Hi everyone,
I have a photo gallery and one product idea I had was to sell textures in themed packages for people to put in the TV sets they have in SL.
The big question is... a friend of mine was quickly able to test the possibility to "pirate" the textures with scripting. While he couldn't just put the textures on prims to apply the photos on prims, he was able to write a quick script, put it in the same prim as the texture, to force the prim to show the photo on its surface.
Changing item permissions did nothing since they were already NO MOD, NO COPY.
Is there any solution to this issue?
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Alesia Schumann
Registered User
Join date: 13 May 2007
Posts: 88
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10-03-2007 18:06
_____________________
Exhibit A Photography, for profile pictures:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Oakworm/24/248/21 My items on Xstreet SL: http://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&MerchantID=77918 |
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Angle Thunders
Registered User
Join date: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 30
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10-03-2007 18:40
Scripts or not anyone can steal any texture they want using GLIntercept. It pulls textures right out of the video cards buffers. Being Linden Lab specifically states in their TOS you own nothing on their servers and have no copyright or intelectual rights making things "protected" in SL is pretty much a joke concept at best.
3.3 Linden Lab retains ownership of the account and related data, regardless of intellectual property rights you may have in content you create or otherwise own. You agree that even though you may retain certain copyright or other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create while using the Service, you do not own the account you use to access the Service, nor do you own any data Linden Lab stores on Linden Lab servers (including without limitation any data representing or embodying any or all of your Content). Your intellectual property rights do not confer any rights of access to the Service or any rights to data stored by or on behalf of Linden Lab. " Also read 3.2 above that. http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php From what I understand anything you make on secondlife or upload to secondlife anyone can do with it whatever they want no matter the permissions..... |
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Namssor Daguerre
Imitates life
Join date: 18 Feb 2004
Posts: 1,423
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10-03-2007 19:24
Angle, you might want to reread what you just quoted out of the TOS, and revise your statement about copyright ownership. A LOT of people are going to disagree with you.
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Angle Thunders
Registered User
Join date: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 30
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10-03-2007 20:19
Angle, you might want to reread what you just quoted out of the TOS, and revise your statement about copyright ownership. A LOT of people are going to disagree with you. I read it as stated. I am not saying I agree with it. Here is 3.2. 3.2 You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create in Second Life, to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. However, you must make certain representations and warranties, and provide certain license rights, forbearances and indemnification, to Linden Lab and to other users of Second Life. Users of the Service can create Content on Linden Lab's servers in various forms. Linden Lab acknowledges and agrees that, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, you will retain any and all applicable copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to any Content you create using the Service, to the extent you have such rights under applicable law. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the service, you automatically grant (and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant) to Linden Lab: (a) a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to (i) use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service, and (ii) use and reproduce (and to authorize third parties to use and reproduce) any of your Content in any or all media for marketing and/or promotional purposes in connection with the Service, provided that in the event that your Content appears publicly in material under the control of Linden Lab, and you provide written notice to Linden Lab of your desire to discontinue the distribution of such Content in such material (with sufficient specificity to allow Linden Lab, in its sole discretion, to identify the relevant Content and materials), Linden Lab will make commercially reasonable efforts to cease its distribution of such Content following the receipt of such notice, although Linden Lab cannot provide any assurances regarding materials produced or distributed prior to the receipt of such notice; (b) the perpetual and irrevocable right to delete any or all of your Content from Linden Lab's servers and from the Service, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and for any reason or no reason, without any liability of any kind to you or any other party; and (c) a royalty- free, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing and/or providing support services in connection with the Service. Further, you agree to grant to Linden Lab a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable right and license to exercise the copyright, publicity, and database rights you have in your account information, including any data or other information generated by your account activity, in any media now known or not currently known, in accordance with our privacy policy as set forth below, including the incorporation by reference of terms posted at http://secondlife.com/corporate/privacy.php. You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service. You further agree that you will not make any claims against Linden Lab or against other users of the Service based on any allegations that any activities by either of the foregoing within the Service infringe your (or anyone else's) patent rights. You further understand and agree that: (i) you are solely responsible for understanding all copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property or other laws that may apply to your Content hereunder; (ii) you are solely responsible for, and Linden Lab will have no liability in connection with, the legal consequences of any actions or failures to act on your part while using the Service, including without limitation any legal consequences relating to your intellectual property rights; and (iii) Linden Lab's acknowledgement hereunder of your intellectual property rights in your Content does not constitute a legal opinion or legal advice, but is intended solely as an expression of Linden Lab's intention not to require users of the Service to forego certain intellectual property rights with respect to Content they create using the Service, subject to the terms of this Agreement. |
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Max Pitre
Registered User
Join date: 19 Jul 2006
Posts: 370
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10-03-2007 20:19
\ Also read 3.2 above that. http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php From what I understand anything you make on secondlife or upload to secondlife anyone can do with it whatever they want no matter the permissions..... I don't see that it says that. I see that I may own copyrights and if those copyrights are on their server that doesn't give me the right to access their server just to get that copyrighted data. So if I make a picture, upload it and then decide to drop SL, I can't call LL up and demand the data for that picture. ...at least thats how I read it. |
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Angle Thunders
Registered User
Join date: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 30
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10-03-2007 20:22
I read it as you giving up all your rights to it once you upload it to SL. You are giving a license for anyone to use it and cannot revoke it. So you pretty much loose all rights to it. lol
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DanielFox Abernathy
Registered User
Join date: 20 Oct 2006
Posts: 212
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10-03-2007 21:39
Alesia, to give you a technical answer... as user walks around the world, the texture UUIDs from everything visible to that user are sent to the user's client so they can be requested from the asset system and displayed.
