In-World IP Violation

Actually this is the world-famous Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in this case, all truly means all. Since we adopted it by name and thus intent, these rights absolutely do apply to everyone everywhere.

~Ulrika~

I believe it was you who said the SC decides what the founding documents mean.

If you mean that I said the SC could translate "everyone everywhere" as "citizens only", then you're mistaken. The point of the founding documents are to establish objective truths that exist above subjective immediate needs. Interpreting "everyone everywhere" as "everyone but Ulrika" is immediately satisfying because you deny me in this instance a fair trail, however it violates the objective truth, which is that all people deserve a fair trial.

~Ulrika~

This seems like an honest attempt to communicate a concept. Unfortunately, it fails.

What the hell are you talking about? She has no obligation to give her building away to anyone for free or with any rights at all if she doesn't want to.



Harsh but true.



Make that three.

Make that three.

It is my duty to report, as a forum moderator, that several people have reported this thread to contain several claims of alleged IP violations, unproven acts of theft/piracy/lies, and veiled or direct personal attacks.

While in some cases alleged "proof" was presented on the forums — hardly the proper place to do so — it was also dealt with was an appropriate reply by the City under the DMCA: removal of allegedly offending content.

This provision was hardly required, unless a complaint was properly filed as per the DMCA. There have been claims that things as "reverse-engineering" are "piracy", when the DMCA explicitly allows reverse-engineering (look it up!). Embedded in strong rhetorics, several accusations have been made, that give the impression that the Government of Neualtenburg allows or even encourages piracy of content. Naturally enough, the right to state those claims, unproven or not, are an act of freedom of expression; however, when those claims are stated in a form that violates the spirit of the forum moderation rules as perceived by Linden Lab (which Neualtenburg has to defer to in this case), there is no other option for the current forum moderators to advise caution when stating unproven claims.

I thus urge reading the DMCA itself, and if copyright violations as stated by the DMCA can be proven, the forms found here should be used.

You have two members of the government participating in or encouraging piracy and you, one of the last credible members of the SC, have failed to make a statement against this act of piracy. I would say without a doubt that the Government of Neualtenburg has allowed, defended, and permitted piracy either by direct action or silent complicity. I have concrete evidence of this piracy right here.

Texture theft for the purpose of unauthorized reproduction and distribution of another person's hard work is one of the seminal Second Life crimes. To give you an idea of my effort, I generated approximately 608 MB of texture data and spent hundreds of hours over the course of two years creating those structures. The pirate on the other hand snapped a picture, copied my building dimensions, and called it a day. On basic logical and moral principles, hard and honest work should be honored and protected.

~Ulrika~

Reverse engineering is legal and acceptable. If the textures are of real life buildings you can't protect the design.

Also, I think N'burgers are proud of the hard work Dianne put into replacing the structures you were using as a controlling force over the city. So I doubt many will join your protest. I am impressed with her ability to withstand the attacks as well.

Ulrika, with due respect, the Government of Neualtenburg doesn't condone piracy, and is indeed evaluating the claims presented and the actions taken, please be patient. Some members of the Government are still away and they are required to set a date for a hearing, if that is the appropriate measure to take.

There will be no comments in the forums from the Government related to an ongoing process, although individually some members might comment on their own.

Alas, I don't speak for the Government unless I have been given a mandate to speak; which I have not in this case, since the whole proceeding is "under way". I can only give personal opinions, like anyone else; and it's also my prerrogative not to make any personal opinions when I don't want to make them. Silence is also an expression of freedom of speech and it's as protected and honoured as that.

In the mean time, as you well know, the two structures that you pointed out as being in violation of your IP rights, have been removed. If that removal is justified or not is a question to be dealt with at a later stage; however, as you well know, the Guild can (and did!) remove non-conforming buildings if they wish, without the need of a very complex process. Which they did, acting in good faith. And replaced everything else anyway, just to make sure there were not going to be further IP claims coming from nowhere. As you well know, appropriate measures to deal with alleged violations of IP claims is immediate deletion of offending content. Pre-emptively deleting suspect content is the prerrogative of the Guild; things can always be cleared out at a later stage. And they most certainly will.

Hammering on the same key won't speed up the process. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Everyone has their own priorities — please be tolerant of those, and accept them. Swamping over the governmental structures of Neualtenburg with all sorts of requests that take time and require proper procedures is never a good strategy — there is a limit on how many different things government can, and will, do at the same time. The only thing you can reasonably expect is a "best effort" practice — Government institutions will work as fast as they are able to, giving their time limitations to do everything.

Naturally enough, complaining about the priorities of Government and its apparent lack of speed, is another prerrogative of the citizens. At this point, speaking for myself, I can only say that we're all working as fast as we can towards dealing with all these issues, while at the same time making sure that we're not overlooking essential details by being "too" fast. There is always a trade-off between acting on impulse and making mistakes, and thinking things thoroughly through to avoid those mistakes. I'm sorry if I'm sounding too condescending; it's not intended.

Hi:

I've been wary of wading into this topic simply because it has become quite vitorlic and unpleseant, however I think now is as good a time as any.

First off, I would like to say that I do not condone piracy or infringement upon intellectual property, no matter who it belongs to. By the same token, I do not condone personal attacks against individual members of the community, if not for the simple reason that all it does is muddy the waters and overhsadow the underlying issues.

In short, I would like to see hearings held regarding this whole ball of wax, regarding the legitimacy of claims to intellectual property, the piracy (and protection from) of intellectual property, as well as ensuring that everyone is on the level. From the outside and without balanced evidence, I could not even begin to pass any form of judgement as a citizen upon the actions of any and all involved and instead will rely upon the SC to properly look into these very serious matters. I am fully confident in their abilities, impartiality, and expedience and feel that it is important that as has been previously mentioned, all concerned parties remember that governemnt bodies do take time to operate and generally do not comment about ongoing procedures, lest they appear partial or potentially taint the results.

I do look forward to the peaceful and successful resolution to this situation, as this is a test as a community as to how strong our resolve and faith is in our government and its rules and procedures. I look forward to future debate, but for the sake of all involved, let's try to keep things civil.

Best of luck to all involved in securing a peaceful resolution,

Brian Livingston

She has engaged in the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of another person's property. Whether it's Nephalaine's one-of-a-kind outfits, Cubey Terra's vehicles, or Kendra's breathtaking structures, these individuals deserve to have their hard work protected from screen-shot pirates.

You know, Kevn. Thou shalt not steal?

~Ulrika~

Stealing? Where did you get the design for the buildings? Did you steal the design from RL building designs? If so, you can't copyright the design.

The DMCA says reverse engineering is an acception. It's acceptable to do as she did, if she actually did copy your textures by snapping pictures.

LL only recognizes your permissions set within the object. They won't issue a take down unless you can prove you own rights to the design.

That's why I think she is completely within her right to create anything in SL snapshots, unless the designs are protected. I think the design you keep pointing to is common and can't be protected.

I thank you for acknowledging publicly that the SC is looking into this. I have been quite frustrated at the lack of responsiveness from both the SC and RA, having sent several emails over the last week. Compounding my frustration, is that I have yet to hear anything concerning that fact that the trial I was previously subjected to violated the constitution and bill of rights many times over. This coupled with the unchecked forum rancor and seeming lawlessness in the city makes we wonder if the SC hadn't gone on permanent vaction.

Since there has been no further unauthorized distribution of my works and an investigation is underway, I will try to be patient. However, I want you to know that I am very troubled by the theft of my textures and will pursue this until I feel justice has been served, whether it's in the city, in SL, or in RL. Personally, I want it to be settled in the city.

~Ulrika~

She has engaged in the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of another person's property. Whether it's Nephalaine's one-of-a-kind outfits, Cubey Terra's vehicles, or Kendra's breathtaking structures, these individuals deserve to have their hard work protected from screen-shot pirates.

~Ulrika~

well--to be fair here --Ulrika wasnt disputing the ownership of the City Walls .

Kendra, I replied to your posting in the other thread just in time before it got closed. Please read. And read vivi's posting too, I was referring to that one. I'm with Ulrika, not attacking her for using Fachwerk styles for her textures, which then certainly are her pieces of artwork which shouldn't get ripped off for whatever purposes.

BTW is anybody else getting pissed about this anal and censoring "no names naming and thread closing" policy? One size fits all? ResMods are getting on my nerves big time.

She took the idea from German style houses that are around for hundreds of years! There is no copyright or trademark on those styles. Ulrika used the style concept to create textures for her Fachwerk. She might even have taken photos of fasades and used those and tweaked them. She did so in a graphic program, she invested her time and creativity. It's HER goddamn work and piece of art. And you are telling us she can't protect it? Try again!

I think if she'd called it kitten huffing she'd get more sympathy and be about as accurate.

Good call on the photosourcing of RL buildings analogy, Kevn.

Thank you for the support. As can be seen by this poll the vast majority agree that the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of SL content is wrong. I'd like to see it formalized as being against the ToS. (An interesting note about that poll is that several of the pro-piracy votes came from low-post-count alts that have only appeared in the N'burg forum to discuss piracy.)

~Ulrika~

I would like to see something like that too, but I doubt that it would help alot with keeping people from ripping off other people's work. It might help with taking action if this kind of stuff happens, and have LL remove the things in question. I bet there will still be many people who either don't read the ToS or don't follow it and just do whatever they want because simply they "can". Not minding consequences at that point.

Hell, even I ignore the ToS often by saying "f'ck this" and other "bad" words on our PG land. <g>...simply because I "can".



That's nothing new. There are quite a few folks around who feel the urge to use (secret) alts to support the view of their main characters. They just make me laugh...it takes a real loser to be afraid to "lose" an argument or discussion.

Anyway, I hope you'll get this mess sorted out without taking legal action..and then, just let go again for the sake of your remodeled real life.

It's good to see you back, it's bad to see you still wasting your time and energy on forums discussions with people who don't really seem to care about the topics. IMO lots of the forums chatter is about "bashing the poster" or "siding with the poster" or "see and be seen" (or read and be read, for that matter)...wait a moment..what was this thread about again?

May I suggest something soothing and relaxing? At least it works for me and I'll do it right now...I'll drive down to BigY and get me some yummy imported Schwarzwaelder Kirschtorte. Then I'll brew a nice STRONG coffee and go to heaven. Since there is no baby in this household, I'll let our dog lick the spoon. Man, I hope you like Kaffee und Kuchen.

There are troubling legal reasons for that, and I'm sure Linden Lab's legal department could explain them much better than I can.

Basically, Linden Lab is legally maneuvering themselves to be viewed as having "carrier status" under US law. This means that they cannot be held responsible for the content that is distributed through their platform; they only provide the technology and the means for that content to be distributed, but LL doesn't make any claims about that content (very similar to what all telecoms, ISPs, and hosting providers do). On the other hand, it means that they have to aid the legal authorities to every level of required cooperation every time there is a copyright violation — thus their full commitment to the DMCA.

If they go towards a level of formalisation of disapproving content (not unlike what There or The Sims Online do), they would be unable to apply for "carrier status", but would (probably) become entertainment content distributors instead. Now what this means is that they would be directly responsible for dealing with violations of copyrights or trademarks, and companies would be able to sue Linden Lab directly (LL, very likely, would recover the costs from those suits by suing the residents in turn). This is not only bad PR — after all, we all know it's impossible for them to validate all the 10 TBytes of content available, as well as holding a whole legal team to deal with the suing and counter-suing — but it is something that would cripple the whole concept of "Second Life as the 3D World-Wide Web". Second Life would more likely become something akin to the Disney Channel — where they would be collectively responsible to validate all content within (and collect and pay royalty fees for it).

There are very good reasons why Linden Lab tries to avoid this nightmare; imagine having to sign up a legal contract with each and every resident when one would rez a prim. Although it might be possible to automate the process (not unlike what happens on Orkut or Friendster or Flikr or even Wikipedia when you upload a picture), it would be a hard burden to place on the creative designers of SL.

The current model is far better, it allows for expansion (even international expansion, where for instance copyright does not need to be registered, unlike what happens in the US), and keeps LL safe from legal troubles — all requirements for a 100-person-start-up that hasn't the workforce of a Disney or Viacom or Sony Entertainment, but is going the route of the dozens of carriers, ISPs, telecoms, and hosting providers worldwide.

Linden Lab has already a clear path and a set of procedures to deal with copyright infringements (ie. through DMCA compliance) — one that works rather well, and is definitely much better than the one implemented by There, for instance.

To make matters worse, most people at Linden Lab are also keen adepts of the open source movement, and believers that copyrights stifle creativity (no matter if that is true or not) — in the sense that one should get payment on the services one provides, and not recurring payments for the ideas or concepts one creates. One of the biggest discussions between residents and Linden Lab is related to why they don't apply this very concept to their server and client software (the major reason: it was developed to rely upon trivial mechanisms to ensure minimal protection of content by relying upon central servers to validate requests and security through obfuscation). While many might disagree with Linden Lab's support and endorsement of the open source culture (some of them even probably working at Linden Lab!), it's the sort of thing that is hard to shake off, once you get a taste of it.

In the very near future, your monthly fees for tier payment will not pay for "using Linden Lab's copyrighted/patented software", but only for their service as 3D content hosting providers — namely, paying for servers, bandwidth, and technical support. Philip has often showed this to be their long-term goal: becoming the MySQL of virtual worlds, as opposed to becoming the Microsoft of VWs.

Personally, although many would disagree with Linden Lab's stated goals (and they certainly aren't written in stone!), I find it most unlikely that residents will be able to reverse Linden Lab's long-term policies & strategies with popular polls. The way SL grows these days (around 50,000 new users per month), they can afford to ignore the ones that would prefer a There.com-type approach, see them leave, and accept the hordes of new users that prefer a content-provider-type of approach. I imagine that this was not the case, say, two years ago.

Thanks for the info! It seems like more than ever N'burg needs to pass its antipiracy bill.

~Ulrika~

on nothing.. As has already been pointed out, this poll is so invalid that it is laughable. The invalidity of the poll is multifold - self-selection of participants, limted and non-random participation, inability to prevent one or more persons from multiple votes due to alting, the structure and wording of the poll itself.

Please do not continue to insult "us" by referring to your own biased poll as evidence for anything. It serves no positive purpose except to obfuscate what may actually be an issue -- or may not -- or interest to someone other than your self-serving self.