Copyright abuse in SL

I'm not sure this is actually copyright so much as intellectual property rights, which is different.

Taking a still from a Star Wars movie is clearly a breach of copyright, but if you were to design a storm trooper outfit from scratch you haven't actually copied anything. It's all your own work. I think, in fact, you would even be able to sell it legitimately as long as you didn't use the words "Star Wars" to describe it.

I don't think that the technology used to copy something is a valid consideration (in this case, "by hand" vs. "by scanner" or something). It remains that the likeness of the storm trooper is copyrighted regardless of how it's reproduced. You could make a suit, yes, but for personal use only (and a small set of more obscure uses). You could probably even scan your movie still, slap it on a prim and hang it in your SL house, but not sell it, nor hang it in an SL art gallery, and certainly not charge admission for people to see it.

Well, we could turn SL into There if that's what you want.

Seriously, though. Copyright violations go a lot farther than you see. I'm not talking about just Mickey Mouse here or Boris stuff. How many of the thousands of textures on sale do you think were actually made by people? Most of these are taken from collections on the net. A lot of things are taken off the net. Lesser of two evils. Lesser of the two.

Here's my point.
On my There account I made a men's t-shirt, plain black, with pink lettering that says 'Total Noob' on the front. I submitted the design (had to pay $5.00), it got approved. To sell the design, I had the option to either buy my t-shirts, having to pay for each one at a bulk price, or I could sell them for a set base price, on which I would have to tack my own meager profit attempt. Alright, okay I could handle that.

So, after it got approved and was selling I go ahead and make the same t-shirt for female's same design. I had to resubmit a design for female (another $5.00), textures aren't unisex or re-usable. So, I resubmitted the same t-shirt for females and it got disapproved!! There then goes ahead and refunds your submission fee, minus 10%. Good for them.

Then they don't respond to my 30+ emails over a period of 2 years.

What a bunch of losers.

I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. I believe that if it's judged in court that you saw a stormtrooper in the movies, then built the same outfit in Second Life out of textures and prims, then that's "creating a derivative work" and counts as a copyright infringement. Selling it under a different name isn't any excuse.

It gets even more complicated when you consider that the appearance iconic characters, like stormtroopers and especially superheroes, can be trademarked as well as copyrighted. In that case, if you sell an outfit that looks enough like a Star Wars stormtrooper that an average person might mistake it for one, and it's in a close enough context (and since it's "a character within a fictional world" it almost certainly would be), you can be sued for trademark infringement, even if you didn't intend it to be a stormtrooper.

I'm not sure exactly how far this would go as far as something like Force Prophesies, as I have no idea if Lucas have trademarked the idea of "The Force" (I honestly doubt they could). I saw a very well-built Harry Potter sim recently, but I think it would have problems because Warner and Rowling trademarked just about everything related to that series (and a few things that weren't - according to their fan site, they trademarked about 10 different potential titles for the last book, to prevent people working out the title from their registrations). Most of the magic wands I think are safe, even the ones that use Latin words (because hey, it's just Latin), but even using the name "Hogwarts" or the names of the houses in Second Life could be construed as using them as part of a computer roleplaying game you're creating within SL and lead to action.

questen.what about objects that one has gotten over the years that has a trade mark? the buys of such objects bares no fault to those that have created it no? Just wonering........

And I have a question similar to Usagi's: What happens to the objects sold if a work is deemed in violation of copyright? For example, let's say I buy a beautiful print from Krazzora that just happens to be a scanned work by Boris. In fact, I like this print so much, I buy multiple copies and put one on each wall of my house and two in my garage. As a customer, I feel satisfied and I retire to my SL digs, surrounded by work of extreme beauty as I snuggle in with a SL book.

Then, one day, Boris joins SL and sees his print in Krazzora's shop. Outraged, the artist jumps through all the hoops required by law to have this affront to his intellectual property removed and justice served. Krazzora complies with requests from LL and/or the artist, and LL themselves supervise the process, removing the work from Linden servers.

What happens to all my copies? When I pull my virtual nose out of my virtual book and look up at my virtual walls, what do I see there? Are my copies still showing, or has a mighty purge wiped out all copies in existence?

If the latter, it seems a careful consumer would deal only with shops that offer some guarantee of ownership, lest the buyer winds up with blank walls and an empty wallet.

