ex_nightmari913

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complacent

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G'day, i_theft. How the heck are ya? :D

I need help: If you've started a list of deleted journals, serial adders and/or trolls in the community, give me their user names and I'll remove them from the community. Although I tend to indulge in the art(?) of procrastination, I know that I have a lot of moderator work to do and I'll get to it as soon as possible.

This entry will be public, so let's go over the rules/guidelines.

• When asking someone for credit, do so NICELY.

A lot of people probably do not know where the icon that they're using (without credit) came from. Gently inform them.

• If the person refuses, let it go. Don't flame them and definitely do not threaten to sick i_theft on them.

• Do not let the search for icon thieves take over your life.

Remember to go to school and/or work. Eat, sleep, and practice good hygiene (hawhaw, I am so hilarious).

• "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me".

Self-explanatory. If someone is giving you a hard time, be the bigger person and shine them on. I know that it's a pain, but retaliating in verbal attacks will only lead to more of the sort.

• Unless the original image belongs to you, contacting the LJ abuse team is likely to end in a big waste of time.

In most cases, the LiveJournal staff will not do anything unless you took the photograph or made the artwork. Though, I'm really not sure how strong your copyright to a photo is if the subject is not directly related to you. An example being, a picture of a McDonald's sign. Inform me?

What else...

I really wish that the community didn't have to be closed. Really, I do. Once the community is free of kinks, I'd like for it to be open again. I mean, I know that many of you hate the drama that builds, but if everyone keeps their cool, there won't be anything to cause drama in the first place. Understand? It's up to you, though. Although I am a mod, the group opinion of 500+ people definitely outweighs my own.

( Poll: i_theft closed; yay or nay?Collapse )

I know I'm forgetting stuff, I'll add it as I remember. Please don't post on top of this entry for a while, I need everyone to see it. Thanks.

ladycommissar

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indifferent

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A friend forwarded me onto this community, and I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade here, but copyright law is not anywhere near as simple as these vague, summarized copy-and-pasted paragraphs you have taken from copyright law websites portray it to be. Copyright law - especially when you are talking about its protections of work that hasn't actually BEEN copyrighted yet - is extremely technical and circumstantial in what limited protections it does provide to artists.

When you create something original, such as a painting, there are copyright and property laws that offer limited protection of it. This is such in the case that the work is being used for the financial or promotional benefit of another party without obtaining your permission and/or awarding reasonable compensation to you for it's use.

Here however, we are talking about LJ icons that are being created - nearly all of which using the original work of other (real) artists - and being put into the public domain of the internet. To actually threaten someone's general use of an LJ icon you created, the artwork/photo within the icon would need to be copyrighted. This isn't instantaneous like some of you seem to invision either, and involves having to send your work in to the federal copyright office and paying a $20 fee to have a copyright placed upon the work. Likewise, the use would have to be harmful.

In actuality, the very artwork and photography that many of you use in creating your LJ icons is copyrighted and belongs to somebody else. The reason you are able to make icons to use freely is because your use is innocent and these artistic works are displayed in the public domain. So in other words, even if your icons are original, they are still being made publicly viewable and available. Whether you like it or not, people do have the right to "rip them off" and use them for themselves in a personal fashion.

So in closing, you're providing baseless, unfounded and entirely out of context legal argument to back up your claims of "ownership" rights of these icons in your harassment of other users, which I'm not so sorry to say is not the reality of how things work. Your energy would be better expended elsewhere, because there isn't anything you can do about "icon theft" at all. Especially not like this.

mother

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surprised

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I heard I was reported here for theft of icons. One of my friends claimed she made these and I assumed it was true. If anyone could tell me who made them, I will credit? Sorry about all this, I had no intentions of starting something x.x

-Alyssa

radios_inheaven

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Dude. __yesterday so stole my default icon. That was really bad. I made that icon the day the video came out. Rawr.

bentfire

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giddy

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lilnapoleon23 - all Marilyn Monroe-esque icons. None are credited.

Anyone know who made the default icon? I love it. But I don't wanna use it if I can't credit the person. =\

giruff

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bitchy

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I dont have an icon journal. I have posted a couple icons here and there but they are totally different ones from the ones I use and make for myself. Those ones I spend a lot more time and effort on because I know the kid of image I want to use, I know I want it to look a specific way and so it takes a while to fiddle about and make things perfect.

A certain person (f4llinxinlov3) has stolen my icon *cries* (see here) She is a member of my community, a quote community, so I guess she got it from there. I dont mind making icons if people ask. I probably would have said she could use it if she had asked but she didnt and there is no credit either *fumes*

Is asking so difficult when people like us spend hours looking for the right picture for our personal icons and wanting to look just so..and then someone steals it and we cant do anything about it..we cant steal it back all we can do is comment which is usually ignored.

bentfire

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pissed off

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This girl stole the layout of my graphic journal, __dirrty.

I'm beyond pissed. Ugh.

I left a comment, but it's screened.. so.. yeah. v_v

EDiT: I filed a complaint to the Abuse team, and they told me to go here and to "If you would like to make a copyright infringement report, please see the
referenced FAQ. Include all noted information, as it is legally required by the
Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) before we can being an investigation.
This would apply to "stolen" images and the like."

So, can someone explain what the two of those mean? Haha, I'm so lost. =x

bentfire

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worried

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So. I went to check my graphic journal, to see if people had asked to be added. To do that, I had to scroll by a 'friends cut' I'd made a couple days ago. I noticed new people had commented, so I went to check. This is what I found. And I was wondering - is this real? Is avenue a theif? The screencaps that person showed were ones that didn't really make any sense to me. o.O He just showed screencaps of a website.

rainbow_gossip

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pissed off

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bubba3615 hasn't credited any of his/her 3 icons. The Rikku one was made by rinburevolution's selphish. I don't know about the others....