Loni Arado - Passing on problems to endusers

Think it through, and you'll see.

As well as Textures-R-Us and other such places (which particularly when I was new to SL and learning skills, I found quite useful), I've made the odd bit of money here and there doing the odd bespoke script or build for someone. However, if everyone goes down the "self-create" just in case the person I hire to do some work gets a DMCA complaint and all his/her items vanish, then that whole economy of builders and scripters for hire vanishes.

Take it further, if I buy anything pre-build (furniture, house, swimming pool), there is a risk of it vanishing because of a DMCA against the creator. So, to play safe I shouldn't buy or take anything from anyone, I should build everything myself - and bang goes the whole content creation economy! Whilst extreme - it is a logical consequence if literally everyone decided to go the self-created way to avoid any risks!

Matthew

You still have the same risk

if you use other people stuff ...
/me files a DMCA against Miffy's stuff
Your stuff is broken

if you create your own stuff
/me files a DMCA against Phil's stuff
Your stuff is broken


To quote Matthew Dowd



Your beds can just as easily go poof in that case as well. Creating everything yourself wont help a bit.

I hadn't thought of that :/

Well, in theory, you could. If you sell your L$ on the Lindex, LL knows who they sent the real $$ to.

If you transfer them to an alt, LL can follow that transaction.

Ask the people who bought illegal L$ from 3rd party sites... LL made them cough up 150% of whatever they bought. No idea what they did to the sellers...

The old adage about "follow the money" has never been easier than in SL.

It's more or less independent, so not predictable without knowing what buttons Lindens pushed. Rezzed objects are tracked by each sim and not the asset server, so those will continue to sit there unaffected unless Lindens unleash processes to hunt them down and kill them.

If a texture were to be physically removed from the asset servers, rezzed scuplties using it would revert to blobs That would be fun to hunt down, since sculpties do that half the time even when the textures are there .

Blacklisting is separate, that check is made when you try to rez something from your inventory. That's why, for example, some of the people affected by the MLP thing are able to recover. Those particular items were purged from the sims but not blacklisted.

But they can't do anything about it, it would be up to the copyright owner to take it court and they'd have to reach a settlement there. Once the US$ are transferred to PayPal, they're there to stay.

I'm not even really sure if LL can just forfeit someone's US$ balance either, it's not play money anymore regardless of how it was obtained, although they might be able to hold it pending some resolution.

But up until the point the DMCA is received that account is in "good standing" and can sell L$ like any other store owner without problems.

It could take weeks or months before someone finds out. Either way they don't ever loose money on it, there's only potential gain which is part of the problem.

Well, maybe.

Thing is, if LL disabled/removed content that was 100% solely yours (or that you had a valid, legal license to use from any/all other creators), then you simply file a DMCA counter-notification to LL for all items so acted upon, and they have 10-14 business days to replace/restore said content, or they become liable themselves for suit over any/all losses arising from said removal. During that time, they provide your counter claim notice to the original complainant, and if he/she doesn't proceed to filing suit within the 10-14 day time frame, your content has to be restored, or LL becomes liable.

In addition, a DMCA filing is NOT "injunctive relief" in and of itself. IE, it is NOT a court order telling them to take down the info. It is only a notice to the effect of "I think that stuff is my stuff, here's my stuff for comparison, here's my proof of ownership, and here's who I am in RL; please take it down and serve this notice to the alleged infringer". It is SOLELY up to LL what they do in response to a DMCA takedown notice. They can refuse, or request legal clarification, or they can comply. The decision is theirs. If they make a bad call, they become liable, so it behooves them to not simply grant OR ignore DMCA notices willy-nilly. Likely, anyone capriciously filing DMCA notices against your 100% legal/owned content will be ignored, since LL can (hopefully) show the courts that the original notice is flawed and unserviceable.

As such, while it is a risk, it is a VERY small one. Someone really must have a sadistic wish to be sued into bankruptcy, or worse, placed in jail for perjury, for little to no gain. Falsifying legal documents is baaaad mojo.

But to avoid liability LL should take the content down on receipt of the DMCA complaint - I believe that the content should be down for a minimum of ten days? After which, you can file a counter claim, at which point LL to avoid liability should re-instate the content.

This does mean the content would be unavailable for 2-3 weeks, even if it is reinstated, which is a long time in SL terms. If the content includes a really popular script (and I'd class MLP as such) or animation etc. there could be quite a lot of outcry during those weeks. In particular, such an action could result in some content creators offering refunds to customers who have non-working products, only for those products to start working again a week later!

