Content Theft just getting easier?

For somebody that's arguing against hysteria, you sure use CAPSLOCK a lot!!

I agree.

A less invasive approach would be to disallow transferrable content from unverified accounts. That is, you have to have idenitification on file to distribute content you created, other than snapshots.

I'm not a big fan of that approach either, but it may be the least of the various evils.

What's your solution to this problem?

Simple, look for an open port on a suspected open proxy which supports one of the various proxy protocols by attempting to connect through it back to your service.

Many "open proxies" are well-known and heavily-used. TOR and Ctunnel, for example. Some are easier to block than others.

I don't use CAPSLOCK. I use the SHIFT KEY. Thankyouverymuch.

..and it isn't hysteria talking, but exasperation.

Plus, I don't generally use CAPS for "yelling", just for emphasis, because italics are often a bit harder to read, and bold is for when I want to yell.

This isn't exactly true. There is an exploit (recently plugged, I believe) that allowed tricking the system into thinking a script had mod permissions, and therefore allowing one to see the source.

That's a different thing; it's not a "feature" of the viewer, and I believe it's been fixed.

It depends on how similar the data the viewer gets sent is to what was uploaded.

In the case of a texture what gets downloaded is identical (resizing and artifacts from compression aside) to what was uploaded so "copying" is trivial in that case.

How easy/hard it is to steal an animation would hence depend on how similar the downloaded BHV is to what was originally uploaded (exploits like the notecard one aside).

Animations do have a big plus though: while a client-side AO can play animations by asset UUID alone, nothing inworld can and most items that contain animations are rather dependent on those animations to function (ie a dance orb with no animations is useless, as well as furniture with no poses, etc). Since the uploaded copy will have a different UUID than the original the copy can be removed from the asset server and effectively break the copied content (as far as most people are concerned anyway).

It's one reason why people should stop banging their head against bot this or viewer that and yell at LL to get more serious about fixing exploits. Anything that needs to be reuploaded can be blacklisted (as long as LL is willing), anything that's been stripped of permissions by an exploit can't ever be because it's the exact same asset and would break every legitimate copy as well.

Exploits cause orders of magnitude more damage than any "copybotting" ever does.

I have no doubt she's probably muted me as well. That would be SOP in cases like this. I'm not going to name names here because the last thing I want to do right now is generate traffic for her. She's not a frequent poster to these forums - her only post in the last few weeks was in the Shopping subforum to advertise her store sale - a sale, ironically, to support the "Stop the Rip" movement!

It's in a different format but it would be relatively simple to convert.

Wow this blew way out of proportion. I still laugh when I see that people just catch the words "content theft" and go OH NOES WE NEED TO BITCH BECAUSE CONTENT THEFT IS GOING TO ALWAYS HAPPEN SO THAT MAKES IT OK!

Shut the fuck up.

Honestly, I'm not mad that theft happens. I'm not even mad at the guy that did it anymore. A bit annoyed, but for those that took time to read before jumping on the soapbox, I've stated that the problem is that all these things have existed as ways to steal content, and do so easily, and HAVEN'T been fixed by LL. Of course there are ways, but when it's to a point that people can just press a button and your creations are now theirs, where do we say "enough is enough"?

I'm also not saying I'm distrusting of every client or customer I have (and I actually feel the same way about your thread but again, I feel you missed the point of all this) but I do wonder how simple it is for anyone to do things that I have yet to even hear about. I've heard from numerous people about even breaking LSL scripts, which makes the circle "complete" so to speak. Linden Labs is doing far less than necessary too, which is why many content creators feel the need to protect their own product. Yes, some go overboard on it, and I agree with you on that, but it's all because of how risky being a content creator in Second Life has become. It's nothing personal at all, simply someone doing everything they can to ensure the product they have made won't end up elsewhere. Like I said before, I had a business hit by copybot that went from $2000 USD a month down to less than $400 because someone copied my entire store and sold my stuff for pennies. Still wonder why content creators get aggrivated?

I'm curious, those getting upset and defending the theft...are you content creators? Have you ever had anyone nab your work? This would be like having a security system in your home, someone walks right in, takes whatever they want while you can't do anything but watch, and then leaves. Yes, it's that easy right now. Oh, and then have the security system go "well, it's your stuff, so you should look out for it".

