Entire CopyBot Sim taken Down

I hate to say it but that's a really sad viewpoint to have. I suppose in a way your're right, I don't know how I would go about 'proving' I spent the months and months creating the scripts and items which I sell, other than pictures I took to show friends my progress, and and the source materials I have in my possession. But the same would be true in Real Life.

And Just because Stroker registered a trademark doesn't make him any more or less legitimate, Anyone can do that, regardless of wether they own what they are registering or not. It's simply who does it first.

I would urge you to have a little more faith in your fellow man, most creators work very hard to create what they make, and statements like yours are more than a little insulting.

The point wasn't be insulting, the point was that noone can verify anything about anyone so showing contempt for people who purchased something in good faith only to have it later become useless/vanish just because the seller might have been dishonest or happened to use a component that ends up blacklist isn't the right attitude to have either.

I'm sure you worked long hours on what you created, but I would have thought the same of Minnu's skins, or the person my friend bought her - now useless - couch from and regardless of what some haughtily claim there is no way to know who is legitimate and who isn't.

But if you're as a buyer at the end of the chain now considered solely responsible to *somehow* magically figure out who is safe to buy from and who's items will just go *poof* someday then it does become necessary to be distrusting by default rather then act in good faith, unless you just don't care about the money you're spending.

I have no intention to keep pourring money into SL to have item after item dissapear because content creators feel I should have magically been able to tell that a legitimate looking store wasn't legitimate at all. Since content creators are the ones creating this problem in the first place by blindly insisting that *all* infringing material must be purged, I don't see why it's suddenly so "insulting" to ask that there is a way to verify claims of authenticity other than "trust me, I'm on the level".

Ok, I see your point. I don't know I like how you're making it, but I see it. You're right, what's being done only hurts the consumer, not the thief in question. The issue is, it should have been done long ago, before the stolen content spread so far and wide. LL was warned again and again, with numerous DCMAs, i have been told. The fault for not taking decisive action earlier before so many were affected, rests with them.

How do you know you can trust where Microsoft got their code, or where Intel got their design? You can't and such companies have been sued for infringement in the past, and most often 'settle out of court'. They have to make restitution to the infringed company because there is no realistic way to 'take back' the infringing content. However LL does have the power. It does as I said earlier, penalize the wrong party. It is unjust. But so is someone profiting from the stolen work of others. So what is the answer?

I don't *have* to trust Microsoft though so the problem doesn't really come up. They could have stolen someone else's code but if found out they'll just get sued and pay damages, what I paid for is never in jeopardy. They could go bankrupt as a result, but my copy of Windows will just keep on working.

I fully agree that unlicensed copies of anyone shouldn't just keep existing in their unlicensed state, but just deleting them isn't the only option. The seller should be the one paying damages for the infringement and existing copies will have been properly paid for.

Another option would be for the original creators to extend a free license to everyone who was affected to get everything in order, but that isn't a terribly good solution either because the infringer still walks away clean with their profits.

Not all content creators blindly insist that content be "purged". Sadly though, between this type of wholesale takedown, general inventory losses, people demanding perfection in solutions and other bad things happening on the grid, it's becoming less and less "fun" to make, sell and buy things. I suspect if 30000 regular SL shoppers stop buying altogether, we'll still have copyright violations and no one to sell legitimate stuff.

And yeah I guess there's a huge risk involved when you pay me $75L ($0.2 for a dress. How long would you like that dress to last? It's been digitally treated with GridSoLong® and DMCAGuard®.

Right. And if that weren't the case, only FOSS operating systems like Linux would be in-use, and Microsoft would be right out of business.

Another weekend as devastating as this one, and the same will be true in SL: the only thing anybody will trust will be stuff with their own name as creator, since it's the only thing that they can be pretty sure won't disappear. At this point, folks would be safer operating their own private copybots than trusting any purchased content with the original creator's name intact.

The only way to eliminate it completely would be to prevent users uploading textures at all from any external source. Have a texture editor incorporated into the client with no import facility, and force you to only use textures you have made yourself from scratch using said texture editor.

