Skins texture theft: How are Lindens going to deal with it?

At this point, Javier is right, you can't script a skin. We're talking about possible addins to allow provision for copy protection.

The fact remains that if someone has a skin in inventory and runs the hacks mentioned in this thread, they're essentially getting the texture saved to their HD offline, post-embedded code. It completely circumvents your efforts to certify legitimate ownership -- they simply re-upload the hacked 512x512 texture as their own.

The embedded code idea still doesn't answer the real issue here: anything that is stored on the client (or in this case, in client graphics card memory) is vulnerable to being hacked and pirated and re-uploaded as "original" content.

I doubt that LL is willing to add client snooping to the login routine any more than they want to shut down the upload feature altogether. It would be nearly impossible to keep up with the crooks, and possession of graphics interceptor software does not in itself guarantee that the possessor is a pirate.

Most ISP providers refuse to monitor customer emails for a similar reason -- it implies a legal responsibility for the content at that point and opens the provider up to lawsuits if criminal activity transpires. ISPs, like LL, are better served if they wait and respond to specific claims or complaints rather than take on the role of internet policemen.

Basically, the only real way to handle this is to use the same techniques that work in the real world: monitoring and enforcement by actual human beings.

Bingo. And yes, in the real world, people DO get away with copying. But some don't, and do you really want to roll that particular die? As much as the RIAA disgusts me, frex, there's a lot of folks with some serious fines levied against 'em for file-sharing. We all know they haven't come close to eradicating it (I wager many, and possibly most people here, used to use Napster or Gnutella or other similar software) but it doesn't help if YOU get in the hot seat.

The idea, generally, is not so much to stop it entirely but to make it risky enough that only the stupid and the desperate try.

If you're going to do this I suggest doing it in a way that isn't visible (like making it very low contrast so you can't see it without manipulation) otherwise the person who's ripped the skin will know it's there and simply erase it (and put their own in if they want) before they upload and so the information will be useless. It would be possible to hide the info on a standard texture too, since the idea is that it can't be seen straight off. I guess it's quite similar to watermarking, but probably survive compression better.

And I'll ask again: Does anyone know of a DMCA takedown being issued in this context and whether it was successful or not?

If your skins take 10-20 hours to make and their monetary value is important to you, there's one failsafe method to protect your work:

Photoshop Watermarks by Digimarc. This technology puts invisible data into the image. Human eye can not see the artefacts but the software can. So next time you think you see a skin that's cloned off of one of yours, you can test it with Digimarc and the software should be able to tell you if this image was originally made by you before it was altered. The algorithm they use is pretty robust and should be resistant to many image alteration techniques image pirates use. Having said this, this does not come easy. You have to pay and register for a watermark with Digimarc -- one time fee I think(this is the easy part), AND you have to somehow get the potential imposter to give you a JPEG of the skin. Or perhaps you can put it on a prim and do a screen capture.(you can do that right?)

Maybe the next step is bringing Digimarc technology into SL to gauge the authenticity of textures in SL. But all of that is one slippery slope.

I agree, all this obsession with making money is ruining SL and the experience that made SL a destination. The whole thing is starting to feel like one large souvenir shop.

Troy

I feel like being the Devils Advocate here. Now, ripping skins to re-sell is agreed evil and wrong, but say I want to edit or modify a skin I purchased. I have a few options.

1. Rip the skin, edit to my liking, re-upload and use.
2. Ask the creator to do a custom job for me.

Now how many skin designers are going to do option 2 out of the goodness of their heart. Not many. In fact, the few I queried wanted some serious Lindenbux for a "custom job". Screw dat. I got the technical knowhow and such to do what editing I want. In my eyes, I'm all ok with that. If I buy a toaster RL, nothing stops me from repainting that toaster if I want.

Yes. Jake and I, acting in the capacity of our real life identities as lawyers, have issued notice to LL of copyright infringement pursuant to the DMCA on behalf of a member who contacted us for legal assistance. LL ignored the DMCA notice and the content has not been removed even though the creator of the content is not disputed.