If you have a UUID, you can apply it as a texture to an object. So in essence, the SL system is designed to give away the textures for everything the moment they are looked at. If you see it, your client was given the UUID for it. If you have the UUID for it, you can apply it to another prim. Until recently, you could even dump texture UUID's from the official second life viewer. GLIntercept is not even necessary to 'steal' textures on SL. Why go to the bother of dumping textures and reuploading them when you can just use the original UUID? My advice to you if you are selling textures is to put watermarks on the versions you have for display, so that your customers won't be able to see, and thus acquire the UUIDs for them just by looking at your shop. But once your textures are "in the wild", anybody will be able to copy them via UUID from that point on. |
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Chosen Few
Alpha Channel Slave
Join date: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 7,496
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10-03-2007 23:31
Angle, you don't "give up" any rights by uploading stuff to SL. What you're doing is granting Linden Lab certain rights, which they need to have in order to distribute your stuff for you across the grid. Some would argue that their "irrevocable worldwide license" goes a bit far, but that's a separate issue from your interpretation.
Nowhere in the TOS does it say that we do not retain copyright on our own creations. In fact it says just the opposite. The very first sentence in the section you quoted states that you own the copyright and IP rights to all your stuff. From there, it goes on to further underscore the above by saying that Linden Lab owns just the data on their servers, not your copyright or your IP. This is a very important distinction. There's a world of difference between data and intellectual property. Think of it like when you buy a book at the store. You own the particular copy of the book you have in your hand, including all the information contained within it (the data), but you do not own the copyright to the book or the intellectual property itself. The author and/or the publisher own all that. The fact that you own a copy does not change anything Make sense? Now, to translate that into Second Life terms, when you upload something to a Linden Lab owned server, they immediately own the particular data you uploaded (just as you own that book in your hand), but the copyright and the IP are still absolutely yours. You never surrender that ownership in any way, shape, or form. Clear? Oh, and by the way, I think we'd all appreciate it if in the future you'd refrain from mentioning GLintercept by name in these kinds of discussions. It's not exactly a secret, of course, but there's no need to go around advertising it. Determined thieves will always find a way, so they're not affected whether you mention it or not. What you do when you talk about it is you make it just a little easier for those who would casually take something if it's made easy enough. For many, that's all the push they need to become thieves. I look at preventing texture theft the same way I look at the lock on my front door. I know it will never stop a determined thief from breaking in, but it will stop the casual ones. As I said, it's not the determined thieves who are the real threat; it's the every day people, the ones who think of themselves as generally honest, but who might take a hundred dollar bill if they saw it lying on someone's door step. And it probably wouldn't even cross their minds that they just stole. Those are the people who are stopped by locks, and who make locks necessary because they outnumber the determined thieves by a million fold. By mentioning GLIntercept by name in a discussion about texture theft, you're basically unlocking the front door, swinging it wide open, and putting up a big neon sign, saying "Lots of cool stuff in here, totally unprotected. Check it out." Please don't do that with my door or with my textures. Thanks. It would be much better just to say something like "There are plenty of ways to capture textures. Anything that can be displayed on your screen can be recorded. I won't mention any specific methods here, but I will say there's really no way to stop textures from being copied." _____________________
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Land now available for rent in Indigo. Low rates. Quiet, low-lag mainland sim with good neighbors. IM me in-world if you're interested. |
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Void Singer
Int vSelf = Sing(void);
Join date: 24 Sep 2005
Posts: 6,973
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10-04-2007 04:07
actually it's always been this section that bothered me
You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service. You further agree that you will not make any claims against Linden Lab or against other users of the Service based on any allegations that any activities by either of the foregoing within the Service infringe your (or anyone else's) patent rights. or to make it more readable.....(and still in context) You ... agree that ... submitting your Content to ... the Service, you automatically grant... to all other users ... transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, ... to your Content, ... for all purposes within the Service. You ... agree ... you will not make any claims against ... other users of the Service ... that any activities ... within the Service infringe your ... patent rights. I read that section and get, "it's ok to steal from your neighbor, as long as you keep it on our servers...." and I don't like what I get |
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Wulfric Chevalier
Give me a Fish!!!!
Join date: 22 Dec 2006
Posts: 947
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10-04-2007 04:13
Oh, and by the way, I think we'd all appreciate it if in the future you'd refrain from mentioning GLintercept by name in these kinds of discussions. ..... It would be much better just to say something like "There are plenty of ways to capture textures. Anything that can be displayed on your screen can be recorded. I won't mention any specific methods here, but I will say there's really no way to stop textures from being copied." Absolutely. I've known for a long time that there was a way of doing this, but never known what it was. As a result of this thread I would be a lot closer to finding the way to do it if I was so inclined. |
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Malachi Petunia
Gentle Miscreant
Join date: 21 Sep 2003
Posts: 3,414
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10-04-2007 04:41
Is there any solution to this issue? If you want people to be able to see your work, but only in exactly the way you specify, you can't publish them in digital form. Those are your options. There is no solution to having your cake (retaining total control of your images) and eating it too (having people be able to view them in SL). |
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Void Singer
Int vSelf = Sing(void);
Join date: 24 Sep 2005
Posts: 6,973
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10-04-2007 05:14
If you don't want people to have access to your materials, don't upload them. If you want people to be able to see your work, but only in exactly the way you specify, you can't publish them in digital form. Those are your options. There is no solution to having your cake (retaining total control of your images) and eating it too (having people be able to view them in SL). mayhap, but having any person walk into your SL clothing shop, snap up all your clothing textures, and then open their own shop and sell them for half price is just a lil ridiculous... but perfectly within rights per TOS.... and I doubt that any software company would agree that just because a person CAN copy their product, that they SHOULD.... reselling is theft, devaluing (by spreading free copies to paying customers) is theft, heck legally, copying for personal use is even questionable in many cases. so why would LL encourage it when they claim you retain your rights? simple, CYOA... they don't want to be bothered with DCMA complaints and get tied up in patent suits because they didn't take down X content in a time frame that suited the plaintiff... |
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Johan Durant
Registered User
Join date: 7 Aug 2006
Posts: 1,657
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10-04-2007 06:16
Having the entire block of legalese posted confuses the point somewhat because there's too much to read. However, this paragraph from the middle of 3.2 may be what Angle is thinking means we've given up all rights:
You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service. You further agree that you will not make any claims against Linden Lab or against other users of the Service based on any allegations that any activities by either of the foregoing within the Service infringe your (or anyone else's) patent rights. Note that the paragraph refers specifically to patent rights. This is a totally separate issue from copyright. That said, having the paragraph read "for all purposes" alarms me, and I didn't realize the TOS says that. Is not selling someone else's content falling within "all purposes"? Note that it doesn't only say Linden Lab is granted a license, it says "Linden Lab and all other users of the service". EDIT: Didn't read Void's post yet. What he said. _____________________
 (Aelin 184,194,22)The Motion Merchant - an animation store specializing in two-person interactions |
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Malachi Petunia
Gentle Miscreant
Join date: 21 Sep 2003
Posts: 3,414
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10-04-2007 06:57
reselling is theft, devaluing (by spreading free copies to paying customers) is theft, heck legally, copying for personal use is even questionable in many cases. To repeat a point I made elsewhere: by uploading your copyrighted work to SL and then trying to protect it from theft shows that (a) the material is of so little value that you are willing to sell it for fractions of a dollar while claiming (b) that it is so valuable that you'd be willing to pursue expensive RL copyright violations. Most people aren't willing to pay for (b) so they posit (c) Linden Lab should protect my stuff. And that just isn't going to happen. Look at the RIAA which is spending untold millions trying to pursue civil copyright infringement actions. One of their approaches is to submit ex parte discovery requests to universities to get them to pony up the names of students believed to be infringing. What they don't do is file against the university for providing the means by which the students share their files, because even with their expensive lawyers, they know that is a losing endeavor. If you don't accept this fact of the matter then you will fail to see that LL isn't going to solve your issue. To reiterate: if you don't want people to obtain copies of your work, don't upload them. Period. Full stop. |
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Chosen Few
Alpha Channel Slave
Join date: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 7,496
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10-04-2007 08:37
Johan, Void, that paragraph troubles me as well. I didn't address it in my own post, because as Johan said, it's concentrated on patents, not on copyright or trademark, and so has little if anything to do with textures.
