GLIntercept Detection Plug-in for SL

This tool was well known long before this thread. There has even been an SL article written on it's usage (not by LL).

I've long felt that trying to derive a business based primarily on textures alone was a dubious choice...

Having said that, while there is indeed texture theft in SL, it doesn't seem to be a prevalent as one would expect.

All the people interested in stealing textures already know about the program. Trust me on this. You don't seem to realize that 99% of people are honest and have no intention or desire to become thieves. If you go around thinking by not saying the 'forbidden word' the problem will just go away, you are just fooling yourselves. It's like thinking if we stop saying the word 'gun' suddenly murders would no longer happen.

You wouldn't know it with the way people talk around here, but I just found out, GL Intercept is a debugger. People are gonna need debuggers

I have a PDF created by an Artists group, which was funded by Linden Lab. In this PDF very detailed steps on how to use the "FORBIDDEN WORD" was outlined. Think about that. Linden Lab paid someone to teach people how to use it. I think that says a lot.

I didn't say it was ONLY about communities. I said if you want to make a business success of it, the focus on community has to be paramount. Content is ALWAYS secondary to that.

As a content creator myself, I'd love to pretend the opposite is true, but it's not. For a RL example, here's an easy one, the Rocky Horror Picture Show. In every measurable way, it's an absolutely terrible movie. But it's a pop culture phenomenon because a community was developed around it. It simply doesn't matter anymore whether the movie was good or bad, or whether its T-shirts and other merchandise are of any discernible quality. What matters is that people who are members of that community have a good time with it. That's all.

For an SL example, an easy one that comes to mind is The L Word. I've never seen the show, so I can't comment on whether it's good or not, but I can tell you that the in-world community that has been built around it in SL is nothing short of phenominal. The build that was dedicated to it is pretty enough, but it's not what people care about when they go to it. Content alone has nothing whatsoever to do with why that place is a success. It's all about the fact that a strong, vibrant community was built. You could copy the build, prim for prim, texture for texture, and you wouldn't diminish the success of the original in any way. That community is there to stay.

For an opposite example, I'll mention a certain Star Trek fan group I know. I'm not going to name it, but anyone actually in the SL Trekkie community will know who I mean. The owners of the group have several islands, and they've managed to get them to look pretty good by virtue of from time to time having recruited good artists into the group. However, they treat their people like crap, so inevitably everyone leaves when they've had enough abuse. The quality of the content doesn't serve to keep anyone around. Were those group owners ever in a position that the satisfaction of their members were linked to their own financial well-being (as it is with every company on Earth), they'd be out starving in the street, no matter how pretty their SL islands are. Good content is nothing without good substance to back it up.

Star Trek, in RL, by the way, is another great example of how community trumps content in a very positive way. The show has been successful for 40 years, both while it was on the air and while it wasn't, and through good incarnations of and bad ones, because it's got a die hard community of fans supporting it. Trekkies love being Trekkies. Whether or not there's current content being made at any given moment, or even whether or not the content is any good when it does come out, doesn't change that. The comminity is here to stay, and the Star Trek franchise will always "live long and prosper" because of it. (And the fact that they not only allow fanart, but actively encourage it, certainly hasn't hurt them either.)

Want another? Why is Harley Davidson successful? Because they've got a community. It's not because their bikes are better than anyone else's, and it's certainly not because they've never been copied. If you're a member of the Harley community, you're making a certain statement. Somebody could copy every Harley bike ever made, bolt for bolt, and give them away free on every street corner in the world. But that wouldn't change the fact that, like Trekkies, Harley riders love being Harley riders. They'll seek out the real thing no matter what.

Any business that taps into that kind of power will succeed. It doesn't matter whether it's a TV show, or a motorcycle company, a bank, or a gumball machine manufacturer, or whatever. Build a community and you'll always succeed.