Seth, this might be a sticky issue. You paid Linden $ for the objects in questen right? I wonder if llabs has any thought about this "bully dog free-for-all (witch hut )banned or warn those that have paid to the makers of such content. Strange llabs goes after those makers/buyer the objects after not saying a word thinking its ok to buy such objects. Then turns around sends dogs in to the game trapping those poor people that were lead to believe those copy wite objects where ok to buy. alot of double standards here. stealling is not allowed nor should llabs let the procress get so out of hand to start with. everyone loses the seller/creator/buyers. The only winner is LLabs they got eco monies from people buying and helping the L$ move throught the LLAbs system..............typical typical typical!

LL has said this repeatedly, you don't OWN the objects in the game. you don't OWN the textures, or the constructs. You own the design (if you created it).. not the prims, not the gun, not the vendor.

It's akin to owning the Recipe for fried chicken, but making it with someone else's ingredients, in someone else's kitchen. Yes, if someone steals the recipe and starts selling YOUR secret blend of 11 herbs and spices, you have grounds to sue them in court over the infringement on your recipe.. but if they steal the actual chicken.. you don't actually own it, so nothing has been stolen from you.

It keeps all this "theft" out of the criminal courts, and strictly in the realm of civil law... and moreover, boring, paperwork law (like copyrights and patents and so on).

What will very likely happen, per your example, is on that fateful day, when you pick your virtual nose out of the virtual book, you will see several stunning pieces of Pop Art on your walls. You may be familiar with the artist.

Very very true! So if this is the case when even have a copywite rule if we don`t COUGH COUGH Own anything here.........

why have IP rights?

Because it means you can sue for damages if someone else infringes on your intellectual property. IN many cases.. there is a GREAT deal more power here. Example.

Let's say taht I design a gun. I didn't copy it from a catalogue, or a movie.. I made it up. I scripted it, I textured it.. all from scratch, it is truly and completely mine.

You come along and make a copy of the shape of my gun.
I can sue you.

You come along and copy the functions of my gun.
I can sue you.

Of course, the number of ACTUAL lawsuits being filed is incredibly small (if not actually ZERO).. because on one hand, there's no real precedent for this kind of situation, and on the other.. because most people really don't care enough. A good builder can knock out a new gun design in a day. A good scripter can script a better system in a week.

And there's no actual guarantee that you'll WIN a lawsuit like that.

Used to be that a product needed 9 points of difference (iirc) to be considered a different product. (goes back to Heraldry). Look how similar Coke and Pepsi are. At the end of the day, you have to do a LOT of work to protect your IP rights.. and spend a fair amount of energy and/or money. Most people simply don't bother.

Most products in SL are throwaways. Most successful businesses are already onto the next product once another product hits the shelves. By the time someone goes to all the trouble of ripping you off, you already have the next great thing ready to hit the market. The people you see most up in arms about copy protection, are the ones who stop developing new things.

WHy have IP rights? it's just a part of making the economy work.. Like actually encouraging people to sell their wares, unmoderated, back and forth.. and allowing the Linden to freely exchange (relatively) with the $USD. Put simply.. because it works.

Are there ways to abuse the system? more than you can count. Are people getting "rich" off of sneaking around the edges? I'm sure some are. There's always someone looking for an edge. Selling bootlegs has ALWAYS been big business.. Anyone who ever bought a pirate import cassette of a popular album back in the 80's at a flea market knows why it works.. Because half price is half price. The market will not only bear piracy, it will reward it. And because there's money to be made, there will always be people trying to cheat.

IN terms of that Stormtrooper example above.. remember one important grey area.. fandom. Sci Fi Fandom has been rich with pirates and back-alley casters. Sometimes they'd make a mold off a stolen prop, and cast hundreds of resin copies. Sometimes they'd carefully study the films, and make replicas that were often better than the originals. Sometimes the film company lawyers would come crashing down hard on some of them, while other times, they'd respond by looking the other way.

Fandom is a double edged sword. Sometimes the dealers are ripping you off of potential profits, and sometimes they're actually keeping your fans fed and their excitement peaked for your product.

How much would the world have acclaimed the latest three Starwars movies, if Lucas Arts had gone around suing every fan club and costuming guild? Which is better for business? Stomping on every little fan who infringes your copyright? Or having a free parade filled with hundreds of impeccably costumed stormtroopers on opening night?