Since it's now been brought up though, I will say that I don't know that the "for all purposes" phrase is quite as bad as it seems. My lawyer once put it to me like this when were discussing some contract issues: "If you and I draw up a contract that says you can drive through red lights in my town, that doesn't mean you get to do it. You can't do anything illegal just because a contract says you can." I don't know a ton about patent law, but I'd assume that "all purposes" cannot include purposes expressly forbidden by the law. For example, a friend of mine recently applied for a patent on a specific method of streaming pay-per-view video content into virtual worlds. Assuming he is granted the patent, I would very much doubt that if someone else started using his method without his permission that' he'd be unable to stop them, especially considering that the method requires the use of servers and other facilities that are well outside of, and independent from, Second Life. As I said though, I'm hardly an expert on patent law. I'd love to get a tech-savvy patent attorney's take on the real meaning of that paragraph. In any case, it doesn't affect unpatentable (if that's a word) materials like textures, so it's not dangerous with respect to the subject of this thread. _____________________
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Land now available for rent in Indigo. Low rates. Quiet, low-lag mainland sim with good neighbors. IM me in-world if you're interested. |
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JayDee Unknown
Registered User
Join date: 13 Nov 2005
Posts: 175
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10-04-2007 09:15
By mentioning GLIntercept by name in a discussion about texture theft, you're basically unlocking the front door, swinging it wide open, and putting up a big neon sign, saying "Lots of cool stuff in here, totally unprotected. Check it out." Please don't do that with my door or with my textures. Thanks. I think you are absolutely of your rocker here. People should know how their textures are going to be stolen from them BEFORE they get into any business based on textures. Linden Lab should make it very CLEAR to everyone how this is done. That way people are not thinking they have full control over their stuff when they have none and their time and money are down the tube. EDIT: Also Angle was not unlocking the door, it was never locked to begin with. |
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Chosen Few
Alpha Channel Slave
Join date: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 7,496
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10-04-2007 10:18
I think you are absolutely of your rocker here. People should know how their textures are going to be stolen from them BEFORE they get into any business based on textures. Linden Lab should make it very CLEAR to everyone how this is done. That way people are not thinking they have full control over their stuff when they have none and their time and money are down the tube. EDIT: Also Angle was not unlocking the door, it was never locked to begin with. You can fully acknowledge that textures can be stolen without saying how to do it. LL says all the time that there's no way to protect textures. If people choose not to listen to that, that's their own fault, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Publishing the specifics of how theft happens wouldn't change that in any way. No one would benefit from such published instructions in any way, except maybe those interested in learning to become thieves. So if you're really so concerned about people not losing out to any false sense of security, then you should take the stance that no one should EVER make it clear HOW stealing done, only that it easily CAN be done. I don't need to know how to pick a lock to understand that if someone wants to break into my house they will. I don't need to know how to hotwire a car to know that if someone wants to take my car they will. Etc., etc., etc. Bottom line, knowing or not know HOW a thing is done does not at all change your ability to accept or recognize THAT IT CAN be done. I really can't imagine why you'd think it would. As for the point in your edit about the locked/unlocked door, by trying to disagree with me, you're actually agreeing with the first part of what I said, while completely ignoring the second (more important) part. Let me explain. As I said before, to a determined thief, there's never any such thing as a locked door. If someone wants to get in, they will, period. Clearly, when you say "the door was never locked to begin with", you're acknowledging this. What you're failing to recognize though, is that locked doors do indeed prevent casual theft by ordinary people. We prevent the same kind of casual theft of textures by making it a point not to advertise where the "keys" are. In other words, by choosing not to talk about the specific techniques of thievery, we keep things as secure from casual theft as we can. That might not sound like it goes a long way to someone who's only thinking about the determined thieves, but trust me, determined thieves make up only a very small minority of the population at large. Most people think of themselves as honest, and wouldn't go actively hunting for ways to steal. However, if an easy opportunity happens to fall into their lap, they'd take advantage of it. It makes perfect sense to minimize those opportunities as much as we can. Got it? _____________________
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Land now available for rent in Indigo. Low rates. Quiet, low-lag mainland sim with good neighbors. IM me in-world if you're interested. |
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JayDee Unknown
Registered User
Join date: 13 Nov 2005
Posts: 175
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10-04-2007 11:13
Got it? That had to be one of the most self severing posts I have read in a while. Suppressing information is the absolute worst thing anyone can do. Them more widely known the problem the more chance or preventative measure. Cars get stolen. The more cars get stolen the more the demand for preventative measures. By your logic we just make the knowledge how to break into a car less known and let the thief's run wild. By my logic we let everyone possible know how the car is stolen so they can take as many preventative measures as possible to keep the car from being stolen. If we use your logic car alarms, gps tracking, clubs and so on would never have been invented. Houses get broken into. When you buy a house wouldn't you like to know as much about how they thief's can get into it so you can take every measure possible to keep the thief's out? By your logic we suppress that information and let the thief's walk in the front unlocked door. The more people that know the exploits of the system the more people can determine if they really want to invest in a business based on the system. Even average users that make their own textures may choose not to if they know anyone can rip them. The information how to rip a texture is not bad, its what people do with that information. People might find using GLIntercept to back up their $4000L+ skins could work in their favor when SL's database decides not to let you have your skins! History has proven supressing knowledge for your own gain ends up bitting you in the ass eventually. Something LL needs to remember also. |
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Namssor Daguerre
Imitates life
Join date: 18 Feb 2004
Posts: 1,423
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10-04-2007 11:18
I think you are absolutely of your rocker here. People should know how their textures are going to be stolen from them BEFORE they get into any business based on textures. Linden Lab should make it very CLEAR to everyone how this is done. That way people are not thinking they have full control over their stuff when they have none and their time and money are down the tube. EDIT: Also Angle was not unlocking the door, it was never locked to begin with. Chosen's point is that you don't spoon feed every dweeb in SL with a goodie list of all the best ways to cheat, steal, infiltrate and damage a system/economy. Even if the applications and information are as old as dirt, it's not stuff you openly talk about in a place where people have a vested interest in a commodity worth stealing (like textures). [Rhetorical question] If responsible people involved in combating terrorism thought it was a good idea to openly publish all the best ways to cheat, steal, and infiltrate a country/economy, would that be helping the situation? [/Rhetorical question] Unlocked or not, the door becomes a little larger and little more conspicuous each time a similar topic in the forums heads this direction. The only thing lockable here so far is this thread. If we all want to talk about something useful, let's talk about: 1. Best practices for watermarking 2. Security benefits of custom textures. 3. Responsible disclosure of information. 4. How to effectively file a DMCA notice. 5. Any other relevant topics that empower content creators instead of content thiefs. |
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Blaze Nielsen
Registered User
Join date: 24 May 2005
Posts: 276
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JayDee need some good bomb building information?
10-04-2007 11:28
I've got a nice little formula any kid can make for a high explosive bomb using ordinary household chemicals. I'm going to copy off a few hundred copies and distribute to the neighborhood kids and stand back. I totally agree with you, keeping knowledge like this from kids is wrong. Just like telling them easily how to rip off our textures is wrong.Get the point?
