A thread every content creator must see.

With all due respect Nika, I need some more evidence to the contrary.

As individuals you are right. But LL is a corporation and they, in my opinion, are taking the typical road many corporations take. Their decision makers set the company on an irreversible path, based on little knowledge of their product, or their customers. Any contrarian voices will be ostracized as non team players, and will either shut up to save their jobs, or leave the company. Stupid? Maybe not, but definitely misguied. The suits in the SanFran boardroom know nothing about SL or the people who use it and keep it alive, and they don't care to. They have their strategy mapped out and will push it through.

Nika and Jesse - I understand.

I would just prefer to do it this way:



.....and to discuss it privately with some content creators that I trust, and have watched do business in SL.....and trust that they will do the same with the details.

I'm not a major player, and I'm not a major crusader. But enough of a player that some issues would mess up some RL bill paying....and enough of a crusader to want to take some steps to limit the "mess-up" for myself and others. And even take the bill paying out of the mix, and consider those who do it solely for fun and enjoyment.....and the effects that would have.

I'm not saying it's not an issue.

One thing we all can agree on: If content creators stop creating because of this threat, we all lose. Keep making those beautiful, amazingly creative things and we'll keep supporting, and figuring out ways to safeguard your efforts.

I really don't have any faith that Linden Lab will do that. They might do so in a few public cases where they believe it will help their image, but I simply can't believe that they will ever consistently and effectively prosecute content theft. Firstly because content theft is so pervasive that the sheer number of cases could overwhelm anyone, and secondly because I honestly don't believe that Linden Lab cares enough to try.

.

I think they care. If for no other reason that it blows their credibility as a company that's in control of what they have created. Assuming they have any credibility left out there in the real business world.

I read all this stuff and hardly know what to say.

My guess is that things will follow the most stupid course... totally insufficient content security, then a crisis resulting in a near total content lockdown that will do about the same amount of damage in the opposite direction.

What a mess. Everything I had to say on these issues, I've said months and years ago.

~ Des out of thread.

Actually a few public cases would help a LOT! This is one of the things Ann has been asking for. Can not dispute the rest of your statements though.

And yet only a tiny fraction did.

Three years later the situation isn't much different from what it is back then: a lot (most?) people still have no idea what copying tools are and what they are and are not capable of and how they (in the abstract) go about doing what they do.

I do agree with the quote, but I disagree with the sensationalist way you went about bringing it up. Instead of inciting fear and leave people to conjure up the worst possible things in their mind you could have covered what it actually does do.

While it's important for people to know what exists, it's just as important for people to know what it is capable of doing and what it isn't and actively disprove the dozens of myths that have sprung up over the years.

"!quit" worked for all of a few days and then only on the very first revision and yet you still see "protection" scripts all over the place.

As a practical example: 2 weeks ago I noticed someone wearing a dress I rather liked so I inspect'ed the prim skirt to get the creator and tp'ed over to their store (if I like one random dress there's a good chance I'll find other things I like as well).

Disregarding the 2 group invites and 2 notecards and 1 landmark I got offered as soon as I landed that store happened to have the "Mark V" copybot "protection" which presents you with a "Are you a copybot? You have 10 seconds to answer or get banned [Yes] [No] [Maybe]".

Not only is it utterly useless as you well know, it's annoying enough to give a very unpleasant first impression. Leaving aside the fact that the majority of the grid is from a non-native English speaking country and might not even understand the question, if you happen to be AFK then you get booted.

I click the silly thing and walk away from the rezzing spot and wait for all the vendor textures to rez in. A few minutes later the dialog pops up a second time and I didn't even bother to answer and just tp'ed away without buying anything: I was there to shop, not put up with getting harassed by a script that doesn't offer any protection every few minutes.

Even if the scripts worked, it would still have been useless because no copying tool will work in a clothing store (everything is inside of vendors so at worst it could copy the vendor prims) and if someone did want to copy something they'd use a normal viewer to come buy it (and since there's a human they answer what they know they're supposed to answer).

