So, there is something that has been on my mind ever since reading this claim from Hush Skins against Curio. Is it real? Is it fake? I don’t know and neither do you. How do you know for sure?
I can say though that ever since entering SL at the end of 2006 Gala Phoenix is a name that I knew. I was familiar with her skins and I wore them. After awhile her store turned into Curio and I followed her there and started to wear those skins too. I’ve been wearing her skins for several years now and I just can’t fathom how these claims could be true or even legit. I have not seen anything yet with her side of the story.
On the far left we have a Curio skin and the other two are from Hush who are at the Skin Addiction Showcase right now and that is where I got these. I wanted to see how they matched up against the Curio. Well the bodies are identical and the tones are different. The Hush Sugar Tone compared to Curio’s Petal is different and so are the faces. Hush’s skin looks like it was attacked with a powder puff and it does not match the scalp part, in fact there is a dent there and a noticeable seam where on the Curio skin it is smooth. Now why would someone go through the trouble of making a body like that and not blending it as seamlessly as Curio does. Why does the Hush skin look like it was pasted on and no one bothered to blend it? Look at the compassion below, am I wrong?
Now please just take this post as something to think about. I just really like Curio skins and have for a long time. I don’t know for sure what happened, I don’t think any of us do but before you (some of you) go attacking Gala Phoenix please think about how you would like to be treated in this situation. Personally I have only just heard of Hush skin and to be honest anyone can make a claim.. but does she have any real proof that this claim is legit?
Sylvia Olivier 
❤ Lali!!
To be honest, I would like to hear Gala’s side. I suppose everybody would. But given on how she is known amongst us skin designers by the constant accusations of theft she used to push on us, and for crushing young designers to a dent, it is very surprising that she just took it quietly and have not issued a reply. Innocent people speak up. And so far, we heard nothing, Curio’s sim remains closed, and Gala Phoenix remains quiet. The authorities will not publicly tell anyone if they took Hush’s HD to scrap it (every skin maker deletes LOTS of trial and error data). And until we hear concrete information from anyone, starting by Gala herself, every one is left to take sides – or not – and speculate – or not – about what truly happened. May LL have the grace to not delete Curio skins from inventories, because the end-user money doesn’t grow in RL Linden Trees.
Innocent people with good lawyers do not speak up. The fact that the Hush creator put that on her blog indicates that first, she is immature, and second, that she is tasteless. The humiliation alone, of being in this scenario and the fact that I would be to angry to think coherently besides the fact that she apparentently was indicted on would be enough to silence her. The fact that I have been in sl for five years and have known Curio for that long, and her skins have always been well done. And this Hush creator wasn’t such a great skin creator when she was under Vixen speaks volumes.
Mary, what do you mean by “crushing young designers” are you saying she’s a bully? Please elaborate, I’m interested, I’m also interested in the allocations of theft on other designers. If you wouldn’t mind sharing what you know
Obviously Irina here is very passionate about defending Gala. After all, she has been in SL for five years and have known Gala for that long. Or perhaps she is very american, if she finds it that defending oneself in public is immature and tasteless. She forgot to consider things like the biggest case of child molesting in US, that destroyed a whole family up to 2 generations above and below the accusers. That happened because the accused man was in Singapore in a business trip and could not have molested said child, and he didn’t speak up. So the press crushed his family to bits, with full support of a very misinformed public, because he (the accused man) was not even present in the country to defend himself. In other words, “speak no evil in public”, because if you speak “evil”, be it to accuse someone else or to defend yourself, you are immature, and tasteless. “Freedom of speech as long as you want to hear” was a lesson when I was studying in a law school at San Francisco, California, during 1998. Obviously some of the country’s citizen’s mentality has not evolved since.
Having said that, as I also said before, the authorities will not openly say if they did, or did NOT, get a hold of the hard drive of both parties involved (Gala’s player and Hush’s player) to scrap in a forensics laboratory. Until they do that, it is a matter of picking sides according to one’s preference, and bashing the other in the process.
Now speaking for an outsider’s point of view, who has jumped to defend people pro-Bono alongside one of my business partners – we both have SL accounts as well as in many other grids and platforms – I have to say that nothing is very easy to prove without true grounds. The whole “innocent until proven guilty” is quite shallow online. If a person can hack into their mother’s account when they are only 12 in order to get payment transferred to access porn sites (the things we see online in our work field are something else!), imagine how easy for someone is to fake a charity event website and make good intentioned people believe… or to fake a skin theft to whichever purpose, be it a petty revenge, or to gain some publicity and sales at the expense of a scandal (both which I call “sheer despair”).