Was there any kind of follow up? I'd be interested in what LL's excuse is.

Except that you're very probably going beyond intended usage. The price you pay for a skin reflects the creators value for a non transferable or non copyable copy of a 'standard' skin, then clearly it isn't the creators intention that you get to rip your own copies of it, even if you do have the technical knowhow to change it to suit you. And no, I don't think it'd right the matter even if you deleted the original.

See, if you buy a toaster, you can't duplicate the toaster, keep the original and modify the copy.

Along the lines of 'intended usage' is another thing. The person who makes it has their ass and reputation on the line. You may have the skill, but if you throw a nasty worm scar across your scalp, you may be fine with it, but people who see it will wonder wtf has happened to that designer's taste. I've been around long enough to recognize a few 'brands' of skin on-sight--the 'Nomine mouth' for example. Others can do better than me. If I saw a gadawful 'mod' of a Nomine, Munchflower's image would drop in my eyes.

So you're doing that designer a disservice by modding their skin. You also 'mod' their reputation, and possibly do damage to the brand they've worked hard to craft.

This exact problem has arisen with a certain builder in-world, but forum rules and all...

I've seen people posting here who weren't able to find a skin creator to do a custom job at all.

I would expect a full custom skin to cost US$20, minimum, and US$50-US$100 for anything realistic. Maybe half that if it's not an exclusive. That's what I'd expect to pay for a similarly complex commission from a good fan artist at an SF convention.

That would mean L$6,000 to L$60,000. Is that what you mean by "serious Lindenbux"?

Note that I'm talking about the copyright situation in the US here. Since LL is in California and I'm in Texas, I don't think that's unreasonable.

i don't know about "intended usage", but making (but NOT distributing) a modified version of an artwork is certainly normal "fair use", at least in the US. If I buy a comic book, I can cut it up and make badges out of it, and I can even sell those badges, legally. I can copy a song and modify it and remix it, so long as I don't give people copies of the remixed song. I can buy a painting and make a copy of it (and if the painting is valuable, I'd be nuts not to display the copy instead of the original). There are a few specific situations where this is not allowed, but they are explicit exceptions and for specific reasons... for example, you can't deface US currency.

The Second Life rights system doesn't make this easy, but it should absolutely not be considered illegal, unethical, or even unreasonable to do it for your personal use.
Only because it's not technically possible to duplicate a toaster the way you can duplicate an artwork. If it was, it would be legal, ethical, and perfectly normal... just like burning a playlist to a CD to play in your car is.

But you can take a screwdriver to the toaster to change it to a nuclear accelerator, if it occurs to you to do so. More pertient, isn't the legality of "copy a CD to a tape so you can listen to it in the car" well-established, or do I misremember?

It's probably a technical violation due to the backasswards wording of the DMCA, but given you can already "modify" a no-modify skin due to the way SL bakes all layers of clothing together - hence the wearing of tattoos as underwear - I can't really say I find a moral problem with directly modifying a skin texture...so long as it doesn't go any further than your hard-drive. Sharing is, as always, a no-no.

I'm unsure exactly what law it would fall under, being the ability to modify things you purchase for your own personal use. To use a crass example, say I buy a "barbie doll" stil, as most furry skins are. I can either waste a clothing "slot" aquiring a set of genitals, or I can rip, mod the skin, and save myself the hassle. As long as I'm not distrubiuting my copy that I created, I've done no harm, in my yeys. You might could make a case of diluting a brand, but, you can make a skin ugly just by wearing poorly done clothing too.

My other big beef with the whole LL permissions sets, is that no-transer really breaks "first Sale" doctrine.

The doctrine of first sale allows the purchaser to transfer (i.e. sell or give away) a particular, legally acquired copy of protected work without permission once it has been obtained. (ripped from Wikipedia.)