Removal of MLP Scripts - facts and solution

Since there is no way to tell whether the animations were legitimately purchased copies from the creator they can't be deleted because that would remove copies from people who legitimately paid full price for them. I would also imagine that they could only delete items created by or owned by EC, not things she passed on where her name isn't listed as either creator or owner.

Yes. So the whole fiasco was a pointless excercise that affected maybe thousands of people.

Only pointless to you, who only looks at his own wallet.

The larger picture is that this was a long time in coming - a lot of people have made a lot of money on pirated content and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it except file a DMCA. Out of this incident will grow some form of solution, maybe animators will band together to create a web site that lists authorized downstream resellers legitimately using their products. Maybe LL will finally be forced to enhance the permissions system to accomodate the needs of resell permissions.

Yes, it sucks for people like Elgyfu who was using the scripts with legitimate animations, but anyone who was legit will be fixing their stuff and getting replacements out to their customers ASAP. So what if it is an inconvience? If it forces a much needed change and exposes a dirty secret to all that cheap sex furniture out there, then the value is far from pointless and it will make legit content creators far more aware of what they buy as a value-added item and whom they buy it from.

That was totally uncalled-for. Jealousy?

It was a pointless excercise because it did nothing to deal with what the DMCA was about - animations. It wasn't about scripts and notecards, but that's all that LL dealt with - wrongly. It was a totally pointless excercise that affected a lot of people and didn't do anything about the DMCA..

At least two legit vendors have decided that it isn't worth the hassle (particularly when the script deleted had been heavily customised) and have closed up shop.

Moreover, the problem is that the inconvience is imposed on the wrong people - LL have deleted a script which was being legitimately used and distributed with the permission of the author.

The animations which were being distributed without the permissions of the authors weren't touched and can still be distirbuted without permissions!

How does inconveniencing those using assets legally whilst not touching the illegal assets help anyone?

Matthew

I think the point that Isablan intended to make is that there was a serious problem going on, and something needed to be done, and I hope we all agree on that. The right course of action isn't clear, but what LL tried didn't work very well.

In LL's defense, in many cases it *did* do what was intended. It deleted objects created by EC, including the anims in them. However, it also deleted scripts and notecards apparently created by EC, in objects that weren't created by her, often (a) having no illegal content, or (b) leaving the illegal content there.

LL®™'s position in this is nearly indefensible. There was no prior communications, there has as yet been no post communications and a very large number of people who have done nothing wrong have been harmed by their actions. Additionally the timing of this makes it look as if LL®™ is trying to hide something or are just plain uncaring about their customers. Doing this on a Saturday morning with no prior warning, no support staff in place to deal with the fall out and no explanation of what was done and why is not the actions of an honest and caring company.

The writing is on the wall. LL®™ just plain does not give a damn about us.

... in the same sense that you can solve a mouse problem in your kitchen with dynamite.

There really is no excuse for removing a whole load of assets which were not infringing any copyright simply because they were created by an account which _did_ breach copyright at some point. I have said for a while that LL needs to actively take down infringing content but this is not that, and "oh well it took down some infringements as well" is not in any conceivable sense a justification.

Anyone who wasn't legit seems to be doing the same thing: I went to peek at the store where my friend got her couch (it has all the unlicensed animations in it) and all the scripts are there in his name now and still being sold.

Unless there's actually a push to go after *everyone* who's reselling those animation there really was little point because one person got targetted and all the others just continue happily infringing and profting from it.

Um... not to be too pointed about this... but doesn't this describe pretty much EVERY change LL has enacted, especially the "sweeping" ones?

Is that true? Excellent, I must try that!

Remind me to not move in next to you

This is not what I was told this morning in my phone conversation with Dee Linden-I was told that I needed to reset my permissions on my objects that used these scripts to copy NO resell...NOTHING about copying the script and making it appear as if I wrote it ect as stated in the beginning of the post.

Here is what happened to me:
I logged in to find 4 customers complaining that their beds they had purchased from me no longer worked. I asked the first customer to drop it to me after wasting several minutes going through all the motions of normal customer support-ie-check your land settings, script settings, resetting scripts, ect ect that normal fix a "broken" item. When she dropped the bed to me I was stunned! All of the scripts and notecards were gone PLUS all the animations were changed to FULL PERMISSIONS. I never EVER EVER sell anything with full permissions-why give my compition the easy road to copying my contacts for scripts animations ect.

I then attempted to contact Eva as I had indeed purchased this set from her about 8 months ago. I had followed her directions to a T--which is also how I know the animations were NOT set to full perm as I had spent the better part of a day changing all the perms on the items and putting them all in my own prim so I showed as a designer.

Eva no longer existed in world search. I then went to the landmark included in the package I had purchased from her to find her building gone.

I then got very concerned and called Concierge support and got Dee Linden on the phone.

I explained to her exactly as I just did to you..to which she responded I can't tell you anything about Eva but since she's not in search that speaks volumes. I said Ok I get that--BUT in the meantime what do I do with MY customers? I paid Eva fairly for use of these scripts and animations and have all the documents included in my package to show that. I asked Dee HOW did I fix things for my customers--she said "From what I understand is that if you set the perms in YOUR items containing those scripts to Copy BUT No Resell you'll be fine as you did not know you may be using a script that the seller didn't have permission to sell."

Dee did NOT mention one WORD about animations at ALL nor direct me to remove any animattions ect. Nor did she comment when I told her that when they removed all the scripts from my beds that ALL the perms had been changed on everything else left inside the bed. All Dee directed me to do is change the permissions on the contents in my bed-THAT IS IT.

I then spent the next hour changing every single bed's 80ish items to Copy-No Resell..I contacted my group--I sent out group notices dropped newly updated copies to my customers---afterall NO WORD had been said about changing the scripts to make it appears as if I had written them.

An hour later the link to this post shows up in concierge group telling a TOTALLY different way to solve this.

I am beyond furious. IF Linden Lab would have contacted me I would have gladly changed any item to comply whether the true thing that needed changed was the animations or the scripts themselves I would have done what I was asked to do no problem. Instead I was made to look to my customers incompent as well as suspect simply for buying a script package over 8 months ago. I should NOT have to be told by my customer that there was a problem-I should have heard about it from Linden Lab and known about it so I could have a solution ready for my customers.

NOW if this post is correct then what I told my customers based on my OWN conversation with Dee then I am made to look even more incompent and ignorant to my customers.

I do NOT ever no matter what copy a script I bought full perm and paste it into a new script to appear to be the writer. That is deceptive and disrespectful to the script creator..they deserve to have their name attached to their creation as much as I deserve to have my name attached to the prims I create.

Therefore if this post is the latest word on this subject from Linden Lab and not what Dee told me to do I am right back to where I started. I did NOT copy Eva's scripts as this post directs people to but instead changed all my permissions as Dee directed me to.

This is another fine example of Linden Lab's absolute inability to interact with their paying customers-(to have reliable communications so that at least if they are going to lie they are all telling the same lie) it is also a FINE example of the utter disregard that LL has for the problems that their last minute decisions that are ill communicated (or even not communicated) has on its customers.

I know they want the big businesses in SL what they don't see is the more mistreatment they give us that gets turned into distrust, disbelief, and spawns media outcry will hurt them just as surely as closing their doors will.

After a year of ill thought out policy changes--completely elimating or destroying full markets the SL economy is so unstable and unreliable that one has to start wondering if they INTEND on running us all out and having a big ol' grid full of school classes and business meetings. Anyone attempting to run any other sort of business has to feel completely exposed and not able to trust LL to not continue to destroy the SL economy.

You can best bet after I have invested heavily into SL into sims, advertising, store materials, ect--I will NOT be putting in 1 more USD. The land market flood LL has created has about killed my investment no add this to yet another in a long line of different Lindens with different names telling different stories I have no faith at all left in any of them.

I am not against stopping content theft--as builder I FULLY support that--what I am against is the way it was handled, the lack of communication, the completely different opinions from Lindens who you would think would KNOW what the situation is. Ripping the scripts out of my objects and resetting the perms on the animations in the process without so much as a word to me makes me look like a thief and that I did something wrong to my customers even though all I did months ago was purchase a package advertised in LINDEN LAB SEARCH and followed the directions included in it. Why is this ONLY addressed here in the forums where the majority of users do NOT come and NOT included in the blog??

The sad thing is that the Second Life concept and platform could be great if someone with any sense would take control over it and follow through and quite running the paying customers around in circles.

Perhaps when there is nothing left but a bunch of bots and a ton of empty sims they'll think about doing just that.

Eva was apparantly never legally able to sell or give anyone full permission copies of those animations.

The advice that Dee gave you is more than worrying: she should have told you that you should check with the creator of those animations and work something out to get them licensed properly and stop selling anything that uses them until you get that sorted out.

Your problem is different from those who had the script dissapear since you're using the animations as well.

With all due respect to Dee, she is wrong if she told you that. The script is GPL'd (aka Free Software) and Eva had the rights to distribute that in accordance with the GPL. It is the animations that are the infringing materials. The Lindens really need to get their act together over this, no statement from them is bad but misinformation is far worse.

Here it is, late on Monday afternoon and still not one word from LL®™ on this. I had not believed that LL®™'s poor communications could get any worse then they were. I was wrong.

My guess is that they are carefully coming up with a post (story) that makes them look like the good guys, instead of the ones responsible for the screw-up, and they are taking time to word it correctly.

Actually, I don't even think that is the case; I think that the decision was taken by a small group, and what logic there was behind it and the methods used are not generally known within LL (see: various support Lindens being bemused by it). It will take a while before it filters through anywhere, and any blog post will be basically a surprised one trying to cope with a situation that they weren't previously aware of.

Support Lindens are never a terribly reliable source of information since they're likely working from their own home and have to make do on the fly with the little information that does trickle down to them just like we do.

It wouldn't even really surprise me if they have to read about policy changes on the blog same as us and aren't privy to much of anything that happens at LL HQ.

It would be really nice though if they could admit they don't know, will go away and find out then get back to you - and actually do that instead of just making stuff up.

Upon rereading it I did phrase it a bit harsher than I meant to .

I didn't mean they would deliberately make things up, or lie, but for anything that's happening now and ongoing they're likely working with very limited information and likely not much less lost than the person they have to assist.

I agree they should use "I don't know" more often though, although I can imagine the resulting verbal/textual abuse from the person on the other end would quickly discourage anyone to keep that up for very long .

Imagines Stuttering Linden Reply (allegedly)
bu, bu, but, but making stuff up is so much more fun

Pretty much says it all.

The right hand dusn' know what the left hand is strokin'.

Buncha morons.