@Robin: regarding your blog post

I'm sorry to say this, but your blog post (http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/11/13/copyrights-and-content-creation-in-second-life/#comment-18407) is in my opinion the worst possible way to deal with such a situation.

In such a case it is crucial to make clear that LL won't tolerate any form of unauthorized content duplication, to both threaten potential exploiters and to reassure the content creators. You more or less made it clear that copying content that one doesn't own or paid for is perfectly fine as long as no one attempts to resell it. That's reassuring the thieves instead of the house owners. Now everyone out there who has a copy of this bot feels relieved to do nothing wrong by copying body textures and prim attachments of all sorts off another person's avatar instead of buying them.

If I duplicate a music CD or software that I didn't pay for, it's a crime. How can you talk of "fair use" in that context? Fair use "allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review". The users of this CopyBot clearly copy attachments and textures in order to wear them, not for scholarship or review purposes. It's the same as duplicating CDs or software bought and owned by a friend.

I don't understand why the possible consequences of official statements don't seem to be thought through? Even if the legal side wasn't crystal clear here, there's a lot in every TOS or EULA that doesn't hold up to a legal examination but is enforced nonetheless. Please stay true to your own TOS and enforce it as good as you can. It would be very reassuring to see some permanent bans in this matter, as a deterrent example for other CopyBot exploiters. Please try to repair the damage as good as possible, and please discourage any further reverse-engineering of the SL client.


/Edit: as a result of this blog entry, the CopyBot is now sold inworld at Manitoba (39, 216, 65). The creator and/or reseller points at the blog when questioned about the legality of this tool. Was it really needed to encourage a hacker by posting wrong information about the fair use exeptions being applicable when stealing copy-protected content?

Hello Istara, in direct response to what you wrote about... since new info keeps coming in about this, such as this post by Daniel Linden today, where we make it clear what will be done: