Intellectual Property Safeguards?

Microsoft doesn't store your work entirely on servers they own, however, nor do they have a system in place that is intended to allow you, the creator, to determine how you wish your work to be copied, modified, and distributed. Additionally, they don't promise to enforce, in-world, work created by you and ensure that such work remains your own and nobody elses unless you wish otherwise.

I'd also point out that even if there were no infringement, the matter still stands regarding the same person *repeatedly* exploiting the perms system in a manner not intended to acquire work from content creators also in a manner not intended, for purposes the creators never allowed.

In-world enforcement should never have to start with out-of-world legal action when everything in SL exists within the domain of LL, and the TOS states they can enforce that domain.

May I make a comment quickly? Allow me to state one thing.

Linden labs, We pay your fee's to be able to keep this game currently open and alive. Something you must realize, intellectual property or physical property; copyrighted or not unless it is enforced that theft of that property is illegal or bannable, it puts a very bad stain on your record. Something else that must be mentioned is recently I had 2 sets of armor, as well as a few swords and another few item ideas stolen from me in a sandbox via the same exact script.

(EDIT: Note; I can name quite a few others and will gladly upon permission of the others provide a list to LL's that had their work ripped off even texture for texture)
Quite honestly, if others are allowed to use a script the remakes an item that is NOT open source, that is in fact sold for people to be capable of MAKING A LIVING AND PAY THEIR BILLS, then why can we not report the names or people of this issue and matter? Not only do they do this, but they claim it as THEIR work, as THEIR style, as THEIR stuff, and then thusly have the audacity to attempt to ruin the reputation of the actual maker and original creator in front of many others causing drama, stress and a lot of issues that I don't need to get into now. I beleive that the creation of others items in all forms as far as Second Life interests are concerned is a highly illegal offence. If there are people allowed to continue to do this, then what's the point of paying out hundreds even thousands of dollars a month to maintain what is required to be able to play when you are a large business?

I mean, for example, with the things I had stolen; the same people who stole it while I was building it - remaking it piece for piece attempted to discredit me as well as destroy my reputation and even attempt to make me lose friends over it. If they can do this and flame people in SL, why can't we on the boards? I think that if they can, AND GET AWAY WITH IT, EVEN when you produce an abuse report, AND mute them and they make an alt or get friends to harass you and do other things of that nature to you - and when LL fails to see the importance of it and makes no attempts against this kind of issue, AND if you support us taking the law into our own hands SL wise; this is a form of SL communication. We should be allowed to warn others of the misuse and abuse that people are doing towards others and allow us to make a warning thread for upcoming newbies, or for longstanding customers and people with good reputations that these jerk-offs have the potential of ruining the game for.

I am highly offended that this kind of behaivour is allowed to continue, it almost makes me fearful to sell my things.

It makes me only be willing to build in the clouds as far away from others as I possibly can be; to put full locks on all my items as well as not make custom items for anyone anymore. It makes me feel as if my intelectual safety and what makes me unique is being put at jeopardy unless I am in a sim with only certain select few that I trust whole-heardtedly; and to be honest...it's a shame. When will theft via this form of creation be stopped? In truth it's utter plagarism of thought and idea.

This is my 2-cents. Thank you.

-BMZ.

Jamie dont even get into this thread, of course you'd be one to DEFEND such actions, since you're both on the same page and like to RIP PEOPLE OFF.

You never cease to amaze me, with your bullshit stories, your endless defence and attempted justification that you are allowed to STEAL from newbies and sell free crap.
I knew you would post here as you're the kind that thrives off free stuff, like a blood sucking leech.

[edited]

By the way
I can prove it with screenshots and chat logs.
Go back to your freebie selling business, scoundrel.

"I REMOVED THIS BECAUSE THERE IS NO LONGER ANY FREEDOM OF SPEECH, YET OTHERS ARE ALLOWED TO STEAL FROM RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE AND LAUGH ABOUT IT"


He bloody copied MY item, prim for prim and even admitted it when I confronted him, so what the hell you gonna say about that bergman.