How long would you like the money you take out of SL to remain on your bank account before it suddenly vanishes?

They're equally silly questions .

I wore a L$1k latex bodysuit I bought maybe 6 months ago for the very first time two days ago. There's plenty I'll buy just because I happen to like it. I rarely buy anything because I need to wear it *right now*. I buy because I like it and think I'll probably wear it at some point.

The situation would of course be far better if, you know, there had been any communication before during or after - at least there would not be confusion.

I am happy to see the removal of infringing content, I have been asking for it for a while along with others, but the way this has happened just makes me groan hollowly and bang my head repeatedly on the nearest solid object. Again. Simply put, there is no excuse for either

(a) removing _everything_ created by a particular avatar regardless of whether it is infringing or not - it takes perhaps five seconds' thought to realise that that could cause huge problems; or
(b) not telling anyone beforehand, not telling them during it and not even telling them after the fact what the hell is going on and why and what its parameters were.

(a) could be explained by a technical fault or mistake, and that would be fair enough. But if wilfully done, I really can't justify it, and I absolutely cannot think of a justification for (b) apart from the return of the Keyboard-Destroying Fungus to San Francisco, or the Blog Entry Panel being infested with tigers.

This could have been a huge PR win for LL and instead they have _buggered it up again_. *aurrrhh thud thud thud*

Simply put, you can't.

I made a bed from scratch that had the mlp scripts in it by eva
the bed is still there, the scripts and notecards are no longer in the bed

people did not lose the items, only the stuff inside (unless they used a prim that was made my eva and just linked that to their own bed or other piece of furniture)

my question is, being it is a script, who is to say that someone could not make the exact same scripts, with the same commands as her's?

(scripts need to follow certain critia so it is hard to say who scripted what sometimes.)

I mean someone could take out the notice in the script, change a word here or there and pass it off as their own... right?

I agree with everything you wrote. Here is the sad part. LL can't force the seller of the stoen content to pay anything, since they are a NPI account likely from a foreign country. And there lies the bulk of the problem.

And if you buy it at Target or many other major department stores, you can't return it after 60 days. RL clothing has a shelf life and a wear life. People seem to expect their virtual clothing to be with them forever. If/when LL changes inventory technology or prims or something, there may come a point where things made under the old system won't work or look right even assuming they convert it. What will you do?

You paid $1K for a bodysuit?? (Note to self, raise prices astronomically.)

Oh and if I were selling something illegally, I'd expect my bank account to get dinged if I got a court judgment against me. Note that the only people who ever make out when this happens are the lawyers.

You do realize that would not float. there would never be really any new textures. Plus I can not imagine a content creator wanting this idea.

Well, you can. Both in theory and in practice. But it would be a huge undertaking requiring cooperation from all of the hardware manufacturers and software developers. It is something that is being done today in the hospitality entertainment industry. To-the-glass encryption such as ProIdium for instance, where the content is literally encrypted right up to the point where the electrons are splattered onto the screen in the form of a picture. It's somewhat easier in this sense, as the underlying software is nearly impossible to get at, all locked tightly away into proprietary hardware with no entry points for even very sophisticated hackers. To accomplish something like this in the personal computer world would be so outrageously impractical that it is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future.

The late Gary Kildall would have begged to differ.

Items age in SL, if only because the general quality of everything goes up. I have bunches of things I bought when I was new that looked good at the time but that I wouldn't even want as a freebie today.

And LL making changes such as creating a new incompatible avie mesh are to be expected (not that I'd like it any more) and would take forever to get started. If LL announced that a new mesh will be introduced next then I'd still stop buying today (likely I would start buying on a "I need this" basis which would be a fraction of what I spend now) as well. And it would take months after the introduction of the new mesh before there's a decent selection of items for it, and quality would take a while longer to get to the same level as well.

It just doesn't compare with buying in good faith and someone coming along and deleting it.

