LL bans 50+ users for copyright infringement

Massively reports on some interesting news about how Linden Lab has baited some users of a viewer used to infringe on content and have subsequently banned them.

http://www.massively.com/2009/10/05/linden-lab-rounds-up-and-ejects-a-bunch-of-copyright-infringers/

It's about time!

Very interesting Joshooah,

Just wondering if this is some sort of half ar*sed response to the case being brought by Munchflower Zaius and Stroker Serpentine against LL?

I'm still not sure it'll be enough to get them off the hook with Zaius and Stroker though. A one off sting operation thingy doesn't exactly sound like they're responding to the claim that they have

"the technical means to simply and easily halt the alleged conduct "

I'm a bit behind the times on this, I read that the complaint was filed on 15th September , is it still being pursued?

PS:

Sorry if I'm not being clear about the case I'm talking about. Please see the following for some interesting statistics about the SL economy as well as the case:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427285.900-virtual-world-disputes-heading-for-meatspace-courtrooms.html

Interesting how our service provider caught them.

Seems that hackers are the first people to be hacked, in a way, themselves.

To be honest though Desmond, doesn't sound like they were the brightest.

Like you say though, Karma will have its way. Although normally not quite so directly!

This is also a good link:

http://nexisonline.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/re-neillife/

Well done to everyone involved.

As far as I've read I believe it still is being pursued but part of me suspects the whole Stroker case will get settled out of court. I'm sure there is lots of behind the scenes stuff that the Lab is doing that we are not privy to, but cases like this give some hope at least, and perhaps a deterrent to casual infringers. How the Lab chooses to implement their Content Management Roadmap announced a little while ago will be quite interesting in regards to its future success.

I'm not sure that anyone concerned with copyright infringement should be feeling cheered by this.

I suspect that LL took action only because of a rash of griefing causing a flood of ARs.


There is a Phenom combat system on Xstreet for L$2150.
It claims to include some anti-AR features.

I don't know if something to clone and use this is the "phenom tool" mentioned in posting quoted.

seems to me they are going after those people using those viewers more than content thieves..content was just good bait..

it is good they got a few of them though

Hey LL! More like this!

Not sure why they wouldn't be. Reguardless of any of this "tools" sideshow antics, I suspect that it's just like the article says... LL employed the "bait car" strategy and nabbed some idiots. As proof of concept, proof LL's taken at least some notice, and proof that inworld copying can be traced is nothing BUT great news for anyone concerned by theft.

I hope you're right, but here's my theory.

Weapons makers are very intense people.
I can recall reading of fairly vicious disputes. A makers reputation as "the best" is jealously guarded.
It seems to be a very small and specialist community.

Checkout the features of the Phenom combat system
https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=913321

That looks like a very advanced scripting job that pushes at the edges of what can be done in the field.
I would guess that the developer has a good working relationship with Soft Linden.

It appears that some people began to appear in combat with the Phenom system, but with no record of buying it.
50-odd of them would repesent
1) Over L$100,000 'loss' to the maker
2) Griefey mayhem in the combat sims and possibly other sims, giving the weapon a bad image.

Neil's blog mentions the Phenom maker and his fans ARing people - resulting in 50-odd bans.
He also mentions a Soft Linden involvement - but this would not normally be Soft's responsiblity - according to his Profile. He specifically directs all the issues involved to normal LL channels.

I would guess that this incident was a case of a few bad boys in a very small sector of SL annoying the wrong resident. - as opposed to the result of a general LL governance move.
It seems to have been centred around a specific item being cloned via some exploit, and the nature of the single item being used in relatively small numbers gave a reasonable opportunity to check on who was rezzing it.
The same approach might not be feasible for something like a skin or an outfit.


It would be great if lL were cracking down on thieves in general.
This is a YouTube of this Neil character cloning another avatar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78imxTTSXkc&feature=related

The only reason this was done was becuase it was a "special" exploit that was being used.

It was not copybot, this exploit literally just had the server send the "hacker" a perfect copy of an object, scripts and all.

Soft, who does a lot of exploit work, took action himself. LL itself still does not care about the copybotters. So don't get your hopes up.

And 50 alts later they will all be back inside SL again, but this time with some inventory loss to try to compensate themselves for.

Rock

It's the last line of the article that I find interesting, speculating as to whether there will be criminal charges filed against infringers.

If this round of banning is to actually create any sense of fear into would-be infringers, there have to be some criminal prosecutions. If this is Linden Lab's best shot at the infringers, and all they can accomplish is forcing the infringers to open new accounts, then all that is accomplished is a public display of Linden Lab's impotence when it comes to protecting content.

Only 50?

I remember when Guild Wars banned a clean 100k or so in one instant for gold buying...

The Lindens need to deliver this out a little harder. 50 avatars could easy just be one person and their bot farm...

Do we really want to spend tax dollars prosecuting 50 people for swiping less than $10 worth of intellectual property licenses each? Sure, some more investigation may turn up more infringement, but the value will still be in the tens of dollars.

I don't recall seeing any criminal charges resulting from RIAA lawsuits, I don't believe we'll see any here. I don't have any better ideas, but criminal prosecution seems like a non-starter.

I'm not sure what criteria the feds would use in deciding whether to prosecute such a case. You may be right that the potatoes are too small. But if it's not prosecuted, for whatever reason, it becomes a monument to the fact that most of the intellectual property in SL isn't actually protected.

Yep.

edit: and I'd like to see their heads on pikes outside the governor mansion, too.

So this new server rollout this week includes the security fix for this GAPING HOLE in the server software I guess? A security fix is mentioned but the last release notes I saw were pretty inspecific...

It isn't a matter of choice and it isn't a matter of "the feds" and it isn't a matter of "e-stuff".

It is a matter of this: http://www.internetlibrary.com/statuteitem.cfm?Num=12
LL reports it Law Enforcement must investigate and given there is clear evidence it becomes a matter of jurisdictions and extraditions.

Just the fact a person is being investigated for computer crimes and the detectives asking questions of the suspect's employer is pretty bad since all sorts of bad can happen from that. But where there is smoke the cops usually find bonfires so a simple investigation over something like this is probably going to turn up enough evidence for each suspect to be determined to be dangerous to society and thus commences the frog march to the cage of education.

As for criminal charges over RIAA type stuff it does happen but under the DMCA the felonies are when you use systems to crack encryption, etc. like satellite tv descramblers to get pay channels free and you are the guy distributing the cracks. A guy did go to jail and get a huge fine for just that.

In this case (busted for SL asset system data theft) it is transmuted to unauthorized network access which is a "hacker crime" and not a "copyright crime". It is not a matter of copyright. It is a matter of having stolen data that belongs to Linden Lab. Remember the TOS? Linden Lab owns the data and the kiddies are stealing the data not the copyright. The copyright is secondary and the copyright holder can file a civil lawsuit if desired preferably after conviction on the penal code charges so the judgment will pretty much be automatic and a debt will be owed on release from whatever sentence is handed down.

And then there will be the matters of anything else the suspects are determined to be involved in and those charges and sentences and judgments.

What a hassle eh? Isn't it just easier to not steal?

So now the people that got banned have to be losing sleep wondering if LL handed it off to the cops. Will the cops track them down. (pretty likely) Will the cops be "tapping" their communications (internet and phones)? Will the cops have them under surveillance? Will the cops be asking nasty questions at work and around town? (woe be if the suspect is in an IT job) Will the cops be asking their spouse/GF/BF questions? When will the 4AM door crash come? Will the cops take all the technology away for forensic analysis? (yes they will) Sleep on that virtual stuff thieves. Hope it is worth it.

That all makes perfect sense, and you may be totally correct in that. But reguardless of WHY LL acted, they did, and proved they could.. even on the small scale. Either way, by doing this, LL has proved the ability to snuff this kinda thing out, and thus complicant liability in not doing so when notified. Fuel for Stroker, I say, and it's still good news for creators. How much remains to be seen though..

The way it should work is that every credibly alleged crime would be fully investigated.

The reality of the situation is that law enforcement agencies have limited resources and prioritize the cases they will pursue.

Hopefully this one is such an easy case that it will be pursued to prosecution. Easy wins always go to the top of the priority list. Hopefully the result of Linden Lab's little sting operation is that it wraps up the case neaty in a bow.

You don't prosecute them for stealing virtual property in a virtual world. You prosecute them for unauthorized access to a computer network in the real world.

Is that really how the California statute works? It seems to me that if Linden Lab gives someone an account, they are authorizing access to their computer network by the person to whom the account was given.

I don't see where it says that Law Enforcement must investigate. The police routinely put crimes into the "unsolved cases" file. Last I heard, CA had a severe budget crisis; they're not sinking funds into this.


I know about the satellite case, but I haven't heard of any RIAA criminal cases. Do you have any examples?

There's a very clear distinction here. for the satellite case, the guy was making lots of money. In the RIAA cases, the people they're suing are generally giving away music. In this SL case, the people who were banned were (presumably) getting things for their own personal use, while the creator of the viewer in question gave it away. The profit motive makes a very big difference in the eyes of the police and district attorneys who make the decisions on what to prosecute.


It wouldn't be stealing the data, it would be altering it. They never actually got the text of the scripts involved, and other aspects wouldn't be considered proprietary.