Philip Linden Teaches People How to Steal Content

It seems these days, you can shoot people and get banned, you can speak out of turn on the forums and get banned, but if you steal and resell intelectual property, you are 100% compliant with the TOS

as a matter of fact, Philip can teach you exactly HOW to do it

http://forums.secondcitizen.com/showthread.php?t=1672



there's plenty more to be pissed about in the chat logs. please, add your favorite quote, whether it be Philip denying responsibility, or Philip step by step instructing how to rip off content creators, this has dramatic implications for the state of SL

and like everything else we have witnessed in the past year, this is NOT good news

I just turned off the tv because of the useless political spin-meister drivel, log in here and the first thing I read is somebody trying to take an intelligent insightful statement and turn it into something evil. If Phillip's statement has to be explained to everybody, then I'll have to agree that YES, the IQ of the general populous is at an all time low.

read the transcript where he tells the people who fill his world that he isnt going to help protect their interests

then come talk your smack about "insightful statements"

be a good troll, this sucked

More Dhrama.

SL is wonderful. Everything is fine.

Relax.

do you feed your kids off your work in SL?

if you worked all day every day and at the end of the week, you find someone else recieved your paycheck and no one verified or checked who they were and the payroll company says "nothing we can do about it, nor will we, your problem, bub"

would you call that Dhrama too?

Ummm... bad crap happens in the real world too, man.

Layoffs
Downsizing
Firings
Business Cycles
Product Obsolescence

Nothing people can do about those, either.

this is the part you are missing... LL wont do anything about it

Do you?

I can't help myself but to say to anyone doing that, this is very irresponsible behaviour, to have yourself AND your kids depend on just about the most unstable job you can have.

What if SL goes down? Not that it's likely, but it's more likely than your office building getting burnt down I think. What if LL does something to break your product? That's a bit more likely already. What if someone else comes with something better and they don't want yours anymore? Yet more likelyness.

Please, don't "expect" to make money from SL in the future just because you are now.

EDIT: By the way, SL is fine.

ok, then you wouldnt have a problem with someone reselling your work and LL telling you "tough titties"?

There's not much I can do about it, I'm not going to get myself troubled over something that can't be fixed. I've never succeeded walking through a brick wall. Have you?

Of course I'd do what I can to prevent this person selling my content, within the TOS. You know, file one of those report thingies for a takedown? You can always sue LL for not guarding your intellectual property too.

EDIT: p.s., whatever happened to that guy who sued LL over taking away his US$1 sims?

The attitude that killed the SL I once loved dearly.

Instead of us disecting every comment Philip makes... we need to just straight out ask him if hes proud of what SL has become.

read the fucking transcript

you are missing the point

after you read it, you are welcome to tell me to put on a tin foil cap to prevent the sky from falling on me

but otherwise, you are missing the big picture... the thread title was just a sexy way to get views... but i do deliver on the promiss of the title

but that is hardly the real story

i dont make content... it dont effect me

but you do... it has a direct bearing on YOU

So why are you bitching about it and not me?

I don't think that it's good that they are doing NOTHING about it. They should at least be more responsive to the really obvious cases of reselling. (I wasn't discussing the point of action or non-action by the lindens in my previous post) No, you can't stop petty thieves like that, but indeed you may fully ban someone who has land with a store selling stolen goods.

And actually, I thought they did this when you filed a takedown notice? I would actually like to see someone familiar with US law to comment on if it would be viable to drag LL to the courts over non-responsiveness over DMCA takedowns.

However, this is clearly not the direction they are taking. I don't think there's anything I can do to make them do this. I did read the transcript, but I might as well not have, we knew this a few years ago.

Happens in the business world all the time.

I think its pretty obvious that he has. And he has reason to be.

SL is growing like weeds!

Philip is right. There isn't a technical solution to the problem of texture theft. They can't stop it from happening and I agree with him that their development time is better spent elsewhere. The thing that bothers me is that LL isn't outright banning people who get caught red handed and don't seem to be taking DMCA issues seriously enough. I think they need to start handing out harsher penalties, but I can also understand their reluctance to be in the dispute resolution business because it would quickly tie up their resources on things that are extremely difficult to prove and resolve. It sucks but that's just the way it is.

From the transcript:


That's good to hear because I don't think they're currently doing a good job of it.

The bottom line is that texture based commerce in SL, and on the internet in general, is inherantly insecure. That's why the best asset any of us have is our names and reputations. That's something that no one can steal. Even if someone rips your product they still can't compete on name recognition. The insecurity of our products and that there's no shortage of lowlife thieves willing to take advantage of that is depressing but at the end of the day the vast majority of people are honest and would rather obtain things honestly.

