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Dianne: you are very kind to the city, and your flags are very good. I give away the hand flags to all the people that I take on guided tours now. It makes them look like proper tourists 
I also intend to use the alpha version of the owl coat of arms on Neufreistadt-themed trinkets, and sell them in the city info shop, the proceeds going to the city - is that all right with you?
[quote="Dianne":ynxw0tqi]Just a note to acknowledge the wonderful comments about the flags (thanks 
), and to make it clear that it's "not about the money." I would have done the flags anyway, just because I want to.
Being as I am a Socialist, leftie, anti-capitalist type I am more interested in seeing NStadt succeed than I am making money off of it, and I think many of us think the same way. The offer of donations for the new sim is a good example of the same thing.
[/quote:ynxw0tqi]
Considering I'm paying (two ways, for land and the wiki!) for the dubious priviledge of bossing a portion of this bunch without complaint - and this isn't even a backwards one - I'm right up there with you, Dianne.
Even so, I hold a belief that one should never be ashamed to take money in a fair deal; in a way money represents a little portion of someone's labor, sweat, and life-energy, and one should always be flattered when someone is willing to part with something like that.
As such, the consensus seems to be that actually doing the deal for th e flag IP is my pigeon, so all that remains is to draw up the legalese and make the payment. This is not my area of expertise so I'll be annoying those to whom it is.
[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":35uul7ye]...I also intend to use the alpha version of the owl coat of arms on Neufreistadt-themed trinkets, and sell them in the city info shop, the proceeds going to the city - is that all right with you?[/quote:35uul7ye]As far as I understand once the IP dealie is signed it's the city itself that holds the rights to the image, so as long as you are selling stuff or doing stuff "for the city" then it's totally okay.
If on the other hand you make NStadt branded products for personal sale or use the flags and stuff in such a way as to imply that your privately for sale product was an "official" NStadt product, and the city didn't agree with that or hadn't given you permission, then there would be a problem I think.
At least that is my understanding.
Also for this brief intermediary period where technically I still "own" the design, I am okay with this use. Remember though, that the owl is itself a public domain heraldic charge that was not drawn by me and has been used historically in other heraldic contexts. Therefore it's questionable whether the owl by itself on a shield is really owned by anyone or truly representative of the city. It's association with our city would depend on the context of it's use.
I was thinking of making an official "coat of arms" for NStadt as well but that was not commissioned and also I couldn't figure out what would be appropriate in terms of animals, helmets, capes etc. For the time being the entire flag should be considered as the only official symbol of the city. I just made the shield cause I thought it looked nice.
[quote="Dianne":2naq40i3]As far as I understand once the IP dealie is signed it's the city itself that holds the rights to the image, so as long as you are selling stuff or doing stuff "for the city" then it's totally okay. [/quote:2naq40i3]
Excellent! Now, how would I actually extract your texture to add to another texture in the GIMP?
[quote:2naq40i3]I was thinking of making an official "coat of arms" for NStadt as well but that was not commissioned and also I couldn't figure out what would be appropriate in terms of animals, helmets, capes etc. For the time being the entire flag should be considered as the only official symbol of the city. I just made the shield cause I thought it looked nice. [/quote:2naq40i3]
Do we not already have a coat of arms, that is displayed in the Rathaus and the City Info Shop?
There's an issue with how we want to handle flags and other symbols. In most RL situaions flag designs are not copyrighted. The effect of this is two fold. On the one hand the flag ends up on t-shirts, coffee mugs, bikinis, and goodness knows what else. On the other hand, the flag belongs to the nation and the people rather than the government.
The original act calls for the creation of a flag, seal, logo, and icon based on the design. One option would be to open source the flag while keeping tighter control over the other marks in the family, (say the seal and logo) which would only be used by the government in official capacities.
Just my $L1
[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":1z1cp0o4]...Excellent! Now, how would I actually extract your texture to add to another texture in the GIMP?...[/quote:1z1cp0o4]GIMP is.. gimpy.
I don't know how to use it.
Normally when you save or download a texture out of SL is is saved as a 32 bit TGA file I think. If the image has transparency, then this is essential or you will lose said transparency.
If the file downloads okay, then what I would do in [b:1z1cp0o4]Photoshop[/b:1z1cp0o4] is "select all, copy, and then paste, into a new file. That way it will show up as a layer and may be composited with other layers. GIMP is likely similar.
[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":2t2z6hsp]How do I download it, though?[/quote:2t2z6hsp]Open up the picture in SL so you can see it in a window.
Then somewhere obvious like on the file or edit menu there should be a "save texture" or "download texture" option. I am not sure on the exact wording as I pretty much never do it.
The option only appears if you have permissions to the file, so it's something that would be greyed out in almost all cases and thus not something one generally notices..