Protecting Texture Creators' IP rights in SL

Here's a short overview of this huge problem. I've just posted this on SLDevelopers.com at the request of Hiro Pendragon, and double posting it to this forum allows us to cast a wider net for solutions. It's an appropriate Law Society topic, and I believe that Gregory and Hunter's paper, cited below, was first brought to my attention by Frank.


Scope:

My focus is on textures created for SL by SL residents, rather than the general problem of infringement within SL. It is unrealistic for LL or some resident agency within SL to assume responsibility for general infringement when the texture in question might be some widely available image that many people download for photosourcing. Disclaimer: I don't photosource except from photographs by myself or my partner, and don't sell the textures I make for my own architecture and for sim terrain.



Background:

Cory Linden's blog, Prompt Criticality, has a good analysis specific to SL: http://secondlife.blogs.com/prompt/2006/02/opengl_copying_.html#more

And here's a recommended paper dealing with the general problem of protecting intellectual property in virtual worlds:

Lastowka, F. Gregory Gregory and Hunter, Dan, "The Laws of the Virtual Worlds" . California Law Review, Forthcoming Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=402860 or DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.402860



Overview:

Many instances of copying in SL fall within the intent of the texture creator. My friends and I exchange full perms textures freely (although I don't pass around textures used for a client's sim terrain or buildings). For cases of unwanted and unauthorized copying the SL permissions system is our first line of defense. This defense is inadequate. Texture retailers are obliged to sell their textures with full permissions so that builders and architects can use them in products. What happens in practice is that unscrupulous residents purchase a set, then retail unlimited copies of the textures themselves. Texture ripping by taking a screenshot allows the unscrupulous to bypass the permissions system altogether. Systematic infringement may be done by interception of the OpenGL datastream by means of a third party program on the client system. In each of these cases the victim is left with one recourse: try to use the AR system. Not particularly effective.



Approaches:

Periodically residents form a group such as RATE (currently inactive?) to perform one or more functions of a better business bureau. These organizations seem to follow the usual lifecycle of volunteer groups in SL. People enthusiastically join the group at its inception, then interest falls off, and the group becomes moribund. The showstopper is the problem of enforcement. Participating content producers and retailers can't do much except try to use the AR system, avoid supporting any business owned by miscreants, and perhaps withold some institutional seal of approval from them.

A resident-created addition to the toolset for doing business in SL looks more promising. Zarf Vantongerloo (now a Linden) created a notary system that accepts signed notecarded contracts between residents. The system is a means to verify that a given contract is indeed the contract with wording and signatures as claimed by one or more parties to the agreement in question. Again, enforcement is a missing piece of the puzzle.



Suggestion:

Consider an addition to the toolset that modifies Zarf's approach. Instead of a signed contract, the system accepts a texture to be registered, and the avatar key of the texture creator. This operation registers a unique pair: texture data and key, presumably using standard algorithms for data encryption. Data compression is also necessary since image data is a resource hog. The texture registry is a means to verify that a given texture is indeed paired with that avatar registered as creator.

LL has the ability to find out when a texture was first uploaded into SL. Presumably this would be a necessary component of registering a texture. In cases where the texture is particularly time-consuming and valuable to the creator, that individual might want to register it promptly before any miscreant might stumble on it, copy it and submit a fraudulent registration.

Determining infringement requires robust algorithms that compare two sets of image data, not a simple matching algorithm. Texture theft can involve loss of information, and miscreants may modify the texture for their own purposes or to disguise the texture's origins. I suggest a goodness of fit approach, using multiple pass comparisons, possibly separating the channels first. One might also investigate Fourier analysis of image data, although not sure if it would be applicable to this problem.

Okay, I've hit the limits of my technical knowledge on this subject, and would be pleased to turn it over to others with more expertise in this field.

Yours and others' intentions are noble and practical; however, as has been shown in many cases in RL, purely technical approaches *always* fail to protect the copyright owner (DVDs [DeCSS], Music [Sony], etc etc).

The simple fact is that securing a copyright holder's rights requires a technical as well as a legal/social solution. Technical solutions are implementations of processes what have a deterministic set of steps - those interested in circumventing a technical solution exploit weaknesses in the steps themselves, the transitions between steps, and - sometimes - circumvent the technical solution itself through social engineering.

The fact is that security is a process, not a product. Regardless of what approach is used to analyze an image, there are ways - both easily accessible and not - to trick a system into determining that a particular image is unique when it in fact is not.