The same thing with sellers who still believe copying tools are scripts so they turn "no script" on on their stores, sellers who believe "no mod" items (prim or clothing layers) can not be copied so refuse to sell anything "mod", sellers who restrict the parcel to no payment info, sellers who think someone's who's standing still and cam shopping is a bot because they're not moving and a dozen other things that are all useless and only serve to annoy their paying customers.

Informing people by giving them the proper information is far more useful than posting a screenshot of something that you could just have gotten from the official viewer already by selecting "Avatar Debug" from the pie menu.

I did not start this thread here. I covered what all the program does and does not do in great detail in the thread that I did start. Read that first then come back and say the same.

This "sensationalism" is nothing compared to what is going to happen when it is released. At least this time we have warning and can try to prepare.

I have read countless threads on the woes of copybot and yet there is still no solution... because there will never be one. It's the nature of this system called Second Life.

For me to be a content creator and merchant in this virtual reality, I accept the inherent risks. Not only the risks of the economic sways but also of the technological sways.

I can do "what if's" all day long on how things could be different or better. But all that would do is cause me grief. Some people like the drama and some people like to fuel the fire of hysteria.

I had no expectations when I first arrived in SL. And after learning all the ways that this system works, I have no expectations now.

If I want to create content and run a business in SL, I will always be able to do so. I don't let others decide what I can or can not do.

And I do not let others decide my happiness!

Thirdly because they don't own the copyright that was infringed upon, nor do they even know if the person who's claiming the copyright actually does own it.

The SL permissions system isn't actually DRM but it's close enough for an analogy:

If someone breaks/cracks (or whatever term you want use) a DRM then it's the DRM vendor who can sue *and* in addition the copyright owner of the copied content can sue them from infringement as well.

If someone copies something but does it in a way that does not involving bypassing DRM (ie recording the audio of a DRM'ed file as it's playing does not bypass the DRM) then the DRM vendor isn't involved but only the copyright owner is.

Since in SL permissions are something that happens on the sim rather then the client, most cases of content theft have nothing to do with anything LL is responsible for and since content creators are allergic to actually taking any legal action on their own (again Stroker and 2-3 others aside) that's why nothing happens.

LL doesn't own the IP rights to anything you create on the grid, *you* do. The DMCA is one aspect (and LL definitely needs to start taking those more seriously) of protecting *your* rights, actual legal action that *you* initiate is another.

There was this one started by Carl Metropolitan, which was about a similar matter:

/327/2a/331444/1.html

I read that thread before I posted: the only thing you said about it in post #1 is that it exists and you post a picture, half of which is actually just something that's part of the official viewer.

There's been specific questions in this thread too and I might have missed it but those are left unaddressed as well.

Mine was in post #11 (/327/b0/341471/1.html#post2572183) and was about whether or not the copied body part/clothing items reuses the original texture or involves reuploading a copy.

If it's a copy then getting rid of content copied that way simplifies a whole lot (you can't delete the original texture because that affects all legitimately purchased copies too) and if it's reusing the texture UUID then I offered a suggestion to make that impossible.

Well Kitty you are blind in both eyes then because I said one hell of a lot more in that thread then just post #1.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Batman Abbot
Having all the same dates and times doesn't mean that something is a copy.

If the original creator duplicates the intial prim (shift and drag) to create the rest of the prims in an object then all the prims will have the exact same creation date and time.






Not quite true - up until recently shift-drag copied prims indeed all showed the same NEW creation date, it has only recently changed that prims keep their original time stamps. So at least for older content it's not an indicator at all.

I have created items that I had to shift drag because of that strange phantom bug that used to happen quite a lot (meaning even though nothing was set to phantom various prims of a linkset behaved like they were phantom), so the only two choices were either to rebuild the affected prims or save some time and quickly shift-drag the whole linkset.