I paid L$3k each for 3 limited edition Dazzle dresses as well and several other CS&LC limited editions *shrugs*. If I like it, I'll buy it, a higher price and a limited shelf life are a definite plus since it means less other people will be walking around with the same thing.

And using the Dazzle outfits as an example: she released 10 or 12 limited edition outfits at L$3k/piece with 60 copies of each back then. That makes US$679/dress or US$6700+ in a matter of hours since the first batch of them sold like hotcakes.

That's just one example why I don't buy the whole "content creators only make small change" excuse, it's just not true. Everyone deserves every pennie they make on SL, but don't pretend that taking legal actions is cost-prohibitive.

Seems like there's something very wrong with that math...


.

L$3,000/outfit * 60 copies per outfit = L$180k/outfit = US$679/outfit

Either 10 or 12 outfits sold (don't remember which of the two) makes for $6,700+ and they sold in a matter of hours (the first batch did anyway, the second sold a lot slower).

---

I'm not claiming that's not an unusual occurance and is representative, but it's one of the few things where you can do the math and see how much was taken in.

Popular stores make big money, claiming anything else is just silly and they're entitled to all of it, but it also gives them the ability to seek out infringers with more than barely a slap on the wrist.

That's at least a triple negative. Still trying to parse it.



Define big money. You're also just looking at what the dresses brought in. No accounting for store, tier, advertising, etc.

I'm very lucky if I make $3000/L in a week. A nightclub host/hostess can make that in in a few hours.

same here, extremely lucky to make that in a week

Hehe!! We should join forces -- double our sales.

that brings up a good point..do people put a time limit on things they make in sl.i know there are updates on certain things but with clothes and things..i think it would be more than fair of someone were to put like an out of warranty time limit in their note cards..
i mean i have things that are almost two years old in my inventory that are mostly clothes..
if i lose something from the asset server i most likely write that off as my loss anyways..but i am sure people get im's about something that had been bought long ago and lost..or is that pretty rare?
i know in rl if our company builds a house we have a one year builders warranty on it and any thing like a furnace water heater or things like that it is 30 days..after that they deal with the manufacturer..
but clothes have always been like 30 days and then after that you are pretty much on your own in rl as far as bringing them back if they were not used..i know they can't give them back or return them heheheh ..just some kind of thing that gets peoples minds away from the creators in asset server situations i guess is what i mean lol..
i'm not sure if that would create more problems with designers or if it would stop some having like a 30 day warranty..atleast they would know at some point you are released from the item..even though most times it's right away anyways..
at least they would see a card and maybe say..oh darn i can't IM..i am out of my warranty hehehe..

i'm a consumer not a creator in clothes or items .i just know you all get a lot of IM's

Well I have updated outfits and sent ppl who bought them 6 months ago complete new versions. But that's just me. Realistically, I don't think there should be an expectation by the customer that the vendor should replace things LL loses. But I do it. To me, a 33 cent dress should have some kind of half-life. Like maybe 60 days. Really, it probably takes me 10 minutes of back and forth to solve someone's lost item problem including having to verify the original transaction -- which isn't always easy.

Why should they have removed the infringing items only? Who cares if some of their work was not infringed. The fact of the matter is that this E.C. person is a low life thief. Not only should all of their property be deleted from SL, but they and all of their alts should be banned for ever.



Is that right?

How do you know this?

You are obviously predisposed to protect proven thieves but then you make baseless allegations of theft against every other content creator who has yet to be proven guilty of stealing anything?

If you have proof items are stolen then file a DMCA and have those thieves suffer the same fate as this E.C thief. Barring that, you are doing nothing but making baseless accusations to support a flawed point of view.



Again, she is a thief. Who cares if some of her items were legal. Many were not. Why should any consideration be given to a thief?

The message I am getting from many of you on this thread is that it is fine for content creators to be victimized but god forbid if anyone else be made to suffer. The bottom line is that we all suffer from the immoral behavior of these thieves. Consumers, content creators, resellers, everyone.

Place the blame where it belongs. LL is not the bad guy here. Direct your ire and disgust were it belongs.

And that is on these proven thieves.