Plus, to me, it's not about the action but the reaction. Of course there are going to be those that find ways to break or exploit just about anything. It's going to happen regardless. The REACTION is what I'm looking at. All these exploits...fine, what has LL done to fix or stop them? Sure, they've fixed some, but too many issues still exist. If the problems were being patched as soon as they were being found, that would deter more than half of the current thefts, if not more. Not because there wouldn't be other exploits, but because it wouldn't be as simple as pressing a button. THAT was the point of all this. The ease. The simplicity. If it was any easier, these clients would just copy everything in a sim for you once you TPed in. I'm not pointing a finger at the script kiddies that go around stealing whatever they want, I'm pointing it at LL for the exploits used to make it work STILL being readily available. You're right, these problems are NOT new to SL, which means even more that we have right to be pissed at LL for it.

I disagree. I took my accusation VERY personally, and I still have half a mind to go over to SLU and start a fight - though I'm pretty certain it won't accomplish anything. The point is, some content creators have resorted to overblown, knee-jerk reactions, believing rumors rather than listening to fact, and alienating customers who actually had every intent of spending a fair amount of money over there.

I highly doubt the person you bought from went "Oh, there's Katheryne...to hell with her, I'm going to make her life miserable today." Just because you took it personally doesn't mean it was a personal attack. I don't know if you know, but the reason people are extremely iffy about Emerald still is that the creators (I believe) originally worked on many of the exploits and additions that allow for easy content stealing. Plus, when you work on something for as long as content creators do...yeah, you're going to be protective of it. There's no way to have complete faith in SL anymore. It's the risk content creators take, and the path some feel they have to go to protect themselves. Some do go a little bit further than they should, but it's their creations in their store on their land...they kind of have the right to "refuse service", just like any real life business.

You make a good point, particularly about a store owner's prerogative. I can live with that, I suppose. But I still take very strong offense to being called a thief. When all it said and done, she has permanently lost a customer.

I am not fully versed on Emerald's history; but as it stands now, it is a legitimate, fully-compliant viewer, both in terms of GPL, and in terms of respecting permissions. There is no possible way I could have done what she accused me of doing. Period. If she's going to boot and ban people solely on the basis of an animation resetting and "sounding off" when someone with an Emerald viewer is nearby, then she is going to lose a LOT of business in short order, especially since no less than 1/3'rd of the active population appears to be running Emerald.

Well, you have to again realize the history of it...alot of people had a very bad taste in their mouth from the stuff that the creators came out with so while it may be legit now, they still are very wary. I use Emerald daily, haven't used the normal client for a few months now, but I also know what it's past is and why people are very iffy about it. It's like a felon that gets out of jail and starts doing community work. He may be different but I guarantee people are still going to be cautious.

ParanoiaV2.35 with low-spam: !quit

Noone in this - or any other thread - ever defends or even tries to condone content theft.

What does happen is that some people know fully well that you can copy CDs, DVDs, software, game consoles, anything on the web (sites, images, etc)... in spite of whatever possible form of protection any company has ever developed (and in the case of game consoles you're even in the realm of custom made and designed hardware which is by far the easiest to try and control) but somehow, for some reason, managed to deceive themselves into thinking that SL *must* be somehow different. What you're perceiving as "defending theft" is merely someone pointing out that "no, SL is no different".

Here's a very simple challenge: take a picture and now figure out a way to share it with the rest of the internet in such a way that noone can save a copy to their hard disk.

The ability to grab textures, animation, prim data, shapes, and anything else the viewer needs to function is not an exploit but simply an unavoidable side-effect. It's not fixable short of not sending that data to the viewer which amounts to shutting down SL and making it chat-only client. You can keep on screaming and shouting that it's not true but it does not change the fact that that is the case. You can not protect something that by necessity needs to be available locally.

What's worse is that people's denial to see things for what they are actually hampers effective solutions. You can't prevent people from saving textures of anything nearby and as long as you keep focusing on trying to prevent it anyway nothing will ever change. However once you accept that it's not something you can ever do something about then you start thinking "well, if you can't prevent people from saving them then maybe you can catch them uploading it" or "if you can't prevent people from uploading it then there might be a way to identify all content that's using that texture and find effective ways to get rid of it" which does lead to at least partial solutions.

There are people who are offering suggestions that can make a difference, but all that just gets lost in the masses of people shouting and demanding solutions to an impossible to solve problem so predictably nothing happens because nothing can happen.

Finally there's a need to at least try and minimize the emotional sting that comes with content theft and place it in its proper context. "Content theft" in SL simply isn't anywhere near the point where it might actually hurt sales in any significant way.
If you want the new album from group A then you can go to a (online) store and buy it, or you can just download it illegally within seconds of looking for it.
If you want the new pair of shoes from store A in SL then the only way you're realistically going to get them is by buying them. Yes, they may have been copybotted and circulating as freebies or for sale somewhere but even if you know that you still wouldn't know where to go and get them.
And the far majority of people who trade in/hunt for/use illegal content (be it on SL or music or DVDs) were never going to actually pay for it so while your imaginary loss (if everyone who has a copy would have bought it) is huge, your actual practical loss is going to be minimal.