I've seen Disney sue a daycare center, to have them remove the homemade paintings of Disney characters on their walls. (and I seem to recall a lawsuit about pancakes as well)... It's a complex area of law, to be sure. And it's ultimately up to the owner of the works to decide what's acceptable to them.

So when H.R.Giger's people come knocking on SL's door, we'll surely see a few frames filled with Pop art. But until that happens.. it's kind of hard for SL to get involved.

Then as you said we don`t own it really own anything on sl right............So who cares about IP right either for that matter.

I do agree with your writing.......Just some of these fuzzy logical llabs are really begianing to hit home for many. As you know llabs area lways changing the rules...........
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As a side note its like those media reports.....about sl.......are they real? the company that is said to be involved really indeed involved? And if such company is..........does the company know they are not telling such company stockholder the monies they have invested in llabs? Its all a VR world right? Nothing is real right.............................yea all but the money i pay per month is VR......

Well I don't know which company you're referring to. I can speak to the fact that Pontiac does indeed have an island in SL, as does Sun. Both these islands I've been to (as an aside, I have a build which I contributed to the Pontiac build.. kind of complicated, I co-own a small attraction on oen of their sims). I have heard that NBC has one or several sims, and that BBC4 was doing something. I have knowledge that Toyota and Nissan both have presences here, and I have HEARD that IBM was looking into it. Beyond that, I'm also fairly sure that either Reebok or Nike was dipping a toe in as well. As for anyone else, I simply can't recall.

The corporate money is real.. and it's money going into the economy. Maybe not directly, but the corps buy lindens, meaning other people can sell lindens. And the corps hire builders, who in turn buy products, sell lindens, etc. There's plusses and minuses to all of that, and whether they benefit the community or not, can be debated in another thread. One thing is certain, they do stir the pot.

Back to the IP rights thread.. I guess it all comes down to LL backing you up when you sue the guy down the street. You're "allowed" to own your designs... so you have some grounds on which to sue another person. Unlike other games, where all uploaded content and content created in game becomes the property of the game company.

Now, whether you can get a judge to agree.. is another matter entirely. But at least LL is saying they won't stand in your way.. and will even help you by providing assistance (creation dates, contact information, complying with court orders, etc)

What annoys me about SL's stance on copyright abuse and which I think makes them morally if not legally not really eligible to be let off the hook as long as the copyright owner doesn't see it is the fact that they refuse to except any report about copyright abuse unless you are the copyright owner.... try putting the words copyright abuse into an AR and you'll get message saying screw you either take it to DMCA if your the owner or leave us alone which is absolutely the wrong stance to take, if I see obviously stolen art or coke machines in world and know for a fact that they agree copyvios isn't it LL's responsibility to accept a well intentioned resident giving them a heads up so that they can take it down before someone actually takes it up with Coke or the artist? There's also the issue of the extra layer of bureaucracy anyone has to go through to get the copyright owner's attention and get them to act on it.

ummmm well that might be or maybe not right...about said company and there been nothing buy hype about it the past few months.
as for IP rights... a judge might just laugh at such issues. But your gorgetting one thing overseas users. and their laws..........if you have one country laws VS another there is a mixture of issues that will make any judge have fits.......
Thanks for repling have a great one

I'm not sure that you can. If they copied your actual script, then perhaps, but functions generally have to be patented in order to have this level of protection - and the SL TOS has a clause that makes it useless to patent any SL items. This is exactly why there's such a high level of competition in many markets for scripted items, which might turn out to be either a good or a bad thing.



After I posted the message last night I went to check, and found that stormtroopers actually are trademarked, for instance, but the list of contexts they're trademarked in doesn't (that I recall) include costumes. The problem is, it does include "computer games and interactive entertainment" and SL could well fall into that category, and indeed it might if potential SWG players started coming into SL for their Star Wars online roleplaying instead (and from the little I once played of SWG, I wouldn't blame them! )

The Harry Potter one is even scarier, since as far as I'm aware they don't even allow fanfic. Rowling basically said, no, she doesn't want anyone else using her setting.

I'm still not a lawyer, but I think the reason for this is that if LL removed copyrighted material essentially on their own initiative - ie, they weren't forