Creation copying without permission using EHT

Soarora

RomanRex wrote: »

Housing designs aren’t copyrighted. If you don’t want your housing design duplicated, don’t let anyone into your home you don’t trust and don’t share photos/videos.

If you want to showcase your home you risk others replicating it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Take it as a compliment and carry on.

Law =/= morality. Either way, creative works get inherent copyright once they’re created as far as I understand it. You don’t need to apply for it. Since this is within a video game, might get weird but it isn’t fair to say artists shouldn’t share their work because of people who can’t keep their hands to themselves. Imagine spending hours on something just to never be able to share it because someone will pass it as their own, possibly becoming popular off your work. Takes like this are exactly why I don’t share my art as an artist. If you didn’t put your time, energy, and acquired knowledge into it, it’s not yours. End of story.

katanagirl1

RomanRex wrote: »

Housing designs aren’t copyrighted. If you don’t want your housing design duplicated, don’t let anyone into your home you don’t trust and don’t share photos/videos.

If you want to showcase your home you risk others replicating it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Take it as a compliment and carry on.

In this case, someone has commissioned a decorator to build a custom house for them. The player who owns the house is not the person who designed it. There is no way for the designer to control access, and indeed the idea is to showcase the house so others can see it or use it, if it is a guild house.

I completely agree some change needs to be made here. I wouldn’t want someone copying my work, not that I am a well-respected decorator whose work is highly desired. My creations are coarse and basic compared to the images above. My time and creativity is still valuable to me.

Araneae6537

RomanRex wrote: »

Housing designs aren’t copyrighted. If you don’t want your housing design duplicated, don’t let anyone into your home you don’t trust and don’t share photos/videos.

If you want to showcase your home you risk others replicating it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Take it as a compliment and carry on.

This is different from someone copying by recreating, which if done for learning or only their own private use may be okay (but not posting as your own creation and certainly not entering into a contest), but this is simple copy-paste. Imitation and especially taking inspiration are different.

RomanRex

Soarora wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

Housing designs aren’t copyrighted. If you don’t want your housing design duplicated, don’t let anyone into your home you don’t trust and don’t share photos/videos.

If you want to showcase your home you risk others replicating it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Take it as a compliment and carry on.

Takes like this are exactly why I don’t share my art as an artist. If you didn’t put your time, energy, and acquired knowledge into it, it’s not yours. End of story.

If you are that worried people are going to copy something you created, it’s best to keep it private. If you want people to appreciate it or tell you how great your “art” is, you risk it being replicated with or without them announcing the idea source.

PrincessOfThieves

Soarora wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

Housing designs aren’t copyrighted. If you don’t want your housing design duplicated, don’t let anyone into your home you don’t trust and don’t share photos/videos.

If you want to showcase your home you risk others replicating it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Take it as a compliment and carry on.

Law =/= morality. Either way, creative works get inherent copyright once they’re created as far as I understand it. You don’t need to apply for it. Since this is within a video game, might get weird but it isn’t fair to say artists shouldn’t share their work because of people who can’t keep their hands to themselves. Imagine spending hours on something just to never be able to share it because someone will pass it as their own, possibly becoming popular off your work. Takes like this are exactly why I don’t share my art as an artist. If you didn’t put your time, energy, and acquired knowledge into it, it’s not yours. End of story.

This!
Honestly, it is really disappointing how little some people value creativity.

RomanRex

katanagirl1 wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

Housing designs aren’t copyrighted. If you don’t want your housing design duplicated, don’t let anyone into your home you don’t trust and don’t share photos/videos.

If you want to showcase your home you risk others replicating it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Take it as a compliment and carry on.

In this case, someone has commissioned a decorator to build a custom house for them. The player who owns the house is not the person who designed it. There is no way for the designer to control access, and indeed the idea is to showcase the house so others can see it or use it, if it is a guild house.

I completely agree some change needs to be made here. I wouldn’t want someone copying my work, not that I am a well-respected decorator whose work is highly desired. My creations are coarse and basic compared to the images above. My time and creativity is still valuable to me.

The person “commissioned” has received their payment. It’s not their property to decide what can be done with it or who can access it.

PrincessOfThieves

.

RomanRex wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

Housing designs aren’t copyrighted. If you don’t want your housing design duplicated, don’t let anyone into your home you don’t trust and don’t share photos/videos.

If you want to showcase your home you risk others replicating it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Take it as a compliment and carry on.

