Tag: Genus Project

Second Life News: Genus Project Wins the DMCA Complaint, Will Reopen Its Store Tomorrow

The DMCA complaint filed against The Genus Project has been settled in its favour

Please note that this news story is a follow-up to a previous blogpost (here).

The following breaking news I learned about from Second Life – FREE, which is a little-known-about Russian-language group on Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, which often lists items I don’t see on other freebie blogs (use the Russian-to-English translator in your Chrome browser). Here’s the direct link to the post.

The following brief summary is courtesy of the Second Life – FREE group:

– GENUS won the trial.
– They have registered their copyright for the products and any subsequent DMCA complaints against them will be ignored, since the court will know by default that these are false accusations against the creator’s product.
– It is not known who filed a complaint against them. It was a completely fake complainant [and] a non-existent lawyer. This man copied Genus’s head and created a fake company that allegedly has been making 3D models for 13 years. But this lie was revealed.

There’s also a link to a Facebook post by the creator, which you can read for yourself. Congratulations to The Genus Project for successfully fighting off this attempt to shut them down! It would appear that the fake creator who launched the DMCA complaint wanted to not only shut down the store completely, but also have Linden Lab remove all Genus Project content from users’ inventories.

Apparently, The Genus Project store will reopen tomorrow, September 4th, 2020.

The Genus Project, Target of a Second DMCA Complaint, Shuts Down Its Operations Yet Again

Please note that I am taking the entire month of July off as a self-imposed vacation from the blog so I can focus on my other work, except for sponsored blogposts, and major breaking news such as this. See you in August!

UPDATE Sept. 3rd, 2020: The Genus Project won! More details here.

As you probably know, mesh avatar head-maker The Genus Project was forced to shut down completely as the result of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint not too long ago. On July 4th, 2020, they announced that they had reopened their store in-world.

Well, it didn’t last very long.

The news was posted to the Second Life Community Forums just three hours ago, and I went to verify it for myself in the notices from the GenusProject group:

I got a complaint again. I need to close everything again. I’m going to court and I want to settle this. I think it will take time.

Shortly thereafter there was a warning not to spread rumours about who was behind the refiling of this complaint:

It’s so important right now that we keep rumor discussion about other creators out of group chat. Catwa, LeLutka, Akeruka and a bunch of other fantastic SL creators have already demonstrated their support. Please do not make them regret doing so.

Understand that any trouble being caused in other group chats will be reported to me. If it is outside of their rules or considered harassment, the CSRs and Mods must act accordingly.

This was followed by a more complete statement later:

Dear friends and customers,

While we had hoped the DMCA business was behind us, we have received another notice from Linden Labs that we must remove our inventory and our store. As we have not been given info regarding who initiated this the first time, we are left to assume it is the same person and that it is someone with no actual claim.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused anyone – your patience, support, and loyalty to our brand is not something we take for granted. It is unfair to ask you to stand by us and stand with us as we fight this, but nothing about this situation has been fair. Please understand that we cannot provide details we don’t know and we ask that you keep rumors and accusations down while we work with our lawyers and with Linden Labs to prevent this from happening again.

…

And if whomever has filed this is reading? Please understand that filing these claims does more than hurt us as creators – it prevents us from giving customers the support they deserve. It stops us from releasing updates and letting customers get redeliveries. That is who you are hurting the most.

For an FAQ of what’s going on? Please join us on Discord here.

It would now appear that The Genus Project is going to be involved in a long and costly court battle before they can sell their products again. A major player has effectively been knocked out of the Bento mesh head market for the foreseeable future, and perhaps permanently. This is going to affect not just the team at The Genus Project, but it is also going to impact all the content creators who created skins and cosmetics for this brand of mesh heads.

Honestly, what an evening. First Linden Lab announces that they are going to be acquired, and now this.

The Genus Project Store Reopens—And the Free Group Gift of the Strong Face Bento Head Is Once Again Available!

