All the TALK drove me to want it, haw about you?

With all the talk and publicity give to CopyBot here has made me want to go out and get it now, now that I know everything about it, ways around with out getting caught using it, all the talk how it works. Etc…

Thanks for all the info put out here about copybot I now know everything I would need to have and use it… be sure to post many more post of all things like this in the future so MYSELF and anyone else that had no interest in items like this before will now be informed on what we were missing out on and tempt us to go out and get it….


NOW DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU DID? if only others would use there head and not get caught up in the heat of the passion to publicize and bring to the attention or the limelight items like this in the future.

I am sure you know exactly what one can do with a knife, you know where to get one, how to hold one and what the consequences of using one could be.

But if you use one to hurt someone, YOU are in the wrong, not the knife, the person who sold you it, the person who made it or the pretty box it came in.

If you choose to get Copybot, Earl, the responsibility for what you do with it is yours and yours alone. I don't approve of it being let loose like this, I certainly don't approve of how it was promoted and demonstrated, but at the end of the day, no one is making anyone else use it.

So if you are tempted to use this, you will be the one risking banning, legal action whatever.

It was too late to stop people from learning about it as soon as it was put up for download. I prefer that everyone is aware of the issue, not only the... uhm... I have to admit, that more or less justifies the work of LibSL. Everyone is aware of the security holes now, not only a few black hatters.

Ok, I see I have to rethink my opinion on this.

I think the post was made out of frustration with all the bickering, rather than malicious intent .
But Earl does have a point. I didn't learn about copybot because I was looking to copy anything, I didn't learn about a texture ripping program because I was looking to grab textures, I didn't learn about a script to copy mod enabled objects because I was looking to copy mod enabled objects.
I wouldn't know about any of it if people didn't fill the forums with the names now and in the past, significantly lowering the barrier for anyone eager to do the wrong thing (or simply curious what all the fuss is about). It takes far more effort to find copybot when all you have to go on is a naive "how to copy prims" search, which is likely to only result in building tutorials, than simply putting the name of the program in google and instantly hitting the desired result.

You don't have to keep quiet about it for the sake of keeping it low key, but you don't have to go advertise it either. I mentioned copybot by name because it's come up in the thread already, but other than potentially revealing that it's possible to rip textures or prims with a script, noone is going to be any closer to knowing *how* to do it from my post. Does it help? Maybe, but it doesn't hurt either and it doesn't hinder conversation by not having those tools explicitly named.

Go ahead and get it -- I did, just to see what it did and how to protect myself from it. It's not illegal to have it and use it, just to have it and use it maliciously.

Exactly my point!!!!

It should be illegal to have it or use it.

This isn't like gun control. This isn't like, "guns don't hurt people, people do."

Guns are a DEFENSIVE item. Not something most people would be inclinced to want to use, unless they absolutely had to.

This is like presenting everyone in the country with a dollar bill copier, one that is perfect and could never be traced, then telling them not to use it.

This should be cut off at the SOURCE - the actualhaving of the thing - by which I don't mean having it on your person computer; I mean being seen with it in the game.

And why? Because once someone perfects this item so everyone can use it with ease, there will come a tipping point (and early on, too), when so many people have it it will be impossible to even begin to control its use.

Besides, there is zero good reason for its use. If you wanted it for the vaunted "Machinima," you could apply to the Lindens for using it for that.

The Lindens live in la-la land.

coco

No, I'm absolutely uninterested. So I could waste a lot of time fiddling around with some awkward script - why? - to steal things that cost a dollar or so to buy? Why bother?

Do you actully belive that yourself?
Guns is made to hurt and kill.
The only need for them as a Defensive item is because other people have guns (or other weapons) as well. Ban all guns and the need of them goes away.

As far as copybot is concerned.
Yes it is a problem.
People that make stuff does naturally want their copyright protected.
And sell their items getting paied for their hard work.
So Copybot should be banned.

