Copybot back in action. Time to do something?

Lately I have seen persons who have changed avatars because they are afraid. Copybot is back in action and its users are cloning custom avatars to which some users have spend large sums of cash. Whats the point of investing anything to custom looks and custom avatar when someone just comes and clones you basically stealing everything from you?

I would like to know what Linden Labs is planning to block copybot and similar programs? If copybot users can steal and then distribute everything they want as it is now, it kills SL economy totally. Most sim owners fund their sims by selling products and if copybot clones their products it means bye bye to sim (very few persons can afford sim just for fun) as income from products disappears.

CopyBot cannot be absolutely blocked, because there's no way of sending image data to clients in a way such that they can display it but absolutely cannot save it. There is already some protection in the SL system, such that textures will (slightly) degrade in quality if stolen and re-uploaded (because they are sent in J2K format, which can't be uploaded, so they have to be converted multiple times and are degraded in the process), but unfortunately prims can't be protected in that way without removing the quality that needed them to be prims in the first place (ie, that they can be communicated with a very small amount of data). Also, CopyBot can only copy the "baked textures" from an avatar, meaning that the copier doesn't get anything in their inventory, and the only texture they can steal is one that shows your skin and all your clothing laid on top of each other - they can't separate them to resell.

Sadly, it seems that the legal route may be the only way to go in this case.

Still even if it is slightly lower quality version, it does not really make you happy if you just spent a lot to custom avatar and then your clone comes to say hi. Hits avatar makers very hard.

Some idiot even linked working copybot binaries to wikipedia for a while until link was removed for good reason.

This is not a technical problem so much as a social one. The people running the copybots need to be caught and banned. Residents (not just content creators, but consumers as well) must be vigilant in identifying and reporting crooks. Content owners are going to have to be diligent in their filing of DMCA takedowns. Nothing LL can do will eliminate the problem (although enforcing a subscription fee would do a lot to stem it- but who wants that Pandora's box?).

When Copybot was 'introduced' into SL, if you had looked on the board of the company/group that did it.. you would have seen a couple of Lindens in the pack.... Their excuse was, they did it because it could be done, and that they had warned LL of the 'bug' that would allow it to be done..... Isn't life grand?