SL Video Rentals?

I have a question...and I guess a statement.

Isn't the copying and selling of a copyrighted videos and/or music, whether it be a rental copy or even a copy that you own, illegal?
Seems to me the last time I heard of it...IT WAS!
It's actually hilairous . You even get a warning if you purchase one of these pirated copies, "WARNING, NOT FOR PUBLIC VIEWING!", whatever that means. What are they gonna do...turn you in?
"Huh dude, excuse me officer that person is showing my pirated copy, that I made and sold to them illegally, to someone else".

I mean really, what it comes down to is you are purchasing a pirated (stolen) video, or a "copy" of that video, that some big movie company produced. Which means that a lot of people are dealing and purchasing stolen merchandise in Second Life.

The simple act of selling copies of videos and music is illegal. Be it at a yard sale, flea market, on the sidewalk or in Second Life.

How much money, (or Lindens) is being illegally generated by Second Life's video businesses?

Why haven't the people that are dealing in this stolen merchandise been shut down and prosecuted? Second Life should knows who they are.

And what an uproar you get if you try to sell a texture that doesn't have full permissions? Something is just not right on the streets of Second Life.

And in case you haven't heard...prostitution is legal here!
Makes you wonder what else is going on here...Hey dude,...anybody know where I can get a doobi?

Just my thoughts for the day...

Quick answer to this, comes in a couple parts.

Linden Labs handles suspected copyright infringement issues under the United States laws of the DMCA.

Linden Labs is a platform, not a content creator, and are not legally responsible for the content on their servers, as long as they operate within the confines of the DMCA. This finding of law has been has been upheld in court many times in the last few years, where those who operate a public website such as a forum are not responsible for the content that users of the system generate.

On a fairly regular basis, Linden Labs receives DMCA takedown notices from both residents and external companies who believe their copyrighted works are being infringed. Linden Labs handles this internally and according to the laws of the DMCA. This can result in said content being removed, if the case is truthfully justified.

In the event that copies of movies were being sold online, with the payment method being in Linden dollars, then the copyright holder would have to submit a DMCA claim to Linden Labs to have the offending content removed.

Now, with all the legal crap out of the way, do you honestly think that the big movie companies are losing major amounts of money due to copies of movies being sold in Second Life, if this is even happening? (I've seen porno movies being sold, but that's it.)

The copyright system in the US is very, very broken. Historically, when the Founders formed the Constitution, copyright was limited to 15 years. That was considered more than enough time to make a valuable profit from your work. Now, copyright has been extended upwards of 70+ years. This means that the copyright over content extends well past the point where most of the creators are even alive? This is a particular problem because under US law, companies are considered individuals in regards to copyright law, and companies are effectively immortal.

Please, read up on Creative Commons. http://creativecommons.org

One of the biggest problems with copyright has to be the very open nature of the internet.

Movies that are shown in SL, are simply a URL passed to your client software via the SL server, this is placed there by virtually anyone with media access rights from land they own in one form or another. The URL address alone would not give away any potential lead as to the source or nature of the content, on top of which this can be a redirected content URL anyway. SL is simply a mirror image of RL, with a few exceptions either way (I haven't managed TP or flying in RL yet) along with the ability to 'cloak' your existance or identity. If you truly don't want to see any HD (High Definition) content, I would suggest installing Vista, from my experience, it won't even allow you to view this even if you own it, if your leads and plugs aren't trusted by the OS.
I did find a very useful thing, for the Vista CD, it works well getting stubborn ice off my windscreen, saved me a fortune in a plastic bespoke device.

hehe dont worry i had a guy threaten me when i showed one of his pirated movies way back when for free to like 5 newbies he was gonna take me to SL i said fine do that and then you can explain why you are showing pirated movies. The thing is though the way he did it was very odd he waited for me to show it to people and showed up and made a big show of it. I booted him off my land and told him to stuff it and said he should be more careful about how he deals with it or some SL user watching his pirated stuff will go and report him to the actual movie maker and possibly get some huge coproration on SL's back and then SL will simply shut him and every other pirateer of movies down out there and then where will he be?

it was expensive I showed it to newbies as a treat and he is mad cause I am ripping "him off" yeah those threats are not something to worry about if that guy was smart he could have used me as advertising as many people were wondering where to get these movies hehe i told them after he pulled hisl ittle trick i then sent them a chat and he lost like 5 customers very fast

live and learn

a criminal complains that someone is showing his pirated stuff ? well dont worry about it purchase the movie for those ungoldy amounts of lindens and show it and watch it and have fun if enough of these pirates give enough avatars heck for this they will end up "movieless" cause eventualy someone will be in a bad enough mood to go and tell the dvd creators about it in "revenge"

p.s. i should not type on forums when i have migraines its worse then usual sorry for all the messed up words

Actually since my last check there were 4 'providers' of pirated new releases that were not porn they are easy enough to find

I just get a kick out of all the posted warnings this is obviously guys who have streamed a home dvd onto a server and rent out the stream to people and collect money (like a real life movie theatre or video store) problem is the warnings really wont hold they can manage it ingame although they just loose business that way really

umm hrm it posted twice okay well this was a double post..