Intellectual Property Safeguards?

Hi, don't post on the forums much but I'm guessing this is the right subforum >.>

Anyway, here's the rundown. I, like I'm sure many others here at some point or another, was recently the victim of theft. This wasn't a matter of someone breaking into my home and stealing something out of a safe, or breaking into my workplace and stealing expensive equipment. Rather, theft of something I was under an apparent illusion to be as secure as anything I could tangibly interact with.

A certain resident who I've been told to keep nameless has spent the past few weeks shamelessly ripping works from myself and at least, as far as I know, two other content creators whom I know from the store they own inworld, Welttechnologien. He does this using a script that, when dropped into a modifiable object, duplicates a full-perms, prim-for-prim copy of the object, freely distributable, circumventing the perms system that's supposed to keep your creations secure.

Unfortunately, this happens often.

Tragically, after *multiple* ARs have been filed against this same person, over the course of two weeks, with the Lindens' knowledge, there is yet to be anything done against this offender. Two weeks is ample time for someone so inclined to freely distribute, disguise, or sell this work as their own, which only makes it much more difficult to prove these matters should things progress to legal action.



The following is a discussion with a LindenLabs employee, posted in its entirety with their permission. The names have been blanked as per their request.

Concerned Resident: Y0, (Linden), got a sec?
Anonymous Linden: What's up?
Concerned Resident: Ever heard of a (Offender)?
Anonymous Linden: some, yes
Anonymous Linden: what's up with (Offender)?
Concerned Resident: Just know for a fact that he's stealing the work of others, i.e. copying prim for prim.
Concerned Resident: And intending on selling it.
Concerned Resident: And I heartell alternately that you know him and want to deal with him, or are buddy-buddy. And figured I respect ya enough to ask which =D
Anonymous Linden: I'm not really buddy buddy with him
Anonymous Linden: I would Abuse Report any copying he's doing
Concerned Resident: We have. But someone was saying you'd not do anything 'cause you're all pally with him. So I thought I'd just ask, 'cause you seem like a good guy.
Anonymous Linden: I try to be 'pally' with anyone, as I really don't dish out punishment However, the Abuse Team will
Anonymous Linden: I'd definitely report it
Concerned Resident: We have... a few days ago, but AR team isn't doing anything. And the longer they don't deal with him, the more time he has to distribute/sell other peoples' hard work. Does it ever seem to you guys like the Abuse Team takes forever?
Anonymous Linden: well, one thing. . .
Anonymous Linden: copying isn't technically against the TOS
Anonymous Linden: while it is shunned by the community
Anonymous Linden: it could be pursued in court
Anonymous Linden: but, we don't police it perse
Anonymous Linden: per se
Anonymous Linden: however. . .
Anonymous Linden: reporting it does put it on his record, which would increase his level of discipline were he to do something else
Concerned Resident: So LL doesn't protect intellectual property of its residents? THey'll jump on me for stealing an idea from Disney, but my own gear is fair game?
Concerned Resident: Not trying to be argumentative. Just a little surprised.
Anonymous Linden: no, your own gear is just as protected as Disney's. . .
Anonymous Linden: disney just uses lawyers
Anonymous Linden: if (Offender) is copying textures and copyrighted material, then we'd step in
Anonymous Linden: as to prims and shapes, you'd have to pursue copyright infringement yourself with that
Concerned Resident: So unless Disney does something, I can make disney gear and you guys won't touch me?
Anonymous Linden: right
Concerned Resident: Oh, wait. We need to copywrite it. I get it. So the corperation gets protection from LL because they have cash. =/ That kinda sucks, man.
Anonymous Linden: we only respond to DMCA requests
Anonymous Linden: no, you can do a DMCA as well
Anonymous Linden: if you hold copyright to the thing
Anonymous Linden: if it's a texture or sound, establishing copyright is much easier
Concerned Resident: But pure intellectual property without copyright, is fair game, more or less.
Anonymous Linden: or, like with disney, copyright is already established on their trademarks
Anonymous Linden: not so much fair game as, uncertain game
Anonymous Linden: a lot of the laws and such regarding virtual creations are still being decided/worked out
Concerned Resident: Well... myself and my friend whose work is being stolen, is very upset over this, and we and others feel this is an issue that needs adressing, so I think we're going to go to the forums.
Concerned Resident: May I quote sections of our discussion?
Anonymous Linden: yes. She can IM me as well
Anonymous Linden: we really aren't trying to be partial or biased
Anonymous Linden: it's just a lot of this is outside the scope of SL as far as legality and such goes
Concerned Resident: Well, I know you aren't. But the end result is that it often feels like LL couldn't give a care about us. Seems to me that you guys can enforce whatever you want, in the grid.
Anonymous Linden: you could definitely pursue someone in SL for copying your things as you do have IP
Anonymous Linden: so far, it hasn't happened though. . .
Anonymous Linden: as most things in SL are quite at that profit level yet
Concerned Resident: Well, if LL doesn't deal with (Offender), I know at least three people who want to o it if on;y for prinicpal.
Anonymous Linden: well, we actually do our best to enforce as little as possible - we're really trying to encourage an emergent society that would develop it's own enforcing
Concerned Resident: We can't. We try to enforce, and get ARed.
Anonymous Linden: that's another thing I was going to say - the reaction of the community is going to be much more damaging to (Offender) than what we could do
Concerned Resident: Some punk orbits me, I go after him, I can get ARed. Its a rather schizophrenic thing.
Concerned Resident: You're sort of... well, LL is, rather... telling us to police ourselves without giving us full disclosure or tools to do so.
Anonymous Linden: we're working on the tools