I picked up a tip from the Second Life – FREE Free and Low-Cost Items group on vKontakte (the Russian version of Facebook; I use the automatic Russian-to-English translate feature on my Chrome browser): the Genus Project store has reopened! According to a notice sent out to the GenusProject store group (which is free to join):

Dear friends! Finally we will be able to open the store again, we have received a response from Linden lab. Unfortunately, we do not know who sent the complaint, but I will deal with this issue. While we were discussing this issue with LL, at the same time we’ve been upgrading and bug fixing for [our] heads.

So it would appear that the DMCA complaint issued has (at least for now) been settled in The Genus Project’s favour. We (and they) still don’t know who issued it, though.

And, if you missed your opportunity to pick up the free group gift of the Strong Face female Bento mesh head, it is once again available! This time around, it is not in the group notices, so you will have to visit the store to pick one up (here’s the SLURL):

The Strong Face group gift from The Genus Project (picture source)

In addition, all heads in the store are now on sale for L$3,300! Obviously, the store in inundated with avatars, so I would advise you to either wait a while for the crowds to die down a bit, or use a tool like the handy free Teleport Hammer to fight your way in. (If you are a Premium member, you get priority access to overcrowded sims.)

In another group notice, the product team informs us:

Please do not teleport to the store for redelivery. It is broken. Please stay tuned to notices when it’s fixed.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Free Skin Appliers from Amara Beauty for Catwa, Lelutka, and Genus Project Bento Mesh Heads

As part of the week-long #TogetherAtHome promotional initiative by a number of Second Life retailers, Amara Beauty is giving away several skin applier gifts, for Catwa, LeLutka, and Genus Project Bento mesh heads:

The Brielle skin applier works for all Genus Project heads, including the free Strong Face group gift that the store recently gave out! In addition to the Brielle, Madelyn, and Ivy skin appliers in six different skin tones, you can also pick up the so-called Slender body appliers for Legacy and Omega-compatible mesh bodies for free, as well as additional Bakes on Mesh layers to fix the hands, feet, and cleavage on your skin.

Here is the Brielle skin applier in the beige skin tone on the freebie Strong Face Genus Project head and the dollarbie Meshbody Classic body (each skin comes in a Bakes on Mesh version with three eyebrow options—dark brows, light brows, and no brows—and the Genus head skin applier comes with four eyebrow options—dark, brown, light, and no brows, for you to apply your own preferred eyebrows separately).

I think you’ll agree that this is truly beautiful skin, and it’s well worth the trip down to Amara Beauty to pick up this generous, free group gift before it’s gone! You don’t even need to join the Amara Beauty group.

This particular avatar is wearing:

Mesh Head: the Strong Face Bento mesh head from the Genus Project (a former group gift which, unfortunately, is no longer available)

Mesh Body: the Classic mesh body by Meshbody (a dollarbie group gift; more information is about this body can be found here)

Skin Applier: Genus head skin applier and Bakes on Mesh body skin Brielle in beige, from Amara Beauty

Hair: Iris by D!va (free group gift located on the other side of the wall behind the front counter; the group is free to join)

Dress: Lucia dress from Ello (previous hunt gift; this store now appears to have left the grid, but they are still on the SL Marketplace)

Shoes: Wales pumps from Essenz (the group gift for April; the Essenz group costs L$350 to join; the Classic mesh body has Legacy-compatible feet; more information about the shoes is here)

Animation Override: This is a graceful, old AO for empire-waist gowns by PixelDolls (remember them?), a store which has been long gone from the grid, but still exists on the SL Marketplace (it comes included with the Innocent Dans L’Amour gown for L$150, and I find I pull it out of my inventory and use it all the time with wider, “poofier” dresses and skirts).

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR LOOK: L$501 (L$150 for the PixelDolls AO, L$350 to join the Essenz group for the pumps group gift, and L$1 for the Classic mesh body)

Here is your taxi to the Amara Beauty store! Happy freebie shopping!