And by the way, contrary to your claim, it's no different for SL clothing designers either. Lots of people in SL sell similar looking clothing. Why does someone like Simone continue to do well? It's not because she's the only one selling the products she sells. It's because she's the only one providing "the Simone experience". People who are fans of hers like being a part of the atmosphere she's created. Her designs have been knocked off, copied, and even outright stolen, many times. It hasn't slowed her down.


Anyway, I don't mean to underplay the importance of IP theft as a topic. It's a huge problem, and as a professional artist, it obviously costs me directly when it happens. However, I can't state strongly enough that if you believe content alone will ever be the means to a successful end for any business, whether in RL, SL, or any other L you can think of, you're extremely naive. Buisness is first and foremost about people, not about things.

You're mixing a lot of different types of people together into one group though.

On the one side you have the average consumer, where infringement is more about convenience (is it easy, or might as well spend the money) and knowledge.

If I rent 4 DVDs for 4 days but for whatever reason I only find the time to watch 2 of them, I'd just copy the remaining two and hand them back in rather than rent the two I haven't watched for another few days. It's conveniently easy (press a button on a proggie) and I know how (I have the proggie), there's no "the movie company is rich anyway" rationale behind it at all. Even if I don't keep them, it's still infringement.

Generally, this kind of infringement is accepted, even if it's not strictly legal. Cable fees, blank media of any kind (CDs, DVDs, even paper) has an added tax (or it does here anyway) to compensate for the inevitable small-time piracy that's a part of most people's daily life.

Education probably has little impact (as long as there's no distribution to other people) here since it's mostly done out of convenience (I like the texture on the windows in my one house, I can grab its key and retexture the windows of my other house the same way) and forcing the issue would make people more resentful rather than understanding.

Next up there's the "for profit" motive. Education won't help here either since the primary drive is monetary. I'd guess it's the chance of getting caught and the sanctions that would follow that would be the primary deterrent. There might be some mumbling of "victimless crime", but I have to think that they're fully aware that what they're doing is wrong but choose to do it anyway.

Last there's the "information wants to be free" credo where items are "ripped" and redistributed for no charge at all (ie torrents and the like on the net). It's also the category that does the most damage of all: if someone's reselling your work, you can shut them down even if you have to take them to court, but if someone is intent on releasing your entire store as freebies then there's nothing you can do. I think this category is exceptionally aware that what they're doing is illegal and thrives on it none the less.

The fact that the last category doesn't truly (or that I know of anyway) exist on SL is really a blessing because the number of people who would infringe in any significant way is quite small, but the number of consumers who would grab a "freebie version" instead of spending money to buy the "original" is quite high (and again education doesn't matter that much here since the pocketbook tends to end up first, get-for-free is more alluring than buy-for-money).

you all keep typing and typing and reffering to rl crap when it simply comes down to:

teaching the lurkers how to steal textures on the sl forums if they didn`t have a clue

naming it here was the last place to do it

Not really. But hey, save some slightly less radioactive brew aside for me when the whole tech-civilisation thing comes crashing down.

I'll be the guy with red and black rags tied to the end of my lead pipe, and a second life hand-eye symbol thingy scrawled onto the rebreather of my gas mask...

The cat is n't just out of the bag, the bag has been clawed away to mere threads. Enter "SL Texture Theft" on Google. Fourth result is an "O'Reilly Hacks" article called "Snagging Textures with GLIntercept" with instructions on how to rip textures. Mentioning the program name on the forums here is a non-issue.

Didn't Linden Lab know ahead of time that open-sourcing the client was basically giving away Texture permission control?

That had already been given away far before - GLIntercept does not depend on the client. Other information, yes, was aided by open-sourcing, but libsecondlife existed before that.

(Ooh, I said the word! GLIntercept! GLIntercept! GLIntercept! Seven years bad luck, or I'll be killed by the Candybot, or something.)

This quote has been brought to you by the Ministry of Truth, properly formatted, verified and processed.