You add most of the rules of LL to a word file, no copy, no modify, and so on. It even includes and option to print your work, sending it to another computer on your network, or even emailing it directly to someone. The only thing word won't do is slap it on a web page automaticaly. The only two points that still stand is they don't have it on servers and they don't give you a nonlegaly binding promise to keep other people from stealing it. Niether of which is a paticualy strong argueement. Of course if you upload that story to a web based writers group which promises to not have anyone take it.



Except that IP theft is a ruled completely by real world laws and if you are claiming someone stole something from you requires legal proof. If you want a to trust a corperation to be the arbiter of justice for you the fine but they are limited in what they can do. All LL can do is ban someone. They can't fine someone or any other real punishment. So by leting LL do it all you are geting for your back from the other person is a little vengence and the only reason you can do that is because LL can ban anyone for no reason at all if they want to with no need for evidence. So the question is do you want compansation for the money you lost or not?

And if they're hosting it, it's their problem if someone steals it from their servers. Whether it's legally binding or not is not the issue, it's that LL won't enforce their own rule that they set forward.


Again, Nanao's not looking to take this to court, he just wants LL to make good on their promises. And also again, he stated he has the proof he needs, which should be all LL needs to take action, but they refuse to.


Which is what we are looking for here.


Which is not what we are looking for.


I don't see where Nanao became a person only looking for revenge. No, what we are looking for, to state over and over, is action from LL according to the rules they spelled out, against thievery of this kind. Not for compensation, not for revenge, but to prevent the situation from getting worse, or from happening again. Falsely visiting Nanao's intentions is not going to help either side of this argument.

And if they're hosting it, it's their problem if someone steals it from their servers. Whether it's legally binding or not is not the issue, it's that LL won't enforce their own rule that they set forward.


Again, Nanao's not looking to take this to court, he just wants LL to make good on their promises. And also again, he stated he has the proof he needs, which should be all LL needs to take action, but they refuse to.


Which is what we are looking for here.


Which is not what we are looking for.


I don't see where Nanao became a person only looking for revenge. No, what we are looking for, to state over and over, is action from LL according to the rules they spelled out, against thievery of this kind. Not for compensation, not for revenge, but to prevent the situation from getting worse, or from happening again. Falsely visiting Nanao's intentions is not going to help either side of this argument...

I appreciate your reply to my reply but you didn't answer my questions. I take it from this statementthat you have not filed paperwork with LL. Do you hold US copyrights to the material in question? If so, file the DMCA. If not, you can't reasonably expect LL to enforce a non-existant license.

However you're sidestepping the fact that, within SL, all the in-world content lies entirely on servers owned by LindenLabs. No, you cannot save a copy of a model to a harddrive, or acquire it in hardcopy, or back it up in a private archive as real-world evidence. Also you're sidestepping the fact that the only people with unfettered access to these items *are* LL employees. I've already seen it demonstrated before where Lindens have removed items from people's inventories, which means they *are* fully capable of taking the measures necessary to ensure theft like this is culled. I'm asking why these same measures are not being extended to ensure the integrity of content creators' works.






I've already submitted several ARs with: screenshots showing my work and the offender's stolen copy. I have chatlogs of threats to distribute my work freely. I have witnesses, a few of whom have already posted in this thread, who have seen my work as it was being developed from the beginning. On top of that, I'm not the only one. At *least* two other content creators have sufficient proof showing what this person has done.

Additionally, you have completely misunderstood my intentions.

-I have NO desire to see the offender fined for this. I do not seek to gain any money at this shameless cur's expense. I do not seek reparations.

-I have NO desire to see the people who have also received copies of my stolen work to be punished.

-I have NO desire to force legal action; even if I did, I wouldn't be able to afford it.

-I WOULD like to see the stolen copies deleted from the offender's inventory, along with those whom he has already distributed copies to.

-I WOULD want to see this person banned from the grid so this theft will not be allowed to continue. He's done it to me, he's done it to two other people, he can do it to *anyone* he pleases.

-I WOULD hope to see LL take more proactive steps in safeguarding the works of content developers *in-world*. They are fully capable of doing so, and according to the guidelines set forth in the TOS, they are free to deny access should they wish. There needs to be some actual honest enforcement, otherwise it's open season on anything distributed in SL with mod perms for anyone who has this same script.