I am NOT saying Gala is guilty or innocent against Hush case. But she is no flower either. Two years ago my business partner was contacted by a couple of people in different parts of the world, because Gala had accused them of “theft”. According to the log, she even told one of the girls that someone was selling her templates on the marketplace. But the girl had submitted her own hard drive, and not a scrap of Gala was found after sweeping it over for about 3 – 5 levels. And we know for a fact that Gala Phoenix – that has been on SL for more than SEVEN years – witch-hunts small creators. These two I mention are only two out of the nine cases we had (let alone others we heard of but couldn’t afford to pay us or to send us the RL proof and documents we needed). It is also known that she favored two grievers that purchased about 2 full packs each, over the other five customers that were still trying skins. That happened in August of 2005. I know because I was there, I was one of the “banned” people who had a griever dancing a mambo over my head and dared to complain about her paying customers. hey, they are bothering others but they are PAYING, right? So let’s ban the other ones instead. And more recently she is even openly refused to speak with her own customers. A person gives her 3K lindens (that sometimes was not easy to earn, did you know that in the real world some people really can’t afford to put money in SL? Oh wow! Yes, the other people! They exist!) The epitome of the ingratitude and arrogance: she tells a girl that just purchased two fatpacks she (Gala) “doesn’t have time to answer her (the customer’s) question”.
Conclusion? First of, don’t speak if you are not willing to offend frail ears. Take the sh*t silently in the @$$, (forgive my foul language), because according to some, this is the decent and mature thing to do. Second, no one is, of yet, proven innocent or guilty of anything and both are subjected to partial judgements by the part of the public. I don’t buy Hush skins, and when I am in SL I am working with RL people needing my RL services so I am happy with my good old LAQ, I don’t care about buying a new skin or updating AO or whatever. But I would not defend Gala Phoenix, whether she is or not innocent, because I don’t like bullies.
Mary Doe
“Or perhaps she is very american, if she finds it that defending oneself in public is immature and tasteless”– Your choice of words tells me right there, that you believe Hush was right. Precisely what court gave her those documents by the way? Supreme Court of what? Canada? Actually, the words used in legal documents there is actually different. What case would take such a short time to finalize by the way? So she apparently had a case against Curio for three years, and Curio never once mentioned it? Or did she create the case and in a matter of weeks it got resolved? Tends to be far longer for a court ruling for minor cases. (In other words, it sounds like bogus)
So besides your pointless essay which makes no sense when you toss in the molestation case. You always were for Hush. Figures since you apparently are mad she banned you.
I don’t buy Curio, never have. To be honest, I haven’t seen one of her skins that I like for my avatar. For me, Bird Skins from Fd are the best for Irina. But, I do not fail to see that Curio is well made and has been for 5 years etc. Hush which has been 3 years in the grid, with her main account was making so-so skins and suddenly when she became Hush she started to make skins that were almost exact Curio skins. And to top it off, League ones.
Now that League filed a DMCA on her? Do you think League was lying?
Since you are defending Hush here… can you defend her from another designer now?
And by choice I mean… “defend”. She wasn’t defending herself. She was actually stating that she had created a case against Curio. It wasn’t a defense, it was slander. And you do know that legal term don’t you?
Another thing to keep in mind. Gala’s skins were out before Hush’s line that looks identical to Gala’s 😉 Penny for your thoughts?
I’ve known Gala/Curio since I was a n00b, I can recognize her skins when I see them worn by avies around me. I never bought one of her skins because they are too detailed for my taste, making them look more.. mature(I prefer having teen-looking avie). I found out about Hush’s existence only 2-3 weeks ago and even tried one of her skins. I loved it at first because it was like a blending between Al Vulo’s shine, Mambo Chic’s face, LaQ’s lips, Belezza’s skin texture and the cute lines that Curio skins have on the abdomen(not saying it was made from those of course). And really… looking at the skins, you just can’t say Gala ripped Hush’s skins, because Gala’s are much more detailed. Did she un-blur them? lol
This is fishy… but I have only two options: either Hush ripped Gala’s skins, or they both have same templates.
I support Gala Phoenix in this. And I cannot believe Hush is allowed to keep selling on the SL marketplace if Gala’s store has been closed. It all stinks, and I hope Gala kicks some serious superior-creative ass.
Gala shall ripped Hush? are you siriouse?? i found out of Hush only since this story came up. Gala is around for years now and her body didnt changed for a long time now. How can this human being say Gala ripped her/him off??
Vixen skins were crap and Vixen hair was THE WORST…now all of a sudden she can make pretty skins that look like Curio…something ain’t right
Gala just sent a notice to the update group.
