Allow original uploader/creator to remove content from system

I'm just suggesting this be added to stuff that's uploaded for now- textures, skins, audio etc; Although I'm sure the same concept could be extended to prims and scripts.

Uploaded Content
1) Allow uploaded content to be removed from the system using a context menu option (right click a single or multiple items of content).
2) A preview window loads for each item, letting the resident verify their choice that they want the content removed from the system.

Created Content
1) Context menu accessed through inventory, world objects or vendor contents
2) New feature code cross checks the transfer logs to see who got what

Notes for both cases
1) Inform residents who are listed as the owner of items or objects containing content that was requested to be removed.
2) Optional allowance of a grace period of 24 hours to a week to let users contest the removal of the content or find replacements (possibly making use of the group proposal code to allow the owners of content let the creator know if anyone really wants to keep the content)
3) Scripts that refer to the content directly using the Asset ID be given an appropriate error message ("Content no longer exists in the system- removed by creator" for example)

Extensions to both cases
1) Allow content creator to revoke content from a specific user
2) Allow content creator to revoke content from officers and/or members of a particular group
3) Allow content creator to revoke content from residents in a land parcel (cross checking results from option 1 with those on the parcel in question.

Put all of the above together and you have the following possible uses of the feature:

1) Accidental distribution of copyrighted works (oopsie), to prevent the content from being used outside the context of "fair use".
2) Stop someone from selling your freebies.
3) Automated product recall- rather than tracking the owners from a vendor or embeded script and requesting they return the object in case of discovery of a fatal flaw.
4) Stoping griefers/generic asshat number 37 from shooting people with a gun you created (generic asshat number 37 hit you with a scripted object created by innocent user number 44 perhaps ?)
5) Stopping griefers from using content you created as part of their quick-to-halt-and-forgotten-five-minutes-after-cleanup DOS attacks. option to say "this content is being used in a griefer attack, disable/remove container object/scripts in adjacent prims etc (allowing for the small possibility that residents could assist in preventing/halting a DOS attack themselves, making it even more difficult for a succesful DOS attack to take place.

I'll be letting discussion run for a week or so before I put a vote in on this one.

Even with a 'mechanism' in place to let OWNERS contest a removal I would not even THINK of buying anything that could possibly be 'removed' by the original creator.
Say Crator Bob decided he hated SL and so he wants all his creations removed. This would not be very nice to the people who PURCHASED the item. If you as a creator sell something, you sold it. Its that simple you just cant expect your purchasers to say oh well he created it, Its ok that my 500L picture is now a chunk of plywood becasue the creator decided he didnt want the item in SL.
Copy righted or not it is purchased and the creator of the item is at fault for those issues, not the owner.

If I buy something I expect to be able to keep it from then on under the licence under which it was sold, not with the possibility that the creator might decide that they don't like that any more and they're just going to remove it. (LL won't be interested in arbitrating in a million cases of this happening either, meaning that it won't get implemented.)

usually most software licenses add tha tthey can revoke your right to use the product at anymoment for any reason or no reason

You're right, but I don't like that either.

Implement a proper license system in SL. Creative Commons has a fairly strong pressence in SL- anyone with knowledge on CC licensing have any input on this ?

The products could be released under a different license than the textures or scripts etc.

How about a system auto purge if a texture/sound has not been used or streamed for a year? Just a suggestion. I would assume anything not used for a year is no longer needed. Objects/animations i would keep in the databases since all they are is text. By used/streamed i am refering to a texture on a building that people walk by or a sound clip that still gets played. If you can still see or hear it then its still being used. But if not, then the asset servers should delete the Files and all the icons for them (inventory items).

Software licenses often contain terms that are unenforcable, legally void, or even illegal. This is one of them.

I won't even use software that can accidentally disable itself because it thinks I'm violating some term of the contract... let alone software that can do it deliberately. And there's already a problem with abandoned software in the real world and abandoned products in second life without adding bait-and-switch support in the system itself.

I think we should be allowed to remove uploaded textures or upload sounds, but only for a limited number of days (maybe 14 days) after the original upload. I don't think the upload fee should be refunded (use the preview for free test-uploading).

This would be a good way to keep unused textures out of the system. For instance, how many event-specific textures are upload, and then never used again. Invitations, test uploads, a snapshot you take for debug purposes, or a snapshot you take simply to show a friend your view. I've deleted many such snapshots and textures from my inventory, and I know I had the only copy in existence. However small a resource, it's a waste.

Another option... offer a checkbox or dropdown on the upload dialog. From there, you could select whether the upload is temporary or, permanent. A temp upload might only 'live' for 14 days, and would be useful in invitation-type textures which are obsolete once the date has passed.

If you had the only copy in existence, and nobody else was referencing them from prim surface or clothing, then it would be possible for LL to find them and delete them by making a reference sweep over the asset server.

And it wouldn't be any more costly to implement the "delete" operation you're proposing, since it'd have to sweep for duplicates anyway.

Surely they may already have such functionality anyway? All it takes is a counter beside the asset ID for an item (of any type) indicating the number of copies (both rezzed and made in the inventory). Every time a new copy is made, the counter(s) go up, every time it is removed the counter(s) go down, if they hit zero then *poof* the asset is removed. I mean, the asset server needs to load the asset IDs for all items attached to/required by any other asset.

I suppose the main problem is if they don't have this system already and wanted to add it. Though downtime would still be fairly minimal as sims can do all the grunt work and report their individual findings back.

Anyway, as for the original idea...no
It would be handy to have some better system for allowing updates/replacements for objects, or even contacting people who own an item you want to depreciate (note; not remove, if they want they can keep it just like now). Whether it be an extension of existing functions (e.g remote script replacement, or giving objects to other objects over a long distance so they can replace themselves and transfer settings etc before removing the original), or new functions that do it more precisely (e.g 'int llSwapObject(key target, list remove)', inheriting owner/group/deed settings and contents, while removing anything in the remove list).

I would never buy such shoddy software OR anything in SL if that was the case. Period

as for software revoking, I def do not think so.
I find it hard to believe that anyone would advocate removing something that I have purchased. If so, I would at least expect my purchase price to be refunded.
Now I do understand that people have taken itmes and modofied some minor detail and then re-released them. This is pure wrong, I just do not think that removing items from people who legit. purchased them should be allowed
Now If someone advertised this fact over the item they were selling ( warning before purchase)
I could see it going forward, I just do not think anyone would think of buying such an item.

But will it be upheld in court? That is the question, you can write whatever you want on a sheet of paper in an attempt to restrict people, but whether it is legal and/or enforceable is the question.

For example, ever noticed the signs in parking lots that say the owner of the lot is not responsible for your vehicle while parked there? There have been judgements in supprot of and against this very thing. Things such as this, in fact, change laws, it's called Case Law.

Law, are a matter of interpretation, the interpretation of the judge and/or jury.

ignoring license systems etc, I believe the mechanism should function like so:

1. Resident creates content
   
2. Creator wants to remove content
   
3. Creator goes into inventory and selects "Purge Content from Second Life"
   
4. Second Life runs through transfer logs to see who has an item that has been prompted for removal by the creator
   
5. All items containing the content to be removed are returned to the owners' "Soon to be removed" folder
   
6. The items are stripped of their copy and transfer perms
   
7. Once all the content has been located within Second Life, the owners of the content have a grace period to find replacements or request the Creator cancels the content from being revoked (note that the grace period should start on a global scale- once all the content has been located, not once the request for removal has been processed)
   

I suggest that this system should only apply to content that has "No Modify" perms attached to it.

I suggest that this idea be deleted by the original creator. It is bad in so many ways. As for that line about software licenses having similar clauses, that is true. Those same software licenses also have a clause that states that those specific portions of the license that contradict local law are null and void. I guess that makes the clauses in question little more than weasel words.

It is certainly not the Owner's job to ask creator for cancels deletion nor request for replacement. That's all Creator's job. If such a system is EVER be implemented, the most it could do is:

1. Upon receiving Deletion Request from Creator, ANY current Owner of the object can DENY the request, regardless of what the Creator say.

2. Replacement is to be sent manually (or autometicly) by Creator to all the Owners of the object. Should any Owner do not receive it, or don't like it, they have right to Cancel or Revoke the Deletion Request completely. Without question.

3. There has to be AT LEAST 30 days before the objects would really be removed, if some of the Owners do not login for long time, or never hit ACCEPT the request. And they have right to request for total refund of that item, if they bought it.

If anyone should fear your free-bie become quick-money-reselling of someone else. It's a scripter's job to prevent it. There is a way you can force every single copy of your master object to be deleted with Client/Server script hidden in the object itself. Wanna delete everything you sell? Just fire out the single command to your script. And soon, every single copy of your objects in world become obsoleted and destroy itself upon rez.

What problem is this feature meant to solve?

Unless someone can explain that I think it's just a waste of time to discuss how it could work.

AHA. Much Better.

Would you suggest the creation of the "Soon to be deleted" folder and a "Replacement Items" folder, or just make use of the llGiveInventory() function for the latter ?


I do suggest an alternative to the Owner Allow/Deny nuke system- content revoking mechanism should automatically deliver a replacement.

How's that sound ?