I do not seek, nor have I ever sought, revenge. I am *asking* LL when they're going to do something to help make good on the statement that:

"You create it, you own it – and it's yours to do with as you please."

My absolute and honest opinion:

The whole 'you own your IP' speech was a PR monkey and grindbox used before 'you can make money in Second Life!' clarion call came into being.

The best support you're going to get is a 'go file some paperwork!' which you could do before anyways - and thats about it.

You'll get lipservice at best.

Seriously.

You're not going to get them to help you enforce something they don't even follow themselves.

To do so would require resources that are beyond my bounds to provide. Filing a DMCA is the first step to legal action. I feel I've already made this quite clear that I cannot *afford* to do so, and that I am by far not the only one in this situation. Not a single person has asked that something be done offline. We are asking that LL provide in-world enforcement, which is completely within their ability to do, and that measures be taken to prevent what is clearly a blatant circumvention, an exploit, of the perms system by treating anyone who would seek to do so with malicious intent in the same manner you'd expect them to deal with any other griefer.

Unfortunately, I kinda agree with Siggy, LL dun have a track record of making good on what they say they will do. But, that doesn't prevent us from asking that they do remain honest to what they say. Perhaps if more people did, there would be enough pressure to see some actual results. But then again, probably not.

As for resident policing of this sort of thing, already stated the tools we have at our disposal, and don't get me wrong, will be using them as best they can be used. But it's sad that you need a grid-wide reputation to counteract this sort of thing.

I agree, and because of this it's readily apparent that since LL is uninterested in protecting the creative integrity of those who provide content to the world of SecondLife, there is *nothing* preventing thefts like this to continue.

i am all on your side Nanao i got the same problem with one of my objects that got copied and the lindens told me they wouldn't do shit

Inforcing IP rights is always up to the preson in the end. There is even an entire class of IP that you lose the right to if you don't defend it. Trusting a company to defend your rights when they have no legally binding reason to protect you shouldn't be your main way to defend your stuff.



maybe revenge was not the right word. It is just banning rates barely above a slap on the wrist. Since I don't know how much Nanao made on the product I will just say $50. If you stole the same amont from a store or a person you would get far more then a simple court order to never go near that person or store again.



It doesn't mater where the object is. Stealing from a mp3 steaming site is the same crime as downloading it from kazza even though there is no copy on your hardrive or a real world copy. But that is a side issue. Yes LL is morally responsable to protect your IP rights. I agree with that but they are still a for profit company and any turst in such companies must always be limited.



I admit that revenge was a poor choice of words. The thing is banning gives you no comincation for you lost time and is a very minor punishment at best. Their is also the simple fact that LL is a small company that is geting overwhelmed at the exponental growth of SL. It won't be long before even if the wished to police it they wouldn't have the resources. If the SL creators what to protect the IP then eventaly some sort of non LL orginization will have to be formed. I am sorry for your loss but in the end though there are realy only two choices if you don't like how LL is runing thing. You can either vote with your feet or take matters into your own hands. If enough people do either one LL will have to take notice.

I hate to say this, but this is the newest in a string of proofs. LL really couldn't care less about residents.
They won't protect our work, or even bother enforcing their own rules. They won't even bother protecting their infrastructure. Shame on them. It sounds silly, but I mean that. They should be freaking ashamed of themselves. They're not even pretending to do anything about this. We have at least 5 people now, I tihnk, in this thread alone complaining they've had their work taken, and that LL has done nothing.

Wonder what would happen if it were Cubey? Nothing against Cubey, he's a nice chap. But wonder how long I would last if I copied his Ornithopter, prim for prim, and sstarted selling it, or hell, giving it away?

Nice to know most of us don't matter enough to deserve enforcement. LL, if you're not gonna fix this, let us name this person. Let us bring said person to the attention of the forums, to be dealt with as he should be.
Or else do your god-danged jobs.

