Ideas for Content Protection

I just thought it might be handy to have a thread in which people could contribute their ideas for defeating the problem of creation theft. If we work on this together I believe we can lessen the impact on the wonderful creativity of SL.

I will start the ball rolling with some that I have thought of or heard about. Some are copybot specific, others more general.

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Set your land to 'no build' - not just shops, your home land as well if you can. This not only prevents 'opportunist' copying of your products, doing this to your home land will protect anyone else's builds you own on there.

Unlinking smaller parts of a build then putting a complete copy inside the remaining part. Purchasers buy 'contents'. Again, just trying to make it harder for thieves.

Do your building near your shop where possible - this allows you to keep an eye on customers (descreetly, I don't like being watched whilst I browse, and I am sure lots of other people don't either). If you see two people, one of who is pushing the other around, and the pushed one is a) brand new and b) has no groups or details on their profile, you are reasonable suspecting it is a bot. Say hello, (in IM if you are not in sight) and if there is no reply you could try IMing !quit to it (this no longer works for all versions of the bot).

If you see the above occurring in someone elses shop, notify them and keep an eye on the suspicious couple. If you see them start to create a copy, AR them both and take a photo - if we all work together on this we can make it harder for copybot to be used anywhere.

Similarly, if you spot an item in a yard sale or shop that you suspect is something made by another creator - firstly, take a deep breath!
Check the creators name (if you can't see this in edit, be sure you don't have 'select only my items' turned on). Is it the person you think it 'should' be?
If you can go see the original do so, are they really the same? Take a photo of the suspect one and send it and the location to the original creator. If you are really sure you are looking at a copy, report it. Be careful, we do not want to start 'witch-hunts'.

Add your name and the date at the edge of textures you create for SL. This could prove useful against certain other content-theft tools. It is also good practice for any artist.

Keep master copies of all your creations - this way you will have the earliest dated one if there ever comes a time when you need to prove you are the creator. Including creation information on one or more of the component prims is also a neat precaution - you will konw that your chair's leg has the date in it, who else will? You could also add a notecard to every new build with your info on it. Once you start this - and do make sure you know when you start this, all future builds will have to have this included to be authentic ones. Copybot doesn't copy contents, remember.

Including a small logo on clothing or other texture based builds puts one more barrier up for the would-be thief. Whilst we know there are ways they can rip your texture, this gives them editing they would have to do and therefore slows them down. Many theives are opportunists and anything that can make them think twice is a good idea. Either have your logo as part of the look (like your name on the pocket patch on a pair of jeans) or a tiny version tucked away somewhere - you will know where to look for it if a debate ever arises!

Won't stop any but the least determined ones. Doesn't prevent them from copying a house or other item that some other customer purchased and set up far from your controlled area, and doesn't stop them from standing beyond your property line and copying anyway. They could also buy one legal copy of everything and take it wherever they want to make unlocked copies that they can later resell.

This can work, to an extent, depending on the item. One could have an unlinked display model, and a linked copy in a box or vendor that is for sale. One can also, in the case of houses, use Rez Foo or Builder's Buddy to make a build that the owner can easily assemble and move, but which is still many seperate parts when they set it up on their own lot.

Not practical, in most cases. This is all well and good if you have only one store, and if you're almost always on-line. Most merchants who would feel the most vulnerable have multiple stores in multiple sims.

Yes, reporting any thief when you see one is a BIG help! This is, in fact, our best protection. If the honest Players keep their eyes open, and don't allow the thieves to openly work, the number of thefts should be low, and the number of thieves caught rapidly should be higher.

Yes. Again, if you see something suspucious, it's wise to check, and to report it if the issue seems a valid concern.

This helps on clothes, as you don't display the full surface of the texture. But CopyBot can't steal clothes. Most building textures use and visibly display the full texture, and having anything else added that does not belong there is very bad.

HOWEVER: One thing a builder CAN do is to sign their work with textures on the UNSEEN FACES of a build! For example, rather than leaving the edges of two floor sections a plain plywood, or a simple texture, place a texture with the builder's name on it there. If copied, this won't be obvious. But you could, as proof, point out "If you edit the build and elevate that floor prim 0.25 M, you'll see my name on the edge facing us!".

Always keep records of your work, wherever possible. Some custom, built-on-site work that is impossible, but such builds are also unlikely to be targets. Placing a notte card in an item as an identifier is only useful if they were trying to pass it off as an original. And the can't do that, because your creator name is no longer on the copy.

This can work, in some cases. But it's less effective than the 'place it in a hidden location' trick mantioned above. They have full-perms on the stolen prims, so could easily replace logo textures. Maybe even with something from elsewhere in the same build!

Also, remember we are talking about prim objects here, not clothes. The known versions of CopyBot can't extract even the 'baked' composite clothing texture in an exportable form, and can't touch the layered clothing textures.

If you set your camera range to maximum your client can snarf UUIDs and prims from up to half a kilometer away! Unless you own a sim this isn't a practical defense.

I do like the idea of embedding logos into textures if you do it well, like the "MW" hidden in all of Michal Whelan's pictures. Done poorly, the result is less attractive.

I did see a box of items for sale at bargain price that were obviously being sold by someone who wasn't the creator.

So I IM'd the creator and told him where to go and who to sort out.

If everyone is prepared to do this, the problem of resold stolen goods should be much diminished.

Just another thing... Watermark your textures. You can do this and make it not obvious to the buyer, but obvious enough to detect when someone makes a copy.