The broader question, in my opinion, is to determine if enforcing copyright law has any positive economic and social impact in the first place. The fact is that current use of (RL) copyright law attempts to control not only distribution, but also consumption. Copyright laws attempt to strike a balance between protecting the copyright holder's interest and a consumer's interest (read: fair use). When copyright controls are too stringent, it makes things difficult to acquire or use thus slowing or stopping consumption (take a look at the success of independent music artists for a practical example: main stream consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the RIAA through the cases it takes to trial and deciding to play it safe by dealing with non-RIAA artists and labels. The increased demand for independent music has caused a significant increase in the amount, accessibility, and genres of independent music thereby having an effect on sales of RIAA-based music).

The software industry realized a long time ago that pirated software actually works to increase adoption and that the amount of time spent protecting software was inversely proportional to the payback in terms of increased sales (because people could not 'try' the software before buying it).

I believe that factors like strong branding, innovative marketing, social acceptance of a brand and a number of other factors have a greater impact on copyright compliance than technical and legal approaches combined can ever achieve.

For a small scale example in SL, take a look at XCite products (I am not affiliated with XCite in any way). How many knock-offs are there in SL? That brand is the most pervasive brand within the community despite cheaper alternatives and copies. XCite products are where they are today because the creator has done a fantastic job of branding and creating brand loyalty - not by enforcing copyright. The market ultimately places and displaces favored products - why mess with that?

Granted textures and actual products are very different from each other; however, I think we're close to a time when duplicating prims, scripts, and ultimately complete products will become trivial because SL has a very talented user base.

There is one important difference between RL and SL to consider however - IRL, those schemes can be broken because the software/hardware is in the hands of those who would break it. The same is not true of the server side code ISL.

Well..I believe this thread started because there already is a way to acquire textures from SL despite the server side code controlling access.

I expect that as the value of things in SL goes up, so will the motivation to create a menas to easily duplicate not only textures, but also buildings, other items, and even scripts despite server side controls (the fact is that all of that gets downloaded at some point - just a matter of time before someone figures out how to capture the stream of information and make it useful).

Sounds plausible. You're expecting a lot more attempted ripping in the future as our user-created content becomes more valuable. However that increased value may prompt the serious content creaters to invest more in countermeasures.

Those who particularly care about security are likely to invest the most in protecting their own intellectual property. Making your own assets a hardened target will counter a certain percentage of miscreants, and possibly discourage the rest, since cheaters tend to be lazy, and will go after the easy pickings.

With respect to the texture ripping issue consider an open-ended toolset of image-analysis functions to test whether texture A and texture B are close enough to say they have the same origin. If a texture creator is interested in the security problem he might develop some of the tools. Knowledge of the tools would influence the design of his next set of textures. Hopefully the cheaters would always be in catch-up mode.

That's an optimistic scenario, of course. We also have the problem of enforcement. I'm assuming that if a test acceptable to LL returns a result that texture A and texture B are close enough to say they have the same origin, then LL would accept that evidence as part of an AR. The AR system is fairly weak right now, but LL has shown some aggressive spirit against grid crashers, so maybe there's hope for appropriate action against texture rippers too.

From my discussion on the forums about things sold with full perms, like pose balls and textures, the Linden position seems to be not to get involved. Thus ARing the culprit will do precisely nothing.

There is an assumption in some quarters that anything sold full perms without an explicit contract or licence is fair game. See:
/130/54/94418/1.html

Personally, I think that any system will be circumvented by people who wish to circumvent it. Someone admitted openly at a show and tell that I hosted that they had captured the texture they used by taking an SL photograph of it.

As far as external textures are concerned, many people photo source textures from fabric websites and home decor websites, and I see a qualitative difference in the harm that this causes (possible infringement of copyright, but no loss of income for the website owner) and the ripping of textures from a texture website, who will thereby suffer a loss of income.

Internally to SL, it seems to me that it is fairly pointless setting up elaborate systems for this. It would help a great deal if it were made part of the Linden TOS/Community Standards that people should not, in principle, sell on , or give away, other people's works without their express permission. At present, it seems that if you sell or give away things full perms, there is no recourse open officially to you for redress or prevention.

Changing the rules, and trying to change attitudes to it, would go a long way. No, it won't work for everyone, but I think most people are decent and will abide by the rules.
Cali

Exactly the point....purely technical solutions break. As you mentioned, the best approach is one that begins with attitudes towards this type of activity and ends in community-based and market-based enforcement.