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Void Singer
Int vSelf = Sing(void);
Join date: 24 Sep 2005
Posts: 6,973
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10-04-2007 11:32
@Malachi Petunia
::grins:: oh I agree with the physical reality, if you want control lock it up and bury it... just exploring the 'legal' perspective Johan, Void, that paragraph troubles me as well. I didn't address it in my own post, because as Johan said, it's concentrated on patents, not on copyright or trademark, and so has little if anything to do with textures. Since it's now been brought up though, I will say that I don't know that the "for all purposes" phrase is quite as bad as it seems. My lawyer once put it to me like this when were discussing some contract issues: "If you and I draw up a contract that says you can drive through red lights in my town, that doesn't mean you get to do it. You can't do anything illegal just because a contract says you can." the problem being, in this case, because you do have control rights, it's no longer illegal...because you gave them away by contract.... or to put it another way... neither you nor your attorney have authority over traffic law... but if you entered into an agreement with someone that did, that red light clause just got you out of a ticket. |
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JayDee Unknown
Registered User
Join date: 13 Nov 2005
Posts: 175
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10-04-2007 11:44
I've got a nice little formula any kid can make for a high explosive bomb using ordinary household chemicals. I'm going to copy off a few hundred copies and distribute to the neighborhood kids and stand back. I totally agree with you, keeping knowledge like this from kids is wrong. Just like telling them easily how to rip off our textures is wrong.Get the point? Your argument completely fails. If a kid wanted to gain that knowledge they would have no trouble doing so. Once again the information isn't the the problem, it is how it is used. If the kid was brought up right it wouldn't be an issue right? Let's not get into the "people are responsible for their own acts" argument.... If you did make a couple thousands flyers and handed them out to kids how many good kids would actually make the bomb? How many bad kids would? Out of the one's that would how many already know how to do it anyway.... If someone wants to make a bomb they will. Keeping the information out of the hands of people that can do good or be able to prevent and illegal action from it is self serving. |
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JayDee Unknown
Registered User
Join date: 13 Nov 2005
Posts: 175
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10-04-2007 11:51
[Rhetorical question] If responsible people involved in combating terrorism thought it was a good idea to openly publish all the best ways to cheat, steal, and infiltrate a country/economy, would that be helping the situation? [/Rhetorical question] Sure it would, more people would be aware of them. If they have a better idea what to LOOK FOR then when one of the terrorists do one of them more people will be able to notice it and report/do something about it. When the terrorists took over planes with box cutters no one second guessed why they were carrying them. Now that it is known it is an issue they know to look for people trying to get on planes with box cutters. The sad part is this information was KNOWN already but not passed on to air port security or the general public. It took the 9/11 disaster to expose the problem to all when government officials already knew it could happen. |
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DanielFox Abernathy
Registered User
Join date: 20 Oct 2006
Posts: 212
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10-04-2007 12:00
GLIntercept is completely unnecessary, when there is no security for textures at all. Every object in SL must broadcast texture UUIDs so that you can see them. Permissions only apply to objects and inventory, whether it is your inventory, or the contents of an object. Textures in the world, are not inventory items. The reason you can't steal objects is that you can only rez objects by *inventory name*, so you have to have gone through the permission system to get it into your inventory first.
We should be happy if texture thieves are ignorant enough to go to the trouble of loading up GLIntercept and sifting through thousands of unrelated textures, because they're wasting their time if all they want to do is reuse a texture as it is, like within a texture pack. Complaining about mentioning GLIntercept is like saying "Don't talk about how to hotwire cars!" when everyone's keys are still in the ignition and our doors are unlocked. If you're doubtful, upload a texture you don't care about that is easily recognizable. You don't even have to put it on an object. Set whatever permissions you want on it, then right-click and Copy the UUID and paste it in chat to a friend. Have your friend rez an object and put this in state_entry: llSetTexture( "uuid_goes_here", ALL_SIDES ); Then have your friend set that object for sale, and have another friend buy it and rez out a copy. Surprised? If you say "Well thats only because I gave them the texture UUID" - consider that same UUID is broadcast to everybody that looks at an object that has your texture on it. So you say "Sure but the client doesn't tell you the UUID, so you still have to have a modified client, right? ...right?" Unfortunately, no. I won't say how to do it, but the Official SecondLife Viewer, without modification, without hacks, just using commands selectable with a few mouse clicks from the menus, will tell you the texture UUID for any object you wish, whether you own it or not. I'm also pretty sure its not a TOS violation to click on the menus. So, in short - its irrelevant that it is possible to scrape the screen. Its irrelevant that it is possible to rip textures from opengl. Its that textures have no permissions. Texture *inventory items* have permissions. This confuses a lot of people into thinking that there is any sort of protection for textures at all. People need to realize this, so they can make informed decisions as to whether they want to go into business selling something (texture packs, etc) that is given away freely by the basic architectural design of SL itself. It doesn't do any good to try to hide it as a secret. |
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Brandi Lane
Registered User
Join date: 2 Apr 2007
Posts: 157
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10-04-2007 12:04
I'm afraid you're basically out of luck. For a flat texture (as opposed to clothing), there are extremely simple ways to pull the texture out of the game that have nothing to do with messing with your video driver stack. Think about it. A flat texture is rendered on your screen... well.. flat. How hard is that to pull into photoshop?
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