Hopeful? Yes, and judging by some suggestions I've seen on the forums recently, perhaps we'll see something good of this fairly soon. At the moment, however, there seems to be a glaring disconnect here between someone who would actually be there to help safeguard peoples' interests and:


http://secondlife.com/whatis/ip_rights.php
"IP Rights

Linden Lab's Terms of Service agreement recognizes Residents' right to retain full intellectual property protection for the digital content they create in Second Life, including avatar characters, clothing, scripts, textures, objects and designs. This right is enforceable and applicable both in-world and offline, both for non-profit and commercial ventures. You create it, you own it – and it's yours to do with as you please.

See press release: Second Life Residents to Own Digital Creations. "


This brings me to the question; is there enforcement or not? Is *anything* being done to safeguard content creators, some of whom may depend on the objects they make in-world for their real-world finances, from this type of theft? For now, it doesn't seem to be the case. Unless you're backed by a corporate interest and can strong-arm a quick legal response, any script kiddie with malicious intent can copy your work, distribute as they please, and run along their merry way free of any repercussions. While a DMCA is a much more solid alternative, there is also the threat of legal fees should someone find your evidence to be less-than-pleasingly-sufficient for whatever reason. I know I have a hard time enough with RL expenses; adding onto them when my work *should* be protected already in some way isn't always an option.

The next question; should there *be* a direct intervention on part of LindenLabs in matters like this, where the actions of a malicious resident impact others on the grid? We have people banned or suspended all the time for griefing people - shouldn't outright theft qualify? And if so, is waiting for two weeks, only to see nothing done, and wait longer while giving an offender time to peddle off his spoils and cover his tracks an example of an ideal response?

I'm sure there are plenty of content creators out there who have experienced this in some way. For me, this is the first time I've ever had my work in SL outright stolen. What are your thoughts? Is it as big a problem as it seems? Would you like to see more being done to protect a resident's intellectual property rights?

It scares me that people can get away with this stuff.

I've recently started work on some of my own gear, which, since it's going to be fitted to avatars, will likely be modify, so it can be resized.

But now I'm considering not releasing any of it, since anyone could steal it and call it theirs and there being little or no way to enforce the protections I 'should' be granted.

Well, this seems to me to be the sort of schizophrenic enforcement that is rife from Linden Labs. They want to be hands off, but thats not what they state in their TOS and other promises to Residents. The issue of Intellectual property is promised to be enforceble "online and offline", but frankly how is it enforceble online? It seems as though the only method of enforcement that Linden Labs will respect is legal action.

Thats nice to know, isn't it? That they'll only protect your work if you sic lawyers on the situation? It makes me frankly nervous about actually creating content. As Nanao said I also can barely afford Real Life expenses, and the thought of trying to get a lawyer to protect my work in a game is incomprehensible. It is after all, just a game, but it is still my personal work and I don't want it stolen. Its less a financial thing, and more of a principal thing.

I've been using Second Life to design, in 3-d, images and items I use in my writings and game designs, and also happen to sell said works for a little income as well as the joy of seeing my work worn. In fact, Im known to simply give out some builds.... my personal favorite, and best work, is a one of a kind, that was given away as a gift. Meaning even I won't wear it. That still does not mean, however, that I want my work stolen. Even if I gie it away, its under my conditions and terms. I give it to those I want to give it to.

If someone can simply drop in a script and steal my work, I find that abbhorrent. Its outright theft, but Linden Labs will not enforce it. That makes me wonder if creating content is worth it? Why should I attempt to protect my work if it is essentially open source to anyone that wants to steal it?

Linden Labs wants us to police ourselves, and I say, let us. Let us mention this theif's name on the boards. Let him be blacklisted like the cur he is. Don't protect him from our wrath here, but not go after him for his crimes..Linden labs can spout all the mumbo jumbo they like, but this essentially boils down to them not going after someone stealing IP, something they claim to respect. However, as another Linden once told me, protecting IP isn't strictly in the TOS, so no matter how blatent it is, they're not obligated to do anyhting about it.

As Sator said, this is scary, and frustrating. If LL won't protect my work, I won't do work in SL. In fact, the first time a new option comes along, with a fairly robust creation system, there's a very good chance I'll jump ship. I lvoe SL, I really do, but if LL won't protect my work, the main reason I play SL, then I might just take my monthly dues to a company that will. I'd rather it not get to that point, however.

So content creators, beware. Should you be foolish enough to make your stuff Mod, you're running a very real risk of it being rupped off, and unless you want to call in a lawyer, LL won't care.

They'll respect a lawyer, but they won't respect their residents. Shame on this theif, and shame on LL for not dealing with them.

I've found the only really good protection against content theft like this is how well-known that content is. Alot of what I sell, if it were to be copied, would be recognized by alot of folks and I'd probably hear about it in a day or two from someone. There's actually been a few 'false alarms' like this (where a vendor or something had shown something I sell along with their product on the model pictured on the vendor). The fact that this is the only protection you have against the theft of creations your pour your heart into is really very sad. How anyone can deliberately steal someone else's hard work, take it as their own, and profit from it without a second thought is beyond me. But unfortunately, there are plenty of creeps out there like that. And I agree, LL really needs to make good on the promise that what you create is yours.

I find "Copy my stuff and I'll tell my mom!!" works quite well.

Here here.

This kind of behaviour shouldn't be tolerated. It's outrageous that the Lindens haven't taken ANY sort of action whatsoever.

And if you're NOT going to do anything, then I agree with Harlequin. If you want us to police ourselves, let us. We should be allowed to "blacklist" residents who pull this crap.

Either way, SOMETHING needs to be done. It's bull that people can do this without reprecussions.

I wonder what would be involved in 'representing yourself', as it were. I.e. to be your own lawyer in so far as contacting LL with legal DMCA requests.

-Ghoti

One should not assume that a particular Linden staff member necessarily knows what they are talking about.

Assuming the dialog displayed above is accurate, the part where the Linden staffers says " or, like with disney, copyright is already established on their trademarks", shows some confusion on the staffer's part about the difference between trademarks and copyrights.

There is nothing in the Linden DMCA policy that makes involvement by a lawyer an absolute necessity.

The Linden procedure for filing a DMCA notice is:


There is nothing in the above list of procedures that necessitates action by a lawyer.

The problem is that the citizens of SL couldn't organize themselves if their lives depended on it. You want to send people spiraling into a tizzy? Just say the words "player-run government."

Lots of SL players people love the idea of enforced creator rights and law enforcement in the abstract, but when it comes to the nitty-gritty of what it would take to actually implement real grid-wide protection of creators rights and prosecution of griefers, nobody wants to step up to take real responsibility (or allow someone else do so).

This seems pretty straightforward to me; but then I'm green.

Nanao, have you filed copyrights with this office and followed up your abuse reports by sending a written statement to Linden Lab per the instructions in the DMCA?

Furthermore, do you understand that when Linden Lab acts on your statement to support your official legal copyright, they open themselves to a lawsuit filed by the defendent and may incur attorney fees and court cost that you, by requesting their intervention, have agreed to pay per the DMCA?

They've spelled all of this out quite cleanly and legally. If you want them to act as an enforcing agent, you have to play by their rules and accept the risks of protecting yourself.

It's true! Starax's mom is very very ... very scary!

Don't tread on me!!!

-Ghoti

I believe these are the sections that have caused issues.

One shouldn't have to risk paying LL's corporate legal fees to attempt to protect their own rights.

And they flat out recommend getting an attorney.

Why? Because they feel the DMCA should be used as a 'cop out' so that they don't have to work at providing the ability to adequately protect ones own copyrights and property.

"Well, we could change the system to make it better, which would take effort to code, test, debug, and deploy, or we could just say DMCA, which is far cheaper."



So, hundreds or thousands of dollars at risk to protect rights on something which isn't worth a small percentage of that?

Protection should be available, and built in. Risking thousands of USD on, say, the Outland Tech Jahi, which provides it's creator with considerable income.... makes sense. Risking thousands on something which was given out free, directly to a limited and very direct group of people, one of which turns around and lets another person rip apart the creators work to make an exact duplicate, doesn't make sense.

Of course there is that little burden called Proof if you choose to go the court route.

Can you PROVE he ripped it off from you? If you cannot, you've wasted a lot of time and money.

It doesn't matter what you THINK he may have done.... PROVE it.





Disclaimer: I am not the person being referenced by the above incident. I think wholesale ripping off of another's work is wrong. Obtaining items with full perms on the other hand is alright because you have explicit permission to do whatever with the item.

Yes Sator but LL have no choice. They have to protect our anonymity right? So they're already in the position of having to bridge the gap between the Second Life av you're filing against and that av's real life information being reported to the proper authorities.

Ergo, they're simply passing on the fees they themselves incur in the process. It's not a fee charged by Linden Lab to provide a service, merely the same thing as reimbursing your attorney for such things as mileage accrued during their investigation of your case.

Nope, it's not you, Jamie. However I may feel about the ethics of putting a new label on free items and selling them isn't relevant to this topic.

Also, it wasn't full perms, just copy and modify. This person used scripts to create an exact duplicate listing them as the creator.

Yes, but can you PROVE it? Or do you just suspect?

If you cannot prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, you will just end up wasting time and lawyer fees (which are expensive as hell)

Well, there is the avatar who provided the item in question to him to be able to do this with, watched as he did it. Unfortunately, said avatar has gone and gotten themselves banned.

That really sucks.

So basically, its your word against his in court. And since you can't prove it, you're likely to lose.

Sue them just like everyone else in the real world does when someone copies their intellectual property right. Don't have the money to pay the legal fees? Well then start an organization to share the costs of court fees with other residents conserned with their property being stolen. Hell you can even name it Residents International Activism Association. Okay maybe not that since you would infringe on the RIAA intelectual property rights but since we are dealing with real world IP laws the idea is the same. It is no more LL's job to protect you IP rights then it is Maya's job to sue people for copying a movie you made or Malall's job for sueing someone for using their blank DVDs to burn a copy of that movie and selling it. All protection they put on your property is lagniappe as it is with any other platform and software.

Actual replies ... o.o;;

*hides*

SuzeanneC:

I can't provide the name of the Linden with whom this conversation took place because he requested not to have it given. What I can say is that he is one of the few Lindens I trust completely, after having talked to him on previous occasions and reporting issues which are more often than not *promptly* taken care of. And while his statements may not reflect with mirror accuracy those policies set by LindenLabs, his statements do reflect the views and guidelines he's been understood to follow as someone you'd contact in-world and expect to take care of matters such as this.

Now, while the procedures towards filing a DMCA never state you *have* to get a lawyer, not only does LL highly reccommend you get a lawyer, but they're also ready at any time to make you front the fees for the claim should they find any evidence you have to be less-than-satisfactory. This puts me on the spot because now I have to pay for a lawyer, which at the moment I clearly cannot afford, and throwing myself into a hole should my claim come up short for whatever reason. While this is notsomuch the case in real life when IP is stolen, it's *easy* to cover one's tracks in a digital medium. Hand off copies to your friends, delete your own, feign innocence, now it's up to the victim to represent themselves in a legal case over what is already said to be "uncertain game" and subject themselves to a *major* financial setback should they wind up losing a case that is already tough to prove in the court's eyes.


Khamon:

While LL tries to protect the anonymity of its users, I ask what degree of anonymity do you think you'll get when you're forced to take legal action because there's no enforcement in-world? None. In-world anonymity is not conferred to real-world actions, which, due to the virtue of the fact that LL has shown they won't take a hand in in-world theft directly, means you are now unable to protect your work by any means unless you wish to lose that anonymity. The only way to keep this from happening is by having your rights to your own intellectual property in-world, which LL has demonstrated they will not do.


Jamie:

It very much is a matter of my word versus his. However, I also have screenshots of my work, his shameless rip, an account of events from the person who enabled him to copy my work, and can dredge in first-hand accounts from *numerous* people who, from late January, to now, have seen my work as it was being built, and have followed its development phase from version to version to this near-complete product. Contact me in-world; I'll be glad to show you my stuff, along with screenshots that will show his copy goes far past "coincidental similarities" and into "duplicate prim-for-prim" rips.

I'd think that proving this would be fairly easy as well, but hearing that the person who did this is purportedly a friend with several LindenLabs employees, which would explain why repeated ARs against him have no effect, does not fill me with any degree of confidence.

The good thing about all this is that the offender has copied work in this manner enough times to prompt myself and several other content creators to file abuse reports against him. The bad thing about all this is that the offender has been able to copy enough from us, without any intervention on part of the sole group who can reasonably enforce anything in SecondLife, that it's taken several content creators' abuse reports and more than one conversation with a Linden to get to this point - and there's still nothing being done.

I am fully prepared to file a DCMA. I am not prepared to hire a lawyer to protect my interests, and I'm certainly not prepared to handle legal fees in the event that something unplanned goes awry. By virtue of the fact that I am neither able to financially support this, nor have a corporate interest backing my name, my work is somehow considered to be beneath others and not worth LL's time. There are *plenty* other content creators in SL who are in this same boat; if these thefts continue, will anything be done to safeguard them?

I think you have your answer in what you just wrote there... as far as LL is concerned. If it's not important enough to you to put your money where your mouth is, they could care less. Same goes for any other resident.

Money I'd gladly put down on the principle of the matter. I've had work stolen before, which I didn't mind too much because I didn't stand to lose actual money from the theft. It's something I've come to despise, and those who do it are more deserving of my contempt than just about anyone else out there, I feel.



I don't have the money to put forward, that makes it less important?

Again, I ask where LL is planning to make good on this:

http://secondlife.com/whatis/ip_rights.php
"IP Rights

Linden Lab's Terms of Service agreement recognizes Residents' right to retain full intellectual property protection for the digital content they create in Second Life, including avatar characters, clothing, scripts, textures, objects and designs. This right is enforceable and applicable both in-world and offline, both for non-profit and commercial ventures. You create it, you own it – and it's yours to do with as you please.

See press release: Second Life Residents to Own Digital Creations. "

They already do this. All it says is that you own anything you make or put on their program. You own it like you own a short story you wrote on MS Word and if someone steals your work it is your responsablity to protect it. If someone stole your short story from a web site it is your responsablity to protect your rights not microsoft or your web host.

Pardon any typoes, my laptop's k/b is on the fritz.

And yes, jamie, before you sound off on a topic that is very near and dear to your heart, we do have proof.
We have screenshots of this person wearing the hackjob armour, as well as witnesses as to this person copying the work of others. We know that birds of a feather flock together, but please pick another topic to roost in.

Greyfriar, what you say begs the question "Does this mean the only time we can expect protection from LL is when we can pay?" This is disturbing as hell, frankly. This almost sems to set a precident that unless I'm making a fair amount of income from my work and can invest the money in it, my work is considered fair game to be ripped off. LL won't support us.

ANother issue is that LL wants to say they need enforcement, lawyers, nd all that jazz to deal with this issue. However the best way to deal with this is to simply ban the transgressor and keep them banned, and LL needs no legal action or stnading for that. As started in the TOS, we do not have the right toa ccess the Grid, only the privlage, given to us y LL, which they can take away without needing any sort of legal proof. Therefore, inden Labs need only to remove this cur from the Grid to make Nanao, myself, and others who are offended by this satisfied.

All they need to do is remove this person from the grid, and we'll stop feeling like LL isn't enforcing it. However all we've gotten from Lindens is prattle about Legal Action. You folks are right. It doesn't require an investment of cash and lawyers and such to deal with this, it only requires LL to enforce their rules in their grid. They want us to be self-policing but they've not given us the tools to do so yet, so until they do, enforcement is still up to them.
As much as you guys don't want to, the situationn you've set up right now frankly *requires* your intervention. Its not just because of the theft, its because it is a clear exploitation of the perms system, which should be punished severly. The perms system is the one thing that gives content creators some modicum of control over their work, and now its being shown to be broken.
If anything, LL shouold deal with this to protect the very basis of content creation, ne?

I guess the bottom line is best summed up by something Nanao just said to me in chat, and I quote directly: "Nanao Mahfouz: If it has to progress to threatening legal action against someone before LL will step forward and make through with their promises ... somewhere along the line the system has failed."

And I'm inclined to agree with him. Lindens, you need to mke a choice. Will you give us a fre hand to deal with stuff like this, and allow us to enforce the system and structure you refuse to on the grounds of wanting us to believe we have a resident-run system? Or are you going to step up to the plate and make some modicum of effort? Some small gesture to show you're willing to not just protect your residents, but also protect the most basic securities defending content creation?

Otherwise, anything crafted and moddable is, quite frankly, a freebie now.