In this case, someone has commissioned a decorator to build a custom house for them. The player who owns the house is not the person who designed it. There is no way for the designer to control access, and indeed the idea is to showcase the house so others can see it or use it, if it is a guild house.

I completely agree some change needs to be made here. I wouldn’t want someone copying my work, not that I am a well-respected decorator whose work is highly desired. My creations are coarse and basic compared to the images above. My time and creativity is still valuable to me.

The person “commissioned” has received their payment. It’s not their property to decide what can be done with it or who can access it.

The person who commissioned the build wanted to buy something unique, otherwise why would they pay an artist?

Elsonso

RomanRex wrote: »

Housing designs aren’t copyrighted. If you don’t want your housing design duplicated, don’t let anyone into your home you don’t trust and don’t share photos/videos.

Just because something is legal does not mean that it is something that should be done.

That said, you do have a point in that it may be reaching to assume that work in the game is not going to be duplicated.

I am not buying the idea that this stuff is copyrighted. At least, not by the person who created it. ZOS may have a different opinion that supersedes whatever we think in here. Also, the fact that it is "commissioned" means very little as that is nothing more than the trading of currency that we do not own for a product created from stuff we do not own.

SilverBride

An add-on shouldn't make it easier for someone to steal someone else's work.

tsaescishoeshiner

To me, this is an issue with lacking a moderated public addon listing of houses, or an option for people who list their houses on EHT to disable copying.

(Or EHT could have one item in an exact orientation and location that it can auto-place that marks a house as uncopiable if people try to do it through the addon? EDIT: actually, this should probably be what enables EHT to be used in other people's houses, so people can't turn all the lights off, either. But this would ruin pre-existing EHT builds so ... )

ZOS_Kevin

Hi @Mloking. We’re going to take this to the dev team and chat about this. Just seeing this now, so probably won’t be able to investigate until next week. Just wanted to follow up that this has been seen and will be escalated to be addressed.

Thanks for posting this.

Ayalockheart

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

.

RomanRex wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

Housing designs aren’t copyrighted. If you don’t want your housing design duplicated, don’t let anyone into your home you don’t trust and don’t share photos/videos.

If you want to showcase your home you risk others replicating it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Take it as a compliment and carry on.

In this case, someone has commissioned a decorator to build a custom house for them. The player who owns the house is not the person who designed it. There is no way for the designer to control access, and indeed the idea is to showcase the house so others can see it or use it, if it is a guild house.

I completely agree some change needs to be made here. I wouldn’t want someone copying my work, not that I am a well-respected decorator whose work is highly desired. My creations are coarse and basic compared to the images above. My time and creativity is still valuable to me.

The person “commissioned” has received their payment. It’s not their property to decide what can be done with it or who can access it.

The person who commissioned the build wanted to buy something unique, otherwise why would they pay an artist?

I don’t understand why the focus of the discussion is shifting or why it matters whether it’s a commission or not. It doesn't justify copying and pasting something at the press of a button. No one mentioned copyright; the issue is about morality and consideration, which translates to community toxic behavior.

All we want is for the EHT copy feature to be exclusive to those with decorator permission, as it was before the furniture lookup feature was implemented. If someone wants to make an exact copy of something, they should at least put in some effort. This would discourage copying, as it’s easier to create something new than to manually copy someone else's work.

This isn't about gatekeeping either. I have recently mentored people to help them improve their builds by providing requested insights. I also teach people and enable them to use EHT, as it has several useful features that many find daunting to learn. The whole idea of creating a channel in a large Discord server to share how we break down and build items for others to use was mine, and it was replicated in other channels because it helps people be creative and learn the techniques we use. This way, they can also enjoy the game as it should be.




By consistently making commissions, I allow people focus on other aspects of the game and still be able to enjoy a space of their own in-game where they can enjoy and express themselves as they wish. In many cases, this has also encouraged them to try eso housinh building on several houses own their own afterwards.

As known members of the housing community, we do our part by sharing and trying to help people achieve their desired outcomes.

I am not pleading for people to stop copying others' work, though it would be nice and we appreciate when you don’t. It’s even better when our contributions inspire you to create something new for yourself.

The point of this discussion is to address a known issue that we have tried to bring in the past on private but as to which remains a consistent problem and inconvenience in our day-to-day activities.

freespirit

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi @Mloking. We’re going to take this to the dev team and chat about this. Just seeing this now, so probably won’t be able to investigate until next week. Just wanted to follow up that this has been seen and will be escalated to be addressed.