Or keep up with what you're doing, which apparently is sitting with your thumbs up your rears, ocasionally giving out contradictory information in Live Help. *snort* Pardon my rudeness, but I'm quite disgusted with the enforcement of late.

Just a reminder to please refrain from personal attacks here and to keep the discussion on-topic about IP safeguards.

Please see the forum Guidelines for clarification.

I'm a little confused on one thing. On the one hand, you seem to be saying it's a "my word vs. theirs" sort of thing, and on the other, you're insisting LL take action against this person?

As a content creator myself, I'm very interested in seeing my rights defended. And that would definitely include not being kicked off or punished on the basis of mere accusation. If you don't have proof, then I fully expect LL to do nothing -- for them to do more would be a gross violation of someone's rights in that case.

Part of the price of preventing the innocent from being punished is that sometimes the guilty go free, too. That sucks, but it's better than the alternative...

If someone is using a copy script and is caught red-handed, great, nail them to the wall. But if someone merely makes a product that's a lot like yours, too bad. The degree to which a look-alike or work-alike product can be infringing on IP is a very tricky issue that, if you're going to picks bones about it, you really do need to have a good IP lawyer -- that's way beyond the scope of anything LL can be reasonably expected to do for you.

Of course, I say all this without knowing the specifics (since they haven't been told). But it doesn't sound like you have a case for LL to do anything more than look into it, and do nothing at all unless they can uncover something more than what you've got.

I don't see any personal attacks - I see discussion.

I understand that a corporation can legally be considered a 'person'

but 'personally attacking' is stretching it.

Do you mean 'don't make negative comments about the company' ?

I suspect he's refering to the personal attacks against Jamie Bergman. I saw them. Have they been subsequently deleted?

(Checks). Okay, it says the post (#2 has been edited, but it still looks like a personal attack to me. (Good grief, what did it say before it was edited?)

That's exactly what she means Siggy. Where you been? It is no longer acceptable to say anything derogatory about a Linden or Linden Lab in these forums. You've already crossed the line in this thread and are setting yourself up for suspension. Better go drink some tea and take the night off.

LOL trust me - I am showing utmost restraint here. I have a scenario that pretty much makes Ulrika's german house fiasco look like 2 people arguing over the rights of a plywood cube.

IM me in world about it sometime.

I missed that - anyways I tend to skip rebuttals to Jaime's comments because they are pretty much true - she built her business model on the backs of generous people trying to help the community.

Thats pretty much proven fact and ancient history.

I've been thinking a lot about this issue, and I still am not sure what I think... I know it is easy to clone an object, but I'm starting to wonder if LL's reluctance to follow up is partly to do with that this could really hurt paraell inventions (You and I invent similar devices, not knowing about the other) or "inspired by" inventions. Ultimatly, a gadget can be summed down to a simple grid of prim properties and a script that all can be fitted on to a floppy drive (Possibly with the exception of its textures). While I think the extortion is DEFINATLY something LL should look into, I'm not sure if the prim duping is exactly against the TOS, or if it exactly should be... if one can't use a script to dupe prims, they can always "eyeball" it when duping something by hand.

I have screenshots of the stolen armor, and my own. I have chatlogs of the accused threatening to distribute it as a freebie. Seigmancer has chatlogs of the accused admitting to copying work prim-for-prim, this is work he passed off as his own. I have witnesses, in this thread and elsewhere, that can attest to the fact that not only is the item mine, but that the stolen copy by the accused is, prim for prim, identical in composition and detail. I have the person who let him copy the armor using a script who admitted to it, and apologized to me profusely for letting him do so. The dates of when my content was created is stored on LLs servers. The accused's inventory can be opened and investigated by a member of LL at any time to confirm for themselves the proof I've already presented.

Again, I cannot bring legal powers to this matter because it's not in my financial means to do so. Therefore, my work, and the works of others, are not worth LL's time. Indeed, they have failed to deliver on this promise of "what's mine is mine", and someone who is quite clearly guilty is free to continue these actions against other peoples' works should they wish. LL will provide no protection, even though it's completely in their capability to do so. Morally? It's also the right thing to do. I don't see how ignoring this issue helps LL in any way.