Now then.
Do you download Mp3's? (stings a bit thinking about it doesnt it?)

PS. Before anyone starts to bitch at me for defending copybot please understand that I don't. I hope there in the future Lindens will make an update so Copybot doesnt work. DS

Then dont be surprised when you are banned from peoples land by your post .. as well as some people thinking you just want it to steal their creations

WOW!!!! IS it to hard for you and others to GET MY POINT here?!!! Only Kitty got the point of this post!

all the hype just causes copycat use of it, just like all the talk about kids with guns in schools, it just gives them ideas.(just stop talking about it) like copycat shootings...

I am against it!!!

Can't say I have any interest in getting this thing. From what I've read there's little legitimate use for it except as a debugging tool which very very few people would need.

I've had a quick try at creating some basic objects, it looks quite powerful but not easy. I can imagine the amount of work that goes into creating something really nice and I can understand why people are getting upset at the thought of all their work being ripped off. Who would want to put all that time and effort into something only for some lazy git to come along and steal it? I certainly wouldn't.

I've only been here three days, this is my first post here too and I'm hoping I've just arrived at a bad time because, to be honest, I haven't seen a hell of a lot that would tempt me to stay. Lots and lots of vendors offline (though I did find one to sell me a new hairdo I could barely afford...), copybot spam all over the place - only just worked out how to mute that. I'll stick around for a while and see if things improve.

Fingers crossed...

As far as the original post goes, withholding information is akin to censorship. People WILL talk about things and I think they should be encouiraged to do so. Why would you want to keep it quiet? People need to know if their creations are likely to be ripped off so they can take (understandable if a little frustrating) steps to try to prevent it.

Actually the original post was asking for responsible disclosure which is what half of the people on the forums have been screaming for in the first place.

If copybot was kept as a "demo on request" thing, there would have been far less problems with it. Everyone would be able to see what it could do, everyone would know that it's possible to do it, but they wouldn't know *how* to do it either technically or pratically.

Even if the source for it was publically available at the time, noone would really know where to look. Instead what happened is dozens of "omg.. You can still get it right now! Here's the link. Go look!"

From the "what can and can't it do threads" I knew copybot couldn't grab textures (in the actually having them in inventory or on disk sense), but that it can place any arbitrary texture on any arbitrary prim without the need to actually own the texture. That was honestly enough for anyone to know until another thread came along yesterday, explaining how you can do the same thing without even needing copybot.

Compare that to my previous post where I let you know that it's possible to rip textures from SL (in a save to disk sense), but you're no closer to knowing how to go about it.

Sorry, didn't intend to get into a gun control argument.

My point was, the potential for abuse of a dollar-copying machine (and its resultant harm to the economy) would be much farther reaching than the potential for abuse of, say, guns, or the nuclear bomb.

coco

Where can I get one of these? I'd like to exercise my fair use rights to backup my dollar bills.

Oh I agree, but then that was entirely in the hands of libsl.



It was widely available in-world for a price before the majority of people even knew it existed, myself included, and continues to be. Announcing that the link was still live just provided a way of getting the same thing at no cost. I would suggest that those wishing to use it for questionable reasons would have fronted up the L$ anyway.



Once the news is out, it's out, that's to be expected. It's just like Dominos.

I doubt very much it would be used to supply someone with objects for personal use; as you mentioned, it would be easier to purchase the stuff. The fear is more that someone who is not very skilled in prim building (or lacks creativity) could use this to set up a business selling replicas of current content.

Oh stop trolling.

I came to know about Copybot cause it was USED on me when I first logged in, then I went to blog, THEN came here.

While you point fingers, how about pointing one at LL for posting it in the blog, eh? They let the word out alot louder than I ever could.

Sorry, just caught this upon reading again.