Thanks for posting this.

Awesome as usual @ZOS_Kevin thank you!!

katanagirl1

@Ayalockheart I mentioned commissions merely because it is more egregious to copy those. Like you, I don’t condone copying any other works as well.

Ayalockheart

katanagirl1 wrote: »

@Ayalockheart I mentioned commissions merely because it is more egregious to copy those. Like you, I don’t condone copying any other works as well.

No worries, I didn't mean to put you on the spot with the quote.

Worth to mention: To prevent those builds from being entered in contests, I maintain a public list of the works I have done. Most contest organizers are aware of commissions to avoid people entering with creations they haven't made ensuring fair contests for everyone. Additionally, community members can spot them super quickly. None of us actively look for people copying our houses; we are usually tipped off about it.

PrincessOfThieves

I don’t understand why the focus of the discussion is shifting or why it matters whether it’s a commission or not. It doesn't justify copying and pasting something at the press of a button. No one mentioned copyright; the issue is about morality and consideration, which translates to community toxic behavior.

I agree, my point is that a commission is still not a free blueprint that everyone can use.
Really glad that we got a response from ZOS, I hope that this problem will be fixed

ProudMary

Maybe people can just patent their housing creations then they wouldn't have to worry about being copied.

Seriously though, isn't anything created in game automatically the property of ZOS? Pretty sure that's what it says in the terms of use agreement everyone has to agree to in order to play the game.

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

We have recently removed some unnecessary back and forth from this thread. This is a reminder to keep the discussion civil and constructive. Please keep our Community Rules in mind moving forward.

Thank you for your understanding.

ThelerisTelvanni

Well to be honest I do not see any problem with copying a build, as long as it is for private use.

Maybe a RP player likes a build but has never done housing. A coppy simply gives the RP player the opportunity to do his RP in the wanted location. Yes the other players that do RP with that player will see the build but to be honest, I do not see any harm done in that scenario. In fact the opposite! A player or rather a group of players got enabled to enjoy the game more.

Where I see a problem indeed is when it comes to contests. If you have to make your home open to everyone so it can be copyed. But the simple solution to that is that you give a list of all the judges and streamer to everyone that takes part. That way only those that actually need to get into the house, can get the right to visit and no one can copy your build you made for that contest.

To me the inspection mode was a welcome addition and cutting it off, since some prominent builders feel butt hurt, feels wrong. What do you want housing DRM? I totally understand that you dislike it when someone else is taking credit for your creative work. I'd probably be pissed too. But at the end of the day it is just a game! It is supposed to be fun! If you are doing housing not because you have fun decorating, but instead because you want the fame, that is probably the wrong motivation. I simply want to create a nice place when I build something and in most cases I do so for myself.

Yet if for some reason someone were to copy your work and after you were showing it around that person was claiming to be the original creator, at that point I'd agree we'd have a problem.

But how do you want to prevent it? Cutting off inspection mode? Prohibiting the save build function of the addon? Do you expect ZOS to implement a tool that scans/recognizes all builds ever made on every server and when someone copys a build, it makes a big "copyed from XYZ" tag on the house whenever someone visits? As a form of DRM? And how much server capacity is it supposed to cost?

I think the easiest way is to limit the access to the houses in question, that you want no one to copy, to those you trust.

If you love something to the extent that you get a copy of it for yourself, I do (in most scenarios) not see a problem. And to some extent it is flattering that someone liked my build to the extent that they copyed it.

To me it seems there is no easy solution by side the one mentioned to this problem. Unless you want usability to be reduced for everyone. So better calm down a little and be less butt hurt and moderete the access to your homes.

You do not need to agree with my opinion, but I hope you can respect me stating it.

Vaqual

This makes me hate add ons even more. A fully copied build is impersonal, hollow and meaningless to me. Not done by the player, with the player or for the player. If this is the level of engagement you have with housing you might as well skip it. Crazy to see people rather using add ons for so many things instead of actually playing the game...

PrincessOfThieves

I honestly don't get the "well, this is not against the rules" argument. There are a LOT of things both online and in real life that are not prohibited by the law but are kind of *** to do. A person can be a 100% certified butthole without violating any laws, and they can be called out on that.
And this issue is not a legal thing, it's a social problem. But unlike many social problems in this game, this one can be fixed by tweaking the addon.

