participating content creator's name in the FF chat for daring to point out the ripped content in her sim (that ways a week ago!), while at the same time being super arrogant in conversations with said creator, I truly doubt they cared THAT much for the good cause, and much more about their rather inflated seeming ego.

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  30. and that right there, ladies and gentlemen is cut and print.
    Thank you so much Cel for speaking up about your stolen content and I hope your DMCA process goes smoothly!

    ReplyDelete
  31. [...] Cel had this to say in the Blogging Elf comments section. [...]

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  32. I think a big part of the problem is that lots of people, maybe including Flecha, don't understand what the law actually says.

    If you make a thing that looks exactly like (or even is obviously derived from) a Skyrim weapon, it doesn't matter whether it was done by hand from a picture, or mechanically by a 'ripping' program.

    It's still copyright violation either way, completely regardless of the method that was used.

    I think if everyone understood / recognized that, it would prevent some small amount of the acrimony over this at least. Maybe. :)

    And maybe if people realized that they would actually violate copyright less! At least one can hope...

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  33. Thank you Blogging ElfApril 27, 2013 at 2:45 AM

    I don't think “almost exact, sculpted copies” is correct here. Nothing Fletcha has shown has made me think that he has carefully recreated the shape and textures of these stolen items. Of course the video and Marketplace items have been removed so it's hard to go back and look now.

    At best he has ripped the items and then made tiny changes. IMO this post is going to confuse his supporters. But anyways thank you for posting about this. I also saw the weapons and they annoyed me but I would be afraid to stand up against it. I'm not in the mood to deal with all you have gone through for speaking the truth.

    Cel is not the only SL merchant I know who has been solen from. Fletcha has been DMCAed in the past. By real original creators. I really doubt he will ever make his own items. He will just continue stealing.

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  34. I don't care how confused anyone claims to be by the Skyrim stuff (how the defense of using the game textures makes it okay in anyone's mind baffles me. Like it's okay to steal textures but not meshs?). Read Cel's post. Flecha bought Cel's objects, exported the sculpt textures, removed Cel's watermark and the re-uploaded them with Flecha watermarks.

    There can be sincere mistakes. Taking someone else's work, erasing their name and stamping your own name on it is NOT a sincere mistake. Trying to bend over backwards to claim Flecha just didn't understand what they were doing is not helping the situation, it's just providing illogical excuses for the apologists.

    Moreover there is ZERO humility on Flecha's part. "I am so epic you guys just can't do this as good as me" is a far, far cry from "I'm sorry." There are times to accept that people make mistakes. This is not one of them. This is a person who deliberately knew what they were doing and shows no sign of being sorry for it at all.

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  35. the most of the meshes which where sold first on the MP by Flecha simply where downloaded from the Google Sketchup 3D Warehouse yes they are free to use maybe , but only for your OWN Designs in Sketchup , they are NOT there to download and sell them under your own permissions -.-
    those things make every builder angry ...I think noone would say a word if someone loads a Mesh Item or Avatar for his own use, but selling them and tell the ppl ..I did it by myself is a shame ..I havent seen the Youtube Vid its removed , but I know what I saw nearly a half year ago on the MP and told it to my Friends about Flecha and Google Sketchup !

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  36. That's what the IP quiz LL makes you take is supposed to confirm you already know and supposedly teach you right from wrong about when you take it to be able to upload mesh on your account(s). Flecha, like so many others, probably just clicked random answers until he got them right and ignored what it was about. The information is there. Ignorance, laziness and greed are pretty strong barriers keeping people like Flecha and others from caring or understanding what the law says or how to not break it. LL doesn't help to enforce their so-called TOS or the law, either.

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  37. I guess he even didn't buy my stuff, I guess he just copy-botted the sofa, then marketed/sold it as his own.

    Someone send me a no-trans version of the sofa, this morning, and the side parts and the 3 sitting parts are an 100% exact same copy from the sft-pack number #02 and #16. The exact same polygon-positions, rotation and same uv-layout, just a plain 1on1 copy. Even if I would try recreate it (from looking at examples), it's (almost) impossible to do an exact re-creation in size, thickness, spacing and 'softness'.
    And really if you really would re-create it, it should not match the given example 100%.

    Ok people stealing stuff happens, but if they continue to lie about it; on top of that. makes me wonder really.. how deep there head is stuck into there own ass.

    I guess that only angers the building and creative community. Fletcha got to know, people doing stuff like that, are destroying the vibe in the SL-world, pissing off the community and builders, and creative people in general. And there is a lot of anger on that. A lot of really creative people left SL because of the crap-situations like this. And that is a big loss for SL and the community, and also money-wise for everyone in the long run.

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