It's also not an indicator if prims of different types have the same creation date, I shif drag my prims all the time and THEN change prim type because prims are already aligned and/or textured that way. So no, that's no proof at all either

Just wanted to clarify that!

edit: And if you use tools like prim docker where you have made your own prims to be rezzed some time in the past they will also have the same creation date.

neither do I, but my main rule is to only buy from creators. And I inspect everything, to try to make sure the seller is the creator.

The biggest problem with ripped stuff is that it isn't sold, but given away.

Yes, prim creation date is NOT at all an indication of whether something has been copied illegally or not. Two of the most popular 3rd party viewers (Emerald and Meerkat) have an export/import function that, when an item is reimported, recreates the entire object out of new prims almost instantly. It's all legit and by the book, so saying to check prim creation does nothing but add to the false information flying around.
And speaking of false information, the popular held notion that animations are safe from copying isn't true either. I was recently given a "gift" that turned out to be undeniable proof of it. Conveniently it arrived in one of those untraceable boxes where the date and creator never show.

Though I believe it is likely that Linden Lab just doesn't care about protecting the IP rights of most residents, you probably pointed out a possible legal bind for them if they try to be more active.

If they are simply unable to prevent threats like this new viewer or copybot, then they are better off not trying. If they go on some great, well-adverised campaign to stop this kind of content theft, and fail gloriously, then they open themselves up to liability from the content creators whose rights they have failed to protect. Creators could argue that such a campaign created an expectation on which they relied to do business, or continue doing business, in Second Life.

If they were a responsible business, they would flat out warn residents of some of the dangers of participating in the SL economy, as a merchant or customer, for which Linden Lab could provide no protection. But that would destroy the pretense that Second Life has some sort of sane economy.

Not always, but if you know the brand owner's SL name if the object for sale is not in his name as creator, it's suspect; same if the creator's name is missing. You can always click on the creator's name and check their profile, specifically their picks. It won't "prove" anything but it can give some indications if there's something fishy.
If the virtual good is sold through a scripted vendor it's complicated.
Generally I always prefer going to content creators' main shops anyway, mainly because there's the whole line of products (more choices) and it ensures you're not enriching a parasite.

I run into occasions where an object's creator's name persists in being missing. What causes that?

Piracy, most likely

:0 kitty i agree with much you've said, but if i might point out some disagreements here: 'no script' may be of little use against certain inworld scripts (and certainly against copybots/external viewer hackerisms), but can defeat thieves and griefers by nullifying any goofy simply-written scripts they may have written to effortlessly give away thieved freebies or landmarks to other locations (their stolen wares stores). (no, not -every- one of them, but -some- of them. the key is making it -harder- and not any -easier- for them.... get rid of ten dumb clucks, then perhaps only have one or two 'smarter ones' to deal with further via filings and such.) :0 although i hadn't released it myself yet, i'd written up a 'prizerino' script i'm using at my locations to hand out freebies... no reason anyone with ill intent couldn't do and wear the same HUD toy to hand out nefarious things. why give them an instant pass at that?? :\

:0 and i have switched to selling 'no mod' clothing and bodyoils because of two or three reasons... once not long ago, there seemed to be a grid bug afoot that would spontaneously 're-lengthen' modable clothing items, and i had a spat of of returns/replacements during that period. also, frankly most peeps just simply do not want nor care for modable items... they just don't want to deal with it (and if 'strongarmed' into having to make such adjustments for a perfect fit, inevitably it creates more trouble for them and the creator). now upon request, i provide modable sets... those who know who want 'em, ask for 'em. those who don't, will never mind, nor have any trouble (hopefully ;0) with their existing purchased set... :0

just a bit of a broad stroke to think that what you said are the -only- reasons, and that they are pre-determined to be 'the wrong' reasons. no offense.

No mod eyes are a problem. When they go gray you can't edit them to force a texture fetch.

There is no tool out there that can copy the animations in the Content tab of a prim.

None.

If you know one, name it.

Rock