Is it legal to sell copybot? What does "unauthorized" mean?

EDIT AFTER READING RESPONSE: "To answer your first question, copybot does not exist in SL. It's an external application. As such, you cannot sell copybot in Second Life." People have been selling notecards with a link to a url where you download the files. The notecards can be sold within SL, you can even load the url in SL if you want to. So really it isn't true that you can't sell copybot in Second Life.

WRT fair use: so are you now saying that "unauthorized use" is indeed determined by fair use? If so, is there some way that knowledgeable people can interpret fair use within the context of SL in common language (non-legalese)?

Thanks!




I've read the official blog and I still have a couple of questions.

1) The blog says that making unauthorized copies of objects in SL is against the ToS, but is selling copybot and similar programs against the ToS?

If not, then it is all too easy to imagine people selling copybot in SL and making quite a profit from it (one hopes that the open source people would take them to court for violating the open source rules, just for the sheer farce of it). Even if one seller makes it pricey, another will undercut. Even if it is hard to use now, someone will make a copybot for dummeez model.

Making it illegal to sell will drive it underground and not eliminate it, I know. But not making it illegal to sell copybot and similar programs could make copyright infringement so commonplace that it would be impossible to enforce it any more. This is what I think has many people worried.

In addition to saying that making unauthorized objects in SL using copybot and programs like it is against the ToS, is LL going to take a clear stand on the legality of selling copybot?

2) Is LL going to define what it means by "unauthorized copies"? The statement "Until they are, the use of CopyBot or any other external application to make unauthorized duplicates within Second Life will be treated as a violation of Section 4.2 of the Second Life Terms of Service and may result in your account(s) being banned from Second Life" would certainly be a lot clearer if it were revised to say "Until they are, the use of CopyBot or any other external application to make duplicates within Second Life will be treated as a violation of Section 4.2 of the Second Life Terms of Service and may result in your account(s) being banned from Second Life. "

Given Robin Linden's statements that "Merely copying something doesn’t mean that a copyright violation has occurred" some might think it's all right to copybot an object in a store rather than buying it, as long as you are making a copy for your own use and don't intend to sell it or give it away. This too has shopowners worried, I think.

Is LL going to clarify what it means by "unauthorized copies"? What sorts of copies would be authorized, using copybot? Would it not be safer at the moment to make any use of copybot and similar programs a ToS violation?

Thank you for your attention to these questions. A large part of my trust in the SL economy, and my willingness to reopen my shop, depends upon these two key issues.

Hi Poppet,

To answer your first question, copybot does not exist in SL. It's an external application. As such, you cannot sell copybot in Second Life.

As to your second, "unauthorized use" is not always clear, but in the most general terms, is a use of your IP that you have not given permission for, that cannot be described as "fair use".

You can learn more about "fair use" as defined here: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html