Have you closed your store because of CopyBot?

If your client can't get a baked texture for another avie, it apparantly tries to compensate by layering the textures itself which I guess means that you get the original texture sent to you. That part of Robin's comment might simply refer to getting rid of the composite feature for other avies you see, but you'd still bake your own texture yourself then for others to see.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/10/11/gray-and-missing-image-avatars/#comment-7581

You're just making an assumption that a better competitor will emerge, which could likely be true, but it's not fact. The fact that your computer must download all the details of an object to display it is fact.

i still think anyone who's closed down simlpy out of fear, is being an idiot. read up on the exploit, and educate yourselves before panicking like the rest of the sheep.
if your really worried then get yourself one of the dozen or so free copy-bot defeaters.

otherwise, by all means.. close yourselves down untill copybot is removed (in otherwords, quit. cause you cant remove an outside program that exploits the open source code.)

If i recall right it can only layer together outift/skin pieces which you actually own yourself. Won't receive the item textures otherwise.

Of course if you do own the items, the individual textures will be sent and placed in client cache where they can be ripped from...

We're all going to die eventually... so why bother with anything? It's all an utter waste of time. So let's all just give up.

The answer has something to do with mountains and them being there, obviously.

The presumption that it's not possible to stay on reasonably equal level with people who try to break protections is also just that, presumption likely to be true but not a fact per se.


Yes. I suppose it means LL can simply get honest about the whole situation, get rid of the pointless permission system and stop lying to their customers that their precious platform is actually viable business platform. Or search for ways to make it one rather than muck around with placing the equivalent of "creator" requester in the item popup, seeing how it's nothing right-click->edit doesn't do already.

And by the way, can you hand me all your items, full permissions? After all i can have it all anyway, so you can just make the whole process easier for me, isnt' that right?

There are two sides to the store closing issues going on now.
On one had there are those who stay open in defiance of the thieves on SL and thier supporters at LL, and on the other hand there are those who close in protest of LL policy.
Both are equally righteous and I've decided to not decide.
Renegade Clothing will stay open because, well...I'm at work and can't access SL anyways

Most of the places that I am personally aware of closing are doing so out of protest, not fear. Generally, protesting something involves a degree of sacrifice.

For all the geniuses here who keep overstating the obvious ad nauseum that "that's just the way it is, this is how teh internets works!" - duh.

This is how the net works, most of us understand that, and that anyone who is determined to hack something will likely succeed. Again, a big DUH. Somehow, games like WoW and many others manage to stem this activity enough so that they are still able to offer a viable product. This is where maintaining control of your product comes into play, through diligence with regard to applying their TOS, internal teams whose specific jobs are dealing with these types of issues, etc.

This is where the hippy love machine attitude at LL get them into trouble. They fall all over themselves for the libSLers, yet they should know their own product better than anyone else. They should have their own internal team to do the things libSL is doing. They need to hire these kids or cut off their little love fest with them.

I wonder in the sorceror's apprentices realise they're being taken advantage of?

I see many shops closing due to this! Its a sad time in Second lIfe history

Hi Guys, I just posted this in Sylfie's thread,

Look on the positive side. This can be developed to back up your own components to your own hard drive. You'll be able to protect yourself from the vagaries of sl servers and asset servers! When sl competitors come along you will have a running start (maybe with a bit of translation)!

Eventually sl will properly bake av's clothing on that av's pc's client and the danger of copying individual garments will be less. Copiers will need to buy the stuff they copy and they need to display it to sell it!

Why should sl be any different to the rest of the internet? There is absolutely nothing that cannot be copied except back end scripts! This is why modern internet sites work with php, java, etc on the back end server. Everything else is fair game! Get used to it!

Ed

Running start from whom? Everyone can copy these very same items in SL and offer them on sale in the hypothetical SL competitors, remember?

Everyone could copy them before!