Depending on what "things" to which you are referring, many of them CAN'T *BE* fixed by LL. They simply CAN'T *BE* fixed by ANYone. As for exploits and bugs in LL's code, they CAN and SHOULD fix those in the most expedient and effective ways possible, but as for people copying content they don't have the rights to copy using means outside of SL's servers? There are NO effective measures LL or, indeed, anyone can take.



Why is there a point that content creators have to get to when they SHOULD have ALREADY been there all along? If you go into content creation, and you're shocked about infringement, then you've been naive. Further, if you expect or depend on SOMEONE ELSE to "protect" your rights invested in your content, you're being even MORE naive. That is simply not how it works, realistically OR legally. Content creators have ALWAYS been the most responsible parties for protecting their IP rights in their creations. By the Law, no other party CAN do it for you, unless you legally transfer that specific responsibility in WRITING.



If you can imagine it, it has probably already been done many times over and/or will be soon.



Yes, LSL scripts have been comprised a number of times and it is rumored that they are still not secure. Even worse, it is even MORE difficult to detect infringement of scripts, because most people cannot see the content (source code).



Content creators should ALWAYS have been protecting their own products. Depending on LL SOLELY to do it for them is an expensive mistake.

Yes, LL is doing less than necessary, which is why there is a court case in the works suing them for that very reason. However, there's a big difference between what they are LEGALLY obligated to do to respect the copyright laws and the rights of creators, and what they are MORALLY obligated to do for same. As far as LL is concerned, they can just do the bare minimum required by law, and leave the rest up to us. However, for SL to continue to be a place for people to invest their talents and time, they are going to have to take a few more steps outside the "just legal" in terms of responsibility. I want those steps to be EFFECTIVE ones that actually help us, as content creators, to police our own content, since LL is never going to be able to do it for us as well as we can do it for ourselves.



No, it's because people don't realize their own responsibilities as content creators, and refuse to accept responsibility for protecting their IP, instead wanting someone else to do it for them. Being a content creator has ALWAYS been risky in terms of infringement. That's why IP laws came into existence in the first place. The nature of technology itself exacerbates the problem, but doesn't create it.



There is no such thing as surety in terms of preventing your creations from "ending up elsewhere" (aka "infringement". Seeking surety is tilting at windmills. What you want is expedient and effective recourse and remediation, leading to deterrent, because that is the ONLY thing which is going to have even a remote chance of attenuating the problem.



I hope you DMCAed the perpetrators, rather than bought those "copybot protection systems".



No one here is defending "theft", of any kind.



Yes. Long-time. LONG before SL.



Yes, and in RL, too.



That's a really poor analogy, not the least of the reasons being that you can't name a single "security system" that actually ensures security or prevents someone from "stealing" your stuff. Even with the best locks and burglar alarms in the world, your security is still YOUR responsibility. The police sure as hell aren't on the hook for it.

Again, it has ALWAYS been "that easy". The tools have been there, and their supposed lack of "ease of use" has hardly been a deterrent to their use.



That's where part of the focus should lie. LL needs to fix exploits, AND THEY HAVE. Sometimes not very timely, sometimes fairly quickly. However, exploits are not the only things that LL needs to address. Patching exploits is not going to deter infringement, it SHOULD *STOP* it, at least through that particular avenue which is totally in their control.



Ease of use is one of the primary motivating factors, and a significant feature where much of a cracker's effort is placed. Do you think the people who make dedicated infringement tools make them HARD to use? Of course they don't. The rest are not making infringement tools, they are making a tool to solve a specific and legal need of their own, which so happens to be able to be used for infringement. Even then, the goal is making a task simpler. That's also the nature of the progression of technology; things go from "possible" to "rote". Still, even the earliest iterations have simplification of tasks and ease of use as major design goals.



The vast majority of infringement is not due to "exploits", it is due to the nature of digital content itself. LL can no more do anything about it than launch themselves to Mars with rubber bands.



For the things which LL can (and SHOULD, both LEGALLY, and MORALLY) be responsible for, you're right. The PROBLEM is that people tend to lump everything, including the "nature of digital content" kitchen sink, into that which they want LL to be responsible. It simply isn't going to happen, nor should it.