ThelerisTelvanni wrote: »

Yet if for some reason someone were to copy your work and after you were showing it around that person was claiming to be the original creator, at that point I'd agree we'd have a problem.

That is exactly what is happening. These copies are often found on Housing Hub, or even submitted in contests.
If people were just copying stuff for personal rp, it wouldn't be a real issue, nobody would even know about it. But people want clout, and this (probably unintended) addon feature seems like an easy way of getting praise.

And they could just make it so the copy/paste feature doesn't work in other people's houses unless you have a decorator permission. This way, if someone just wants to copy stuff for rp/personal purposes, they could contact the author, and plagiarism would be prevented. There is just no good reason to keep this function as it is now.

Elsonso

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

And they could just make it so the copy/paste feature doesn't work in other people's houses unless you have a decorator permission. This way, if someone just wants to copy stuff for rp/personal purposes, they could contact the author, and plagiarism would be prevented. There is just no good reason to keep this function as it is now.

"They" has to be "ZOS"... ZOS taking action is the only viable attempt at a solution.

Until then, this is just an unenforceable player-made rule about how copies of furniture assemblies can be made and used. People will break the rule. That is just a reality. If everyone thought that breaking this rule was a bad thing, we would not be here in this thread talking about it.

I cannot stress enough that changing EHT is irrelevant. Changing the locks while leaving the windows open. Any change made to EHT could be reversed in a matter of hours and distributed.

SaffronCitrusflower

Vaqual wrote: »

This makes me hate add ons even more. A fully copied build is impersonal, hollow and meaningless to me. Not done by the player, with the player or for the player. If this is the level of engagement you have with housing you might as well skip it. Crazy to see people rather using add ons for so many things instead of actually playing the game...

People copy character builds most of the time when creating new toons. What's the difference? I'd bet everyone complaining in this thread about people copying housing builds are running toons with builds they copied at least in part from someone else.

PrincessOfThieves

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

This makes me hate add ons even more. A fully copied build is impersonal, hollow and meaningless to me. Not done by the player, with the player or for the player. If this is the level of engagement you have with housing you might as well skip it. Crazy to see people rather using add ons for so many things instead of actually playing the game...

People copy character builds most of the time when creating new toons. What's the difference? I'd bet everyone complaining in this thread about people copying housing builds are running toons with builds they copied at least in part from someone else.

That is a false equivalence. The builds people post online are meant to be copied, whereas sharing a house is akin to sharing a drawing on the internet - it is not there for others to copy and claim authorship.
Yes, technically all housing creations belong to ZOS. But it is still not okay to steal them, just like it is not okay to copy fanarts and pretend that they are yours. It's just that with fanarts it cannot really be prevented, but houses would be safe if the loophole that allows people to copy them is fixed.

Mloking

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

This makes me hate add ons even more. A fully copied build is impersonal, hollow and meaningless to me. Not done by the player, with the player or for the player. If this is the level of engagement you have with housing you might as well skip it. Crazy to see people rather using add ons for so many things instead of actually playing the game...

People copy character builds most of the time when creating new toons. What's the difference? I'd bet everyone complaining in this thread about people copying housing builds are running toons with builds they copied at least in part from someone else.

As I said, copying will always be a thing. Also if someone made a house blueprint and was available to public to use for their house, thats fine. People post gear builds on internet for people to use. That would be a same thing. I never posted any of my houses with the intention of people stealing my work. There are endless posibilites for building houses, but theres usually limited amount of good builds for fighting, and it changes all the time, plus you have to play pve to do housing properly, you can do pve/pvp without housing. Your comment just makes no sense. I dont expect people to stop copying houses, i just dont want them to have it this easy.

onyxorb

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi @Mloking. We’re going to take this to the dev team and chat about this. Just seeing this now, so probably won’t be able to investigate until next week. Just wanted to follow up that this has been seen and will be escalated to be addressed.

Thanks for posting this.

@ZOS_Kevin I would just like to point out that this isn't an 'addon' issue it's the game itself, since there are other addons which I will not name, which have the same functionality to copy the contents of a home.

Maybe just let only the owner and those with designer privs have access to the F5 functionality and/or getting the dump of furnishings and location information?

Sidenote: I had one of my homes copied, and entered into a contest without my knowledge. I wonder how many other stolen homes are being sold to customers and/or entered into contest? That kind of adds insult to injury. This really is a HUGE concern for builders, so hoping the dev team really considers that part of things when investigating this.

Thanks again for your response as well!

Vaqual

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

This makes me hate add ons even more. A fully copied build is impersonal, hollow and meaningless to me. Not done by the player, with the player or for the player. If this is the level of engagement you have with housing you might as well skip it. Crazy to see people rather using add ons for so many things instead of actually playing the game...

People copy character builds most of the time when creating new toons. What's the difference? I'd bet everyone complaining in this thread about people copying housing builds are running toons with builds they copied at least in part from someone else.

a) I don't respect that approach to build crafting either. Getting information about synergies is fine I suppose, but mindlessly slapping on someone's build without understanding it is also a bit questionable. People actually go and change their race for this.

b) Even then, the possibilities in build crafting, while ample, pale in comparison to the possibilities in housing configurations. Getting inspired by another player's build and copying everything down to 0.5° angles are also two pairs of shoes.

I see how this debate doesn't make a lot of sense, because clearly there are people out there who are easily compelled by fashion and trends, people who rather copy than to bring at least a sliver of their own creativity. But I don't see why there should be tools making their lives easier and allow them to steal another persons effort in an instant. If they want it they may as well work for it.

This seems like the housing equivalent of a full rotation combat macro.

hiyde

I just want to underscore, as some people have pointed out, this is a ZOS issue not an EHT issue that became an issue when Inspect Mode became a thing.

Cardinal05 the volunteer addon creator changing the addon would only do so much good. Older copies of EHT exist and anyone with a little bit of lua knowledge could copy that functionality into a new public or private addon. If people took the time & effort to install and use EHT to "steal" house designs, they'll sure find a way to get an old copy or new addon that does the same thing.

Cardinal05 the ZOS housing dev is who we need. Inspect needs to be a TOGGLE, that homeowners can turn on or off, built into the game. Or get rid of it entirely. This game doesn't have an "inspect" mode even to look at player gear but we have it for housing creations? Why?

For those straying to rag on EHT for other reasons, let's remember that's what got Cardinal hired by ZOS and that's what got us improvements to house editing/building built into the game.

MoonPile

hiyde wrote: »

I just want to underscore, as some people have pointed out, this is a ZOS issue not an EHT issue that became an issue when Inspect Mode became a thing.

Cardinal05 the volunteer addon creator changing the addon would only do so much good. Older copies of EHT exist and anyone with a little bit of lua knowledge could copy that functionality into a new public or private addon. If people took the time & effort to install and use EHT to "steal" house designs, they'll sure find a way to get an old copy or new addon that does the same thing.

Cardinal05 the ZOS housing dev is who we need. Inspect needs to be a TOGGLE, that homeowners can turn on or off, built into the game. Or get rid of it entirely. This game doesn't have an "inspect" mode even to look at player gear but we have it for housing creations? Why?

For those straying to rag on EHT for other reasons, let's remember that's what got Cardinal hired by ZOS and that's what got us improvements to house editing/building built into the game.

It's a shame if it's truly impossible to prevent the copy & paste function. That's such a huge part of the issue, making it easy for those unscrupulous enough to do this.

I'd rather not have to remove or disable Inspect entirely; with Inspect we can:

• Learn from each other, build upon one another's creations/get new ideas
• Find new furnishings we didn't know about, or gain a new perspective on ones we did know (uses we hadn't thought of; the end result needn't be a copy nor even clear inspiration)
• Give visitors or judges an idea of what was done, if they are not familiar with the base (especially with more lore-friendly builds and those that look very "natural" or cleanly done, they sometimes don't realize how much is actually custom.)
• + more

Anyway, this is just disgusting to see. Especially at this time when IRL, everything is more challenging than ever across creative fields, for obvious reasons I'll leave unnamed. When you've worked decades at something, the feeling of suddenly having no future is crushing. I play this game for some reprieve; absolutely hate to see "scraping" of any kind here too.

ThelerisTelvanni

There is one more thing I'd like to add to this discussion:
I've been playing Minecraft for many years, often in Multiplayer. I have a friend with almost zero creativety and he was super frustrated with it. Whenever I was thinking up a more of less good loocking build he was stressed about his lack of creative vision.

At some point he started to lock at the creations of the streamers/YouTubers he watched and tryed to recreate the builds. And he was super happy when he found build tutorials that made it easyer for him. He was still frustrated that he did not have a creative vision of his own, but he was happy to at least have a nice locking build for himself.

He was also hoping he'd become a better builder, but up until this day I have not seen him do his own builds. Whenever we play togeter he always copys someone elses build.