Wow, talk about biting the hands that feed you. Phil L. doesn't seem to respect the content makers for his lil cyber world. You think he would since it affects LL's bank account directly.

Stolen shit = more free stuff = less L$ purchased and less suscriber accounts.

If I worked for LL, I would either be looking for a new job or telling some folks to get their head out their ass or both.

Actually, I was there. Eventually, I will get over being greeted with how beautiful we are, but I'm seriously considering telling my militant lesbian sister who lives in San Fran that she needs to get the girls together and raise philip's consciousness.

Although I know there is no technical fix, I want to see LL take responsiblity for policing their own world. That doesn't mean they have to do all the work themselves. I proposed the following to Philip in an e-mail as a less LL resource intensive process that might work.

PROPOSAL:

Linden Lab establish an adjudication process for IP theft consisting of theft definition, claim process, and an adjudicating body made up of a Linden Lab liaison and a jury of qualified residents. Linden Lab to review decisions and enforce penalties.

Phase I (3 months)
Linden Lab to work with a group of content creators to develop
• IP theft definition
• claim submission guideline
• definition of evidence
• jury process and timelines
o suggest each party being able to strike two jury members at will
• jury qualifications
o verified identity
o 6 months+ SL resident
o clean rap sheet
o opt in group?
• penalties
o 1st time - warning, stripped of $L
o 2nd time - banned

Phase II (1 month)
• publish policy on IP theft along with what is it, how to submit a claim, process and penalties

Phase III (ongoing)
• Process claims and empanel juries
• Enforce decisions and add to police blotter

Observations:

• The ease, frequency and lack of a meaningful method to stop IP theft has led to a drop in quality and productivity among content creators as well as a lot of ill will.
• Only Linden Lab has the power to stop IP theft in SL because only Linden Lab has the power to enforce meaningful penalties
• Most texture designers cannot afford to comply with the copyright requirement for a DMCA takedown procedure.
• A randomly selected jury should address any complaints of favoritism. Most people are familiar with the judge/jury concept and if they are assured of fairness of selection, should have no objections.
• Once it is generally know that theft will be investigated and penalties enforce, theft will decrease.

I'd welcome constructive comments on the above. I started with the assumption that LL would not be willing to allocate much to a process. The random selection jury and ability to strike two members should address cries of FIC or "that juror hates me".

SL is content. If enough people get their stuff ripped off - and I'm not just talking about the things people sell. I'm talking about your personal builds and textures too, then more people are going to give up on SL.

Actually, I'd be willing to wager that most of the people screaming for DMCA takedowns don't actually file them. It's a big long court drama for a few hundred dollars in lost sales, perhaps.

Philip Is right though, there's absolutely nothing LL can do on the technical end to protect your textures. It's a social problem.

It's the same thing with mp3s. Artists can't make money off cds anymore, between the RIAA screwing them over and people pirating their music. Their solution? Concerts and merchandise.

Maybe texture artists should think of a way to have their "concerts"; custom jobs, classes, tutoring, etc.

this isnt really a technical issue

this is LL saying "not our problem"

Burnt office buildings don't come back after a reboot.

This is why I didn't attend the meeting.
Phillip Linden has absolutely no clue at all what he is talking about regarding content creation.

As with most people you are missing the actual point.
No one is arguing that LL can/should stop people stealing textures.

People all the time fixate on the actual theft issue but its pointless even discussing it. Linden's love discussing this because ultimately it never leads anywhere and they can carry on with what they are doing.

People need to discuss three things 'precaution', 'proof' and 'punishment'.

Precaution is a merchants job. Copyright info in textures saving master documents, banning known thieves and circulating a "blacklist" to other merchants etc.

Proof is mostly a merchants job to establish that the stolen material is theirs, with LL either aknowledging it as such or dismissing it.

Punishment is LL's job.

A merchant can only do so much - Copyright info on textures, keep original documents, ban from land, use scripts to ban people from buying from vendors, inform buyers not to take textures, circulate a 'blacklist'.
LL however need to do their part. Merchants do 80% of the work and the 20% left to LL is to review each case, ban and report the ban.
Sadly the 20% left to LL is the part that has total control and power. Merchants can only take precautions that help them sort out the problem.

Anecdotal evidence only (http://slife.sezmra.com/) but it appears they do react to these, actually... maybe it's a new thing, but it seems good.

I've seen this asked by other people on different threads, but I think it's a good point so I am going to ask it on this one.

How many of the people here complaining about IP theft have pirated music, software and/or movies on their computers right now?