Malicious DMCA requests are unlikely - however, unless you also expect content creators to be expert IP Rights lawyers too, I wouldn't be surprised to discover mistakenly filed DMCA complaints - particularly if the complaint is against a similar item rather than an exact copy. A quick google search shows up that even those who know better can get things wrong when it comes to filing DMCA complaints - http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/08/31/sfwa-issues-mistakenly-broad-dmca-takedown-notice/ so exxpecting SL residents not to make (honest) mistakes is unrealistic.

That said, someone/somewhere is bound to be stupid enough to file a malicious one...

Matthew

This is the problem with the new enforcement system. It is not "equitable relief" as they like to call it in legal circles. And as Qie and Ordinal have noted it is very likely an ill-conceived approach by LL.

For example, let's say I manufacture RL mp3 players. I am either not aware of the need to license the mp3 codec or don't care. Using the RL method of enforcement, when the owner of the mp3 patent contested my use of the codec, I - the manufacturer - would need to compensate the patent owner. This places the liability for infringement on the infringer.

Contrariwise, when a creator uses SL material in good faith and later finds through angry customers that the content has been removed from the world, the punishment inflicted is against a) the creator one step from the infringer or b) the customer two steps away from the infringer. We wouldn't tolerate this in RL and using my mp3 example, the courts wouldn't reach into every customer's home and seize the equipment. And if the infringing manufacturer no longer existed, the patent owner may receive no compensation at all. Just because a "solution" can be effected in SL doesn't mean that it should, especially if it fails to hit the real infringer and targets the ignorant innocent instead.

I'm all for protecting creators' rights, but this method of relief is simply flawed.

what is bothering me in all of this is that I am hearing some Linden or other said something to the effect of rerez a fresh copy from your inventory and go on. We a rerezzed copy is still STOLEN goods. SO what good did this purge do at all?

About time!

I am personally pleased that Linden Lab did a total takedown within the provisions of the DMCA.

it's tough on those who buy things in good faith, how can you tell if something is original/protected etc etc?

Personally anything I buy inworld for commercial use (which is rare I admit, but I do use scripts as an example) I research in great detail. This isn't the same as person x just buying product x on a non commercial level. This is a merchant buying products they underpin their business on.

In RL, I buy ethical goods, and in SL I work incredibly hard to ensure anything that gets close to our brand is vetted. I have even gone so far as obtain references and RL disclosure.

I hope people affected can perhaps repackage using the non-stolen versions and the customers who are affected resolved.

I agree.

LL should have pulled the pin on this infringement when it reared itself. Instead, they elected to allow the piracy to proceed, even after being served notices and subpoenas.

LL profitted by allowing the sale of Linden dollars to be converted into USD into the accounts of the pirates. LL also profitted from selling $L to the victims in the meanwhile.

Linden Lab in a sense, is only upholding the actions of pirates while ignoring the rights of consumers and OEM creators.

Color me unsympathetic. If you are a content creator who uses textures or sculpts in a product, it is just common sense that you should verify that the content you use is genuine and created by the actual person selling them. Even before this, if you used pirated content in your products _YOU_ could be held legally liable. All this "change" does is make LL follow copyright law to a fuller extent.

What can you do?

1) Talk to the _ORIGINAL_ creator of the sculpted prims, and try to work out some sort of license agreement with them. Then you two can either 1) work out something with LL to re-enable the sculpts on your content (if this is possible) or 2) re-add the genuine sculpt maps to your products and offer replacements.

2) Get a lawyer and file a lawsuit against Loni Arado

3) Be very cautious the next time you purchase content to use in your creations.

I think that this will only help SL's economy and go far to eliminate content theft. It will force content creators to make sure that textures, sculpts, and scripts are genuine and created by the original user. In turn, this will make the end users very cautious about purchasing content unless it is verifiably genuine. For example, it would be good practice for content creators who use outside content to list the sources and creators of that content in infocards viewable before purchase.

This approach about verifiable creation is utterly infeasible and the way the argument is presented points out why it it is troubled.

Ok, so I want to verify that Qie Niango is the creator of a texture he sells me for reuse in my product. Who the hell is Qie? He's nobody, not even a "legal person" (e.g. a corporation) in the eyes of the law. What kind of credible affirmation could he offer me that he is the creator and didn't grab it from a licensed source? What recourse would I have against this non-person if he was lying? This is why I highlighted suing Arado: there is nothing but air there unless you get LL to disclose the real person behind the avatar (and good luck with that assuming they even know themselves).

I've purchased "licensed for reuse in your own builds and products" textures from long-standing, reputable merchants. Given how long ago I bought them, I doubt the original source - even if totally unencumbered - could even be determined now.

Finally, are you seriously suggesting that customers will care enough to consult a notecard of dubious statements of provenance before buying a L$25 chair?

/me tunes the WindLight skies to Full Rosy, and squints very hard.

Nope. Still can't see it.

OK, I go to Ami Marv's (that's hopefully a fictitious name btw!) texture shop and look around. There's a box on the floor claiming to be a texture vendor. I right click and inspect it - OK its been there since 2007, it belongs to Ami Marv, so far so good. I check the about land box. Yep, Ami Marv has owned the land since 2007, so he's been around for at least a year.

I click the box - I get a notecard telling me that this will sell me a set of textures, these are full perms so I can use them in my builds, but that I'm only permitted to give/sell the textures as part of another object, not resell them or give them away on their own etc. - seems fine to me.

I check Ami Marv's profile - yep he's been online since early 2007. There's the usual action pose of his avatar as a picture. Some text about how he enjoys building and socialising. Check the picks - yep, the usual mixture of friends and some favourite dance clubs. Check the first life tab. Mmm, there's a picture of him in real life - well, I suppose it is him, I've no way of telling that it isn't a random picture off the web. That said given the small size of the picture and the sunglasses, chances are that I wouldn't pick him out if I met him in the street.

Text in the RL profile says he is an American - well no-ones perfect

OK, so although it is only a 5US$ box of textures, I'm paranoid - I send Ami Marv an IM

"Are you the legal owner of the textures?"
Response comes back -"Yes - what do you take me for!"

OK, so I pay out L$1250 for the box - check the textures, all have Ami Marv as the creator. All seems good, and I head home to start building.


How much more verification would you reasonably expect someone to do?


Following week, Ami Marv's account is suspended as he has been illegal uploading textures to SL obstained from a commercial website for the last 12 months, but it had only recently come to the attention of the website owners!

Matthew

Not to pick on you specifically, but as a general excercise for *any* content creator who thinks it's this "easy".

You sell items in-world so how would you go about convincing someone that you created them if they ask? You can't use words, nor pictures, nor reputation, all that can be easily faked or is inherently meaningless. You need to provide actual, solid, irrefutable *proof* that you created what you're selling in-world.

Please do think about it for a moment, you'll find there is no possible way for you to convince anyone beyond any reasonable doubt that you did indeed create what you're selling and that anyone buying it will be safe. Noone can make that determination at present and you have no way of providing a guarantee either.

I suspect that very few people will be able to verify that every component of everything they make is not only original, but also _was not made by somebody who has breached or will breach in the future copyright on something else_ - since that appears to result in everything they ever created being removed, with this new procedure, whether it was infringing or not.

The only way to know is to make it yourself.

True, but how could your customers know for sure?

But what if I turn into a villain in my future life and infringe somebody's copyright? Can I really trust myself?

One more problem with this. Someone had a DMCA takedown issued against her as a form of harassment. LL removed her stuff. She counter-filed. LL returned her stuff... in broken / unusable condition. (Textures mangled, prims unlinked, etc.)

A false DMCA claim resulted in her entire line of merchandise being destroyed, even though LL "returned" it.

And since the person who filed the DMCA lives outside the US, there's no legal recourse for the false claim. AND that person now has her RL details, as required by law since she counter-filed.

Which doesn't prevent a false (harassing) DMCA takedown from destroying your business anyway. (See my previous comment.)

To all who have replied:
It's about reputation. It isn't difficult to find creators of sculpts, textures, and scripts who are established and have a reputation for creating their own work. If you are a content creator looking for content, it is best that you seek out established places to cover yourself, because of the fact that there _are_ a lot of content thieves about. If in doubt, you can try searching for the same thing in the new search to see if multiple places/sellers offer the same thing, in which case red flags should be raised.

I don't see how what I am saying is at all controversial or new, except for the fact that SL's culture has been different from the rest of the digital art industry as far as standards of actively protecting IP rights. For example, if you are making a game, a 3D movie, or suchlike, you'll want to go to places that offer established content creators so you can be sure that you are getting genuine content and not pirated content. Same thing for stock images and any other non-SL digital content license service.

What is the alternative? Banning the pirate but still allowing the pirated content to exist because of "convenience?" Sorry, that doesn't hold legally or ethically; if a content creator has her or his content pirated, it is legally required that the hosting service take down _all_ infringing content.

As a point of order, the passing-on of RL details is _not_ required in law when one counterfiles - in fact it isn't required at all, unless there is a subpoena. It is just, it seems, policy to pass them on.