Remember, even with CopyBot, individual items of clothing can't be copied. Neither can scripts. All that gets copied are prim shapes. That's it. The bot itself wears the clothing of someone nearby, but that's just temporary.

I'm not closing my stores or limiting my content creation. I have seen the sky fall in SL a few times now and somehow it all works out, and we all keep on keepin' on. I create things because I love it, not for the money but for the relaxation and fun, the money is a bonus and its easier on the pocketbook when tier fees come due, but even if I didn't make a dime I would still have land and make my stuff.

I am sorry for people who will be hurt financially in RL for this, but like Jopsy said, we all knew what we were getting into. The permissions have always been an issue, especially with textures being stolen. I am in no way excusing the terrible thing these people have done to our world, but I also know I am not going to let anyone run me outta town, or spoil my enjoyment.

As for the people who say prices are too high, well, you can always learn to make things yourself. The classes are out there and the possibilities are endless. If you havn't sat in front of photoshop for 6 hours on a Saturday making a custom lace texture then you certianly would not understand the time, effort and imagination put into it. Secondlife is a marketplace and creators can charge whatever they deem fit to share their imagination with you.

As for a solution to this dilemma, I will start by saying I am no programmer so I can't help with a script to twart it, but I do think a protest is at hand.

If the situation gets totally out of hand and people are Copybotting the crap out of each other, the simple solution is for everyone to change into their newbie avies with all the clothing from their Library. We could also put out the freebie houses, furniture and everything else that is already copyable. With PTP Teleporting we can all still dance, chat, build, script, hold events and generally do what we do now in big wooden boxes without all the glitz and glamour for a couple weeks, or however long it takes. If everyone did this until LL was able to come up with a fix for this issue then no unique items would be lost and everyone could equally be newbies together. Its just a thought, I'm sad to see everyone so upset and to be so upset myself. This is really a selfish post, I am trying to look on the bright side and trying to cheer myself up and hopefully some of you too. Not only do I create items but I purchase them from others too and I am sad to see some of my favorite creators packing up shop, I hope it is not for good.

Please keep this in mind...no matter how many injustices we have to experience in SL..like RL the one thing they can not copy, take away or steal from us are the friendships we have made and the awesome people who have come together to share this Second Life.

Thank you for Listening.

That's not true, the last update or version, depending on how you want to word it, allowed the copy of everything except scripts. This was demo'ed in world, that copying someone saved everything but the scripts inside the copied prims.

Oh? How, exactly? I mean, you are talking of practical ability that rather than theoretical possibility "provided they'd do the same work libsl people did" ... right?


True, but you guys keep repeating ad nauseam everything can be copied (you just did it in this very message am replying to for this matter) so am just taking your statement for granted and using it to come to conclusions. If you tell me that everything can be copied then natural conclusion is, there is no head start for original owner in the ability to export items out of SL, because everyone can do the same with their items. Isn't that correct?

They did. Each client *uploads* their own baked texture.

Initially, each client downloads the textures for their clothes. Individually, each client compute the layers and bakes one etxture to upload. It then uploads it to the server. The server then sends that baked texture to everybody else.

My new custom tattoo, funiture, and graphics studio will not open as planned.
SL will not see the countless hours of original custom work our team has created until copybot is removed, and the creators and sellers of it are held accountable.

I know the effort that goes into content, as some have said I don't. I do use Photoshop, and I spend my time looking at other peoples work then trying to build it myself. I teach myself to build and take TeaZer lessons every now and again. I do understand how many hours it takes to make the smallest of objects, so that it looks perfect. On that note, if I'm looking at somebody elses product, say a chair, then I build it myself, would that be considered theft? After all, I did put the time and effort into building it, I just didn't come up with the creative side to it.

Anyhow, I've recently delved into animation, out of all the things I've tried in SL (Business wise) I find animation to be the hardest of them all. I spent 7 hours yesterday in Poser just making a 15 frame animation just as a test. Only to find it didn't work because I forgot to rotate one of the arms, so had to go back through it all. My point in this, don't say I don't understand the effort it takes to make such objects.

