copy bot speculations?

I have just received a page article someone did on a copy bot issue concerning a new version running around second life. http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2008/03/more-copybot-dr.html

Now i wouldn't be so quick to jump the gun on this if there hadn't been numerous reports of stolen goods and items happening from the past few months. What I'm wondering is what Linden Labs will do about this, speaking I haven't seen much recoil to the uprise and in stolen items.

Being a shop keeper my self I'm now worried a bit as to how they are planning on stopping this new plague, that I'm sure if true, will be a absolute problem among the other shop keepers in Second Life.

You retain all rights to your own creations so it's ultimately up to you - and only you - to make sure those rights are respected or enforced in case of infringement which means filing a DMCA and following through with legal action.

There is nothing LL can do that would make much of a difference: they can reiterate that the use (or take it a step further and make the creation) of any copybot-like tool is a bannable offense (won't have any effect), follow through on DMCAs filed (which they do already) or play hide and seek with their protocol (which would require dropping the open source push - that's just not going to realistically happen - and a few weeks/months to get the necessary code changes in place) which is a never-ending task and would negate much of the "grid/viewer liberation" work they've done.

What might make a difference is for small content creators to come together and start a legal fund and authorize someone to randomly sue infringers on their behalf. That keeps the individual cost low, but still allows everyone to participate in showing hat infringing on content in SL has a risk, whether they "steal" from a small designer, or the ones who can easily afford the court costs and are currently seeking RL legal action.

Other things include awareness: the overwhelming majority of resident are decent and honest and if they find content that's been "stolen", they'll report it but that only works if they know your creations. Some stores are going the freebie way (if something gets copied, release the original as a freebie to take any gain from selling the copy away) or handing out free copies/gift certificates to anyone who reports infringement.