-2fast

I support this proposed TOS/Community Standards change. This is after reconsidering my initial reaction: in the future when people own private parallel grids they can have enforcement with teeth. On more serious reflection, just because somebody owns and runs one of the parallel grids does not make that person an expert in detecting fraud or any other kind of unacceptable behavior. It doesn't make that person an expert in mediation or detecting alts of banned offenders. Okay, how does one apply to LL for a proposed TOS/Community Standards change?

While the TOS is a great start, my opinion is that this type of enforcement begins and ends with the community.

In the best scenario, someone with a strong brand (the creator) notices that others (alleged thieves) are copying or duplicating textures, builds, or whatever. The creator could educate the customer or the community at large simply by posting in the forums and by putting signs up that simply state "Beware of counterfeits". For example, consider the ATMs in world. I believe it is Ginko that gives a notecard stating that you should confirm that the creator of the ATM is a specific name to assure security. The creator in this scenario could take a similar approach.

The best case scenario does not even attempt to directly punish alleged thieves because doing so is not practical in terms of the end result (assume that copying is trivial). You could argue that copying or duplicating is non-trivial; however, I suspect that time would weaken that argument (in fact, I believe that time is *not* on the creators' side anymore because as a result of the influx of new users, LL funding, and other peripheral issues that are introducing a whole new class of people to SL).

The worst case scenario involves someone that has a weak or non-existent brand. The creator in this case would have difficulty in trying to educate the community and potential customers by virtue of lower volumes, lower exposure, and lower market penetration. This does not mean it is impossible - it may take longer to educate potential customers and the community at large but in doing so would also make the creator's brand stronger.

The key to putting this in place quickly is to begin at the grass roots (community) level and implement a 'base' notecard that describes what counterfeiting is, how it affects creators, and other facts. The notecard could be used as a basis by individual creators for their own notecards. In addition, develop a sign that uses a few words and a unique graphic that conveys the message "Beware of counterfeits" and get users into the habit of checking an object's creator.

Once that is in place and there is a larger community following, then involve LL to update the TOS (should there still be a need to do so) since the TOS will have impact at that point.

-2fast

I agree to a point, the problem I see with "controling" copyrighted texture use falls into this one statement. Its TOO LATE, why is it to late, for Linden to control texture usage and copyright protection they would have to reset the entire SERVER, whitch means deleting every texture in the game. There are probly over a billion textures in SL and its impossible to sort though and at this point ,worthless.

This also brings up a good question about MODS. As we all know some companies support moding, such as Battlefeild. I saw some great mods for that game over ther years and have seen textures from the offical game obviously used in the mods, and other textures from other mod freindly games and or not so mod freindfly games used in games. Its a point that should, could, but wasnt adressed when the game aceppted mods on the servers. The same thing aplies here, when Linden allowed us to be able to create items and clothing and other random stuff, it was a problem that was bound to happen. Unless somehow you have a magical all knowng person that moderates incomeing textures. (More Impossible) and knows there are created by a offical game (meaning copywritten, but still impossible)
it cannont be done.

On the arguementive side, some times texures. and or charaters or shapes from offical games doesnt mean its technically voilating a copyright law. Otherwise every person who draws or writes fan art or stories is in violation and can techniacally be sued. It can be considered a "love of the game" and be considered fan based usage. Meaning they enjoy the game and or whatever they decided to use it themselves. A good example would be sprite art and sprite comics.

Granted the way the spriters go about getting the sprites may not always be right, the usage of them is still the same. Other examples would be fan sites that use offical pictures
and or music, sound on the sites. Are companys going to go after them, No. why? because the fact is its in some small way promoting the product. Its like saying Sonic Team is going to randomly up and SUE every person who owns a sonic the headgehog or related character / game / whatever fan site. Its just not going to happen lol.

More things is the recreation of real or copyrght stuff, for instance Starwars. I have seen the recreation of MANY MANY things from Starwars. Some of them are done so well I almost can consider them offical. The fact is is fan apreaction. You can just sue them for it.

Of course not to sound like its all right now to go and take whatever you want under that princible But if u do use it at least give the credit to the orginal artist or company. I also dont think its right to SELL the textures if they are from a copyrighted product. That is a major violation of the terms of service. Dont try selling something u didnt make. That doesnt mean u cant sell the product such as a house USING the textures. Just dont "tax" the item for the cost of the texture. lol

This is a equal debatable subject that will probly go on untill the shutdown of SL lol, or at least until the reset of it. Personally what it comes down to is repect the orginal creator of the item, weather it is a Object within SL, a texture, or script you are using. Just dont take credit for making it.

(just to note I am not saying its OK to steal textures, but i know that doest stop ppl)

I am glad to see this thread here. It touches on many issues plaguing SL, which is long overdue.

Anonymity is our hugest enemy here. SL residents, like so many people masked by an online identity which couldn't be further from their RL identity, tend to believe that because they are simply a last name pre-chosen by LL, coupled with their self-created first name, their true identity is "protected" in fact by LL. The criminals are given protections while the creators are left open to all of the abuse.

Perhaps true vendors (true: vendors confident that their works are original works and are not in violation of someone's copyright whether in- or out-of-game) could follow a sort of BBB registration system. These vendors would have no qualms about revealing RL details about themself during the registration process, and if a dispute arises, that information would be accessible by the parties involved in the dispute -- provided there is a means for the disputing party to similarly disclose personal information about themselves. This way, parties would be less apt to make false claims against one another, and other residents could feel confident shopping in stores which are branded with this BBB type registration mark. Envision the availability of a searchable catalogue for residents to browse stores based on the vendors' status as a member of this Business Registry.

I am very interested in instituting this Business Registry, however, I lack the technical know-how in putting it together, as it would involve a database which cross-references store names with residents' names, and a live catalogue. It would also involve the collection of data using forms, one for the registry itself, and another for disputes -- whereby the disputing party would have to input information in order to obtain information type of thing. At the time a disputing person submits their dispute against a vendor registered with the Business Registry, both parties are automatically provided, perhaps via a non-modifiable notecard or a RL email, with details about one another so that the dispute can be handled in world, as well as out of world should it so escalate.

Many will complain that it is a violation of the TOS to divulge personal information about the identities of SL residents. However, the difference here is that the parties themselves are the ones providing their own information in an effort to resolve a dispute, as opposed to freely distributing others' RL info to SL residents. Therefore, I do not see this type of a system as being a problem.

This would stop the bandwagon jumpers who claim, "Everyone else does it," because the new bandwagon would be registering one's store and not being afraid to divulge info about oneself at the time of registration.

Update: this topic has surfaced here, and the thread includes in-depth technical discussion. Recommended for anyone seriously interested in countering texture theft.

Update: LL has made a comprehensive policy statement here that includes policy on copyrighted material. Since copyright is considered to exist when the material is created, this would apply to the specific case of texture creators protecting their own work by using LL-approved procedures to get a texture thief to desist.

Traxx, anything new to report in the area of texture infringement and remedies in or out of game?

Frank

Frank, I feel that the situation has stabilized at a rest point nobody likes. This is due to technology, LL policy and divided public opinion.

Texture thieves can use a commonly available exploit to copy any texture their client system can render. This technology is not going away anytime soon, and the discussion threads I've seen so far indicate that any attempt at countermeasures could be neutralized using a workaround.

LL certainly seems to be operating under that assumption. Their policy is that anyone who claims to have had a texture stolen should file a DMCA report with LL. Apparently LL can check upload dates to help determine ownership. Having discussed this problem with a major texture retailer I get the impression that once a texture is stolen it can be spread throughout SL by ordinary people passing freebies around as we all do. Even if the DMCA takedown occurs, the damage is done wrt that particular texture. Would the takedown result in a ban? If a ban occurs would the offender simply come back with an alt? General resident dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of the AR process for griefers makes me question whether the DMCA process would be regarded as any more effective.

Threads about this issue reveal a hotly divided public opinion. People who spend days working on a texture say they're willing to commit that kind of time in order to make their builds look good, but they sure don't want that texture used to make somebody else's crappy build look good. Other people say what's the big deal -- it's not stealing, you still have your texture right there in your inventory. And some people wonder why residents are always demanding that LL solve our problems with other residents.

Think I'll paste in your comment from the other thread because it fits here:



Personally I feel that the problem of texture theft is a good example to bring up in discussions of Robin's proposed new system of inter-group rules as a basis for resident self-governance. Discussion in PoliSci here.

The crux of the issue is one rooted in RL. Anything based on image or form can be copied. This applies to images (physical and digital), sound, text, and shapes.

The ability for the common person to replicate images kept developing (scanners, photocopiers, audio and video recorders, and now stereolithography) while the artistic medium stopped evolving.

In the absence of a professional inspector, we have no reliable way of copyrighting such images. Protection methods always get circumvented.

All we have left are social solutions.