As for all these people closing their shops, it may be a protest, but I see another side to it. With all the big stores closing, the little 'unknown' people will start to rise and maybe take their place. People will look to the merchants that aren't closing, and in the process strengthen them. Closing up may seem the best solution, but for those who use SL as a form of RL work, you're only harming yourself, in the short and the long term. For example, say you're a clothing designer who offers a rarely seen product, extremely detailed and you close up. Meanwhile there's another store, not so detailed, but offering the same thing. With your shop closed, people will go to this store and thus, over time their popularity may match yours, when you return, you may find your products have been overtaken by somebody who was once a 'nobody' and thus, you're not making the Lindens you once was.

As for the comment about restricting sign ups, making it how it once was - I for one am completely for that. Since they allowed anyone to come into the adult side of SL, I swear there's been a sudden surge of people that to me, sound like 12 year olds. I feel that opening the sign up process was a very bad move on LL's part.

But anyhow. Once I have some of my animations in SL, I won't be closing unless I decide to leave SL. No matter what other bots or such appear, I will continue to keep my store running. But then, I doubt anyone would want to undercut my prices as I'll be selling my things nice and cheap as I've no real need for the money in RL, I just make things for the fun of it (And it saves me spending a couple of hundred pounds everytime I'm bored ). ^_^

Thank you Cazzi, for a glimmer of light in the storm of darkness.

Well that's a shame, because it's really only linked builds that are at risk. Copybot does not give you a copy of textures. It just references them (you see them but can't rip them) temporarily. Your textures are far more vulnerable to an external application that's been available long before you even signed up for Second Life. Unfortunately there's nothing you can do about that because everybody's client has to render those textures. It's the nature of the beast. Content creators outlived that storm and the doom mongers were wrong about the consequences.

The only thing I see damaging the economy at the moment is knee jerk reactions by people who are ignorant of what Copybot can do. If you don't know, get a copy and experiment with it yourself. As a content creator, you have that right. Just delete and trash everything you make afterwards.

You did know that other proprietry online service providers actually code their product to prevent the running of such applications while their product is running did you ?

It's not 100% secure, nothing is, the point is it deters the vast majority of people who can no longer commit theft with the simple click of a button. A hacker will ALWAYS find a way around something, it proves nothing unless it was an undiscovered bug.

In both examples this was no such thing. Copybot was simply built to break something in a way we knew it could be broken. What we didn't expect was for LL to give them their support in this endeavor.



I see the ignorance of someone who can't comprehend that people often act on a matter of principle to demonstrate and send out a message to anyone who will listen about what they believe. That this is the latest in a series of events and responses from LL that sends a clear message to content creators that they don't care. I think it's quite reasonable for content creators to send a message back saying they are not happy with that.

Yes Ive shut down my shop

Anyone can simply buy from your vendor, then use copybot/libsl to easily obtain a full perm version of anything built from prims which they can sell in their own store.

Also since they have your textures on those full perm prims they can even build different objects using your textures by including those prims in their creation even though they dont actually have a copy of your texture in their inventory.

Thankfully their objects dont get your scripts, so they will have to use their own scripts, but the rest of your effort in making the object can be stolen and resold.

I dont know how it affects the clothing/skin people as the reports of what it can do seem conflicting, but those whose items are prims/textures are stolen.

Microsoft is proprietary, but um... ALT+PrintScrn still works

My point was that there are games that won't run while GLIntercept is running.
What's your point ?

CopyBot creates an illusion. If it had to really import everything back in, it would have to pay for all the uploads.

The only free upload is the texture on your avatar. You client bakes the texture and uploads it for all to see. CopyBot just uses that to temporary display other baked textures. Those are temporary.

It also copies prims.... no, actually it traces the 3D models and recreates the prims. If CopyBot is in a sim with "no build" set, it can't recreate prims.