Our agents are now further doing some fact-checking with the author, who may further refine the ideas presented in an additional statement after our short interview process.

For any of you who have cast eyes upon the raw, unverified source, please report to the Ministry of Love for a short, educational update.

Afterwards, you'll be glad you did.

Great book, but I just had to note:

i`ll be laughing my ass off when the entire grid starts whining about textures being stolen
i`ll be laughing even harder when they become freebies like those top skins thefts
i`ll be laughing when nubs make perfect copies of all your stuff as they can copy textures now aswell as they were to stupid to find it on their own


lets see the shape of the grid when every nub knows how to steal textures as they don`t give a damn about copyrights
even better, why not add a "how to rip textures 101" to the newbie package and give out notecards so all residents are on the same stealing level?


you can burry me of laughter when the only thing that is sellable are scripts as the rest has been copied and been made a freebie

lets hear you then!

I am not quite sure what you are getting at here.

"New Persons Guide To Ripping Textures" = Print Screen

Its already started.

Go to some of the higher paid classified ad stores, the one that list every product known to Avatar, have a look at some of their products.

Heck you can even see some of the obvious copies right in the ads.

i know

imagine every one knows how to do it by saying "oh glintercept is widely used and commen knowladge" and keep showing people how to rip textures

half those idiots are to dump to figure it out on their own, thankfully, they have this place now showing them how to do it, i doubt the last thing on their minds are copyright mumbojumpbo

but hey, if you all want to dig the economy`s grave, keep telling how to do it, i`m doing scripts so couldn`t give a damn when it really starts

tried to contact severl people to have this removed, but as usual, they don`t give a damn when it comes to stealing/ripping and scamming as this thread is still here

You are assuming people actually read these forums

hitting refresh or rechecking the thread doesn`t increase post view, so 453 views means that atleast a couple dozen read it allready?

btw

it only takes 1 idiot to post the link in a group chat, imagine if it was done in a large group or a notice for it to be seen by all members sooner or later

okay - 453/12 million = 0.03775 %

Figure only 10% retention and its 0.3775%

So correction -

"Hardly anyone" reads the forums.


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Also I neither posted the name nor told how to find it, nor know how to use it. I just know its already known in SL, several people have mentioned it to me - Part time players even.

And like I said some places are already blatantly do it.

Also I wasn't disagreeing with you that it will happen. I just think its already started and only bound to get worse.

And I know it will despite anything said in this thread.

Who needs a program?

Camera controls, zoom in, hit the print screen button...paste into PS...crop...resize...alpha layer...add to template...voila.

Point is there is no such thing as a fully uncrackable copyprotection system. It's been tried with all types of variants of punkbuster, E-Guard (korean based MMO's use it), SYS-GuarD (japanese mmo's use that) and all sorts of other variants of ram locking software...when it comes down to it ya simply cannot lock out the end users "print screen" button and any half wit with Photoshop CS can grab a texture, of course, not all folks can afford Photoshop.

There are ways round the problem. Simple little programs like the one running in Fly For Fun (cant remember its name) which is a new variant to E-Guard doent NOT come with the actual game download, its a small 900kb file which is downloaded from the actual servers and runs in conjunction with some of the newer korean MMO's. That would be the way that LL would have to go down, something which is not running inside the open source client but is actually downloaded and runs outside of the client independantly and scans for file names or copy stuff programs and simple either shuts them down or shuts down the person SL client. This way LL would have full control of the copy protection client because its on their servers being downloaded and ran each time an SL user connects to the grid, and then closed down and deleted when a person leaves the grid to go to RL stuff.

It's already been tried on a few existing well known MMO's with very little to no impact on the end user in current beta tests.

*EDIT - actually, just found out Vista users have a problem with it...LMAO

last time i`m trying to defend creators with this attitude

i hope it burns and blows up and the only way to go is scripting and look forward to hear all your whining in the future about thefts to make fun of while remembering this

i`m out