10 August, 2011

she is silenced, an ocean widens, leaves the daydreams behind

[01:21] KittyCats - Daiquiri: http://kittycats.biz
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♂ Daiquiri

҉ 11 days ♥ 68% ☻ 76%

↯ 89% 모☁ 4%

Fur: Genesis - Smokey
Eyes: Genesis Water (Shape: Curious | Pupil: Big)
Shade: Natural
Tail: Genesis
Ears: Genesis
Whiskers: Silver (Shape: Guitar)
Size: 25 cm (9.8 inch) - Toy Cat

Version: 1.08
Owner: S[xxxx] R[xxxx]
ID: xxxxxxxx-xxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
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MOM: Funny
Fur: Chateau Cat - 3 Spot No. 2
Eyes: Genesis Sunshine (Shape: Curious | Pupil: Big)
Shade: Natural
Tail: Genesis
Ears: Genesis
Whiskers: Silver (Shape: Guitar)

DAD: Sweety
Happy Birthday - SL8B
Fur: Genesis - Smokey
Eyes: Genesis Water (Shape: Curious | Pupil: Big)
Shade: Natural
Tail: Genesis
Ears: Genesis
Whiskers: Silver (Shape: Guitar)
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I have to stop touching breedable cats. They're like a virus of green spam over my entire screen. There is no amount of cuteness that makes this acceptable, ever.

"Dear Disney, you can have your license back now." Well, ouch.

[12:46] POOTERBILT Mommy's HUD 4.06 politely says to you, please don't eat that yucky stuff again today, I want something else today.

First of all, if your child's name is POOTERBILT, you've obviously made some grievous life choices and you need to stop. Secondly, if your child's name is POOTERBILT and you still have a talking tummy in this day and age? Something's gone wrong in your Second Life.

Also, you might want to speak to your HUD's manufacturer, as they used 'today' twice in that single sentence.

[NPC] Abomination: TaskForceName can't be allowed to live!

On occasion, City of Heroes gets unintentionally hilarious.

Meanwhile, more outfit drama. But this one's deeply odd. Not the least of which because it's a complaint against Bare Rose by someone I've never heard of.

It started on Flickr, on her photo stream. That particular image showed her in a burnished gold costume lion suit, standing next to a box showing June Dion's pale buff costume lion suit. At first glance...hells, at thirteenth glance...they look nothing alike save that they're both lion costumes. The hell?

But I wanted to track it down, so off I went to Bare Rose to track down the ShiShi Mimi Leo.

(from the Comparisons album)

Now, this is not the original. Because of this controversy, and because June Dion works incredibly fast, by the time I'd heard of it, she'd already redesigned the outfit, reshot it for the product box, and put it back out for sale. Still, as is my practice, I do what I can to get hold of the outfits under dispute and examine them myself.

As it stands now, the outfit has relatively zero comparison points. June's outfit has studded armbands; Miss Alter's does not. Miss Alter's has a sculpted hood; June's outfit does not. June's outfit has sculpted paws and feet; Miss Alter's has paw and feet additions, but they're not sculpted. June has a belt with a sculpted, detailed belt complete with added Jurassic bone and Leo zodiac symbol on the belt buckle itself; Miss Alter, it looks like, forwent the belt on those squared hot pants. Miss Alter's has self-patterned stockings, June created tribalist stockings and gloves that could be very intriguing with other outfits you might have.

(from the Comparisons album)

As far as the outfit concept goes, the huge feet and paw hands are a little too costume-y for me, a bit too cartoon, if I may go so far, but it's a cute concept. And I'm going to make no bones about this--from the single image I have (more about that later) from Eln Alter's outfit, I think June not only put more work into both the first, then the revised versions, but also, I think June made a better outfit, period.

(from the Comparisons album)

I should also add that I adore the zebra-hide wrap, which was part of the updated version June put out. Granted, I had to go from rather busty to Geena Davis to fit under the prim piece, but I was willing to do that, because it really looked good. The bottom of it is flexi, the top sculpted, and yes, that does create some oddity at times, but still, it's very well done.

(from the Comparisons album)

This image shows a close-up of the Leo zodiac sign belt; also, observant viewers will note the shading on the very short short shorts. Granted, this is shorter than I like my shorts to be, but it works with the outfit as a whole.

(from the Comparisons album)

And this is the back of the ShiShi revised; I will grant that the ginger tabby skin I was wearing this morning (when I took these pictures), didn't precisely completely the tawny buff of the outfit's pieces, but even so, the seams meet, the shading is lovely, there are several separate prim pieces (the arm and leg bands, the neck leonine ruff in cream, the hip bone, the zebra-hide drape, among others) and it forms a quirky and cute whole.

And yes, the tail does swing; it's scripted.

(from the fashion album)

As for the other side of the argument...well. Miss Alter apparently doesn't sell the outfit anymore. Also, there's no shop on the site of Eln Alter's store given in her picks; there's a mall, which she apparently owns, but no "meow.style" shop.

Just from looking at this one image, while I can't analyze the seams or look at how it fits to me, as opposed to how the ShiShi Mimi fit--I can honestly say it doesn't impress me. The lion-maned hood would make it impossible to wear 95% of my hair, plus, it looks as if her head's been partially detached, not draping as a hood would, by default. In addition, it's pretty much entirely the same texture, with very little shading, very little line matching (the seams I can see, that of the inner arms of both gloves, looks dire).

But beyond that, I really don't know, because there's no "meow.style" on the grid anymore. I'm left analyzing that one image--and from that one image, fair or not, June Dion's not only looks more original and takes more chances, but it just overall looks like it's made better. And--apart from the similarity of "I'm going to make a lion costume! Rawr!", there is NOTHING these two outfits share, period.

So the complaint is that--on an item no longer sold, which is on the surface in no way similar--there is, apparently, similarity. Simply because there's that lion costume involved?

Plus, if you've stopped selling the item, there's no competition. If you've stopped selling the item, there can be no accurate accusation of copyright infringement. If you've stopped selling the item, you're no longer in the game. This is hard to understand?

I'd say Eln Alter's complaint is frivolous beyond belief, but unfortunately, she made it and June Dion responded to it, because June doesn't like getting complaints. June's not saying she cribbed from Alter's design; in point of fact, since June's been doing the Zodiac series (in both male and female sets of specialty armors, quirky cosplay, and EGL/EGA outfit versions) for over a year, I'm thinking I'm safe in saying she didn't know anyone else, least of all Eln Alter, had made a lion costume.

But that being said, making a lion costume isn't the issue. It's only the issue if they are similar enough to cause confusion, one from another. And they're not. They're just not.

Case closed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's really too bad. June is a saint for even paying attention to such a complaint and not snapping back or just ignoring. I wish she had ignored it though. People like that shouldn't be humored. Besides, I like the shorts, top and feet of the original lion better. I think the zebra print drape does look neat but it doesn't really fit with a lion costume. Oh well, I wouldn't have gotten the thing anyways.

She should just have been told that even if someone accuses her of copybot nothing will happen untill bare rose itself files the DMCA.

Emilly Orr said...

Well, apparently there's more to the tale, but as it stands now, yeah. I'm glad that June got in touch with her; I will say, as much as I love the zebra drape, it really didn't belong with the costume-y feel of the rest of it, and should have gone onto a much more elegant 'feral' outfit, but...hey, you're jumping to reconstruct something, you want to get it back out as soon as you can, these things happen.

It doesn't matter one whit how many people may--or may not--have accused Eln of copyright infringement; unless Dion herself filed a DMCA cease-and-desist, there was no official infringement involved. Same goes the other direction; if Eln had filed a DMCA takedown, based on the fact that she had the 'idea' first...well, actually, that wouldn't have gone anywhere, unless the Lindens got involved; until then, it's just down to she said/she also said.

But say that they did seem more similar on first glance; Alter might have been within her rights to be suspicious, and to file. But until she filed against June, and Bare Rose by extension, again there's no official copyright infringement involved.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...