“…….As many of you know, I am currently involved in a dispute over the copyright of Curio Skins. Two weeks ago, an individual I had previously reported for infringement launched a campaign against me, resulting in the removal of my store and skins. This individual also claimed, falsely, that courts had judged me an infringer.
I am not an infringer. My skins are my own creation. I am fighting this individual’s groundless legal action and trying to bring my store back to the grid…….”
even if i am a skin creator myself and should be happy to have one less good designer on the grid? I really hope Gala will come back. As her skins are unique and there are too less creators out there that do not use templates. In last 2 years “skin creators” were popping up like mushrooms from the ground cause of templates…
Head up Gala!
It is hilariuos! i did not hear the first time, that a skin of hush looks like a skin of another creator. if you ask me, hush tries to get attention with this story. but hush will never do such great work like gala does/did.
dont give the HuSh-creator attention.
I hope gala will be back soon! i had MANY MANY MANY skin of her like mm 20 fatpacks i guess! and i want to collect more,
Head up gala! and rip off her ass!
Oh dear Mary, you have just lost all credibility. WTF has a child molestation case got to do with anything? I’m sorry I don’t believe you are a lawyer, you come across as amateur and frankly not terribly smart. You still give no credence to you comment that Gala is a bully, just some stupid story about people being banned, I got a little lost because frankly your post was disjointed and hard to follow, you sound like you’re about 12yrs old.
Yup Elle, that is what I understood from her post. To me it sounds like a person that was mad at Gala for something that occurred to her. The moment she talked about molestation that is an rl issue that has NOTHING to do with SL at all, she lost me. As someone that was molested by a family member in youth, I de not like people to use it in stupid arguments.
Gala has banned people from her store. Hasn’t EVERY single sim owner/store owner done that at some point? I am very close with Gala, and unless you do something horrible to her, she lets a lot of things slide. There have been people banned for harassing other customers, or even harassing us customer service representatives.. BUT.. Gala harassing other people for no reason? I’m sorry, no. If that were the case, don’t you think more than one measly person would be harping on her way before anything like this happened? Also, Gala is quiet, except for her recent comment on her blog, and in her groups, is because she cannot LEGALLY discuss anything. Her lawyer has advised her of this. Please, no one fight over this. It is the last thing Gala wants out of this. She just wants justice.
Etana Vella
Curio Customer Service Representative
Mary: You say you worked pro bono, but then say some of the people who had credible claims against Gala couldn’t afford to pay you.
You say you’ve represented people online (according to your random example), and say you’ve been sought out by “a couple of people from different parts of the world” with respect to Gala Phoenix, but then found you, yourself, banned in the process.
Two questions:
Why would you not avail yourself, pro bono, to aid in the suits against someone you seemingly have issues with in terms of their ethics?
How does one, who is acting in accordance with the law that she presumably studied, manage to get herself banned, while acting as an officer of the Court?
Just curious.
Any updates to this?
This claim is ridiculous, I have know about Gala skins since I had my first SL account back in 2006 or so, but never heard of HUSH until I made this account last week, really?? That makes absolutely NO sense. I hope Gala stores and skins come back because I really love them.
Settlement Reached
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013
Hush Darkrose /Verikai Vargas, owner and operator of Hush Skins, and Gala Phoenix,
owner and operator of Curio Skins, announce a mutually amicable settlement to the
dispute between them regarding the ownership of their skins.
In March 2012, Gala Phoenix filed a DMCA takedown notice against Hush Darkrose for
alleged infringement of her Curio skins. In May 2012, Hush Darkrose responded by filing
a DMCA takedown notice with Linden Research, Inc. and filed a Notice of Civil Claim
against Gala Phoenix for alleged infringement of her Hush skins.
Hush Darkrose would like to clarify that she did not “obtain” an injunction against Gala
Phoenix, but rather only sought an injunction against Gala Phoenix in a Notice of Civil
Claim, which was then filed with Linden Research, Inc. and resulted in the takedown of
certain Curio skins.
Since that time, Hush Darkrose and Gala Phoenix have been in legal discussions regarding the skins in question. The parties have agreed that each store was created separately and individually.
Wishing to avoid the expense of litigation, Hush Darkrose and Gala Phoenix have
reached a private and amicable agreement, and are content with the results. Neither Hush Darkrose nor Gala Phoenix admits liability, and both parties wish to put the dispute behind them and move forward.
Both Hush Darkrose and Gala Phoenix would like to thank the public for their support
and patience during this time, and hope that the public will continue to offer their support
to both designers and the incredible and unique skins that they each offer.
Thank you,
Hush Darkrose, Hush Skins
and
Gala Phoenix, Curio Skins