I think it's the perceived differing values of different types of content. There is a common perception, concious or not, that textures are somehow not as valuable as prim items, and also that neither of these are as valuable as scripts or animations. I think part of the reason textures are viewed that way is because the bulk of textures have been ripped off the net, and are not original content. Why rip a texture from SL when it's easier to rip it from where they originally did? lol. I think those who do make original textures in SL are unfortunately undervalued as a result of that perception.

Just for the record, I don't agree that one type of content is more valuable than another, but I think you can see that perception is pretty strong, and LL have displayed it too. I bet the noise would be twice as loud again if animations and scripts were being ripped off.

I semi said that in the store closing thread. When asked why scripters and animators would boycott and close up, I said, because if LL ignores this and these people today, scripters will be tomorrow.

If LL tries to expell everyone and anyone that tries to use CopyBot...

What do you consider an "acceptable" number of banned innocent residents?

0? 1? 10? What if you're one of the people accused and expelled?

--
But... but... I was only standing next to someont that BOUGHT a copy of that chair and rezzed it in world! It wasn't a copybot under my control re-creating it!! I've never run copybot!

Tell it to the judge. Oh wait.. there isn't one.

Scripts aren't sent to the client unless you own them and have mod rights.

That's not something LibSL or a hacked client can 'fake'.

There was a way to get the scripts at one time, but I understand that LL fixed that by not having the scripts run client side anymore. They are truly back end now because they only run on the server side.

So it would be very hard to rip one now, if at all, as I understand it. This is why I get a little irritated with the coder types who act like physical content creators are a bunch of ignorant, whining cattle. Because their stuff is able to be nearly 100% secured. It's easy to preach to the "dumb cows" (this is the attitude on display in both the sl lib irc transcripts and in many of these threads) when your own interests are not at stake.

There is a big disconnect here. I plan on writing a paper about this. But for now I will just say that the only "answer" to this culture clash is tolerance on both sides of the issue and the understanding that a good part of what makes up each of our individual realities is based upon individual perception, and that for many SLers, that perception is heavily influenced by Linden Labs marketing, and not by an intimate knowledge of the technology behind the product.

So, on one hand, we have those who put their faith (I am of the mind that many see this issue as a breach of faith on LL's part - and it doesn't help that in the past they have abruptly shut SL down to deal with permissions exploits AND disciplined people like Cristiano Midnight for even warning people about it) in the implied safety of LL's permissions system, and the "come here and set up shop and make real money!" marketing scheme... and then we have the folks who knew from the onset that nothing was safe because of their technical knowledge, who are understandably frustated that many content creators are raising hell, but not really taking the issues I outlined above into account, in many cases. In other words, lecturing people with tech talk isn't likely to work because there are other, non-technical aspects in the mix, many of which are direct results of LL's past behavior with regards to how they reacted when there were permissions exploits, the way they market SL, and the very existence of the permissions system. To many it seems as if LL is just saying that the permissions system is worthless, because they are going to allow people to engineer ways around it, and even if the intentions on the part of those reverse engineers are good, open source means that it can and likely will be used by people with bad intentions or dollar signs in their eyes, be they rogues Lib SLers, their alts, or totally unrelated persons.

Of course there is a lot more to it than what I have postulated above - one example being that artists don't contract with a middleman in SL (and many times on the internet in general) who have legal and technical teams backing up their rights, so they are faced with dealing with that on their own.

As others have said, we live in interesting times. In real life there is no worry that some one can walk a clone up to your sculpture or home you built to sell and copy it perfectly, so RL infringement analogies don't really work so well. We have the good (mis?) fortune of being alive in an era where we will be able to watch the sparks fly as IP comes up against ever increasingly more capable technology.

Sunspot: I don't know if scripters should be so comfy that their code is safe. Yes it is executed serverside but it is sitting there in a text file right inside the object, if you have mod permissions you can take it out and look at it. Brake the permssions and you get the script.

True that, but LL has a history of shutting down the grid and repairing that type of exploit ASAP, which as I said above, adds to the ire on the part of physical content creators (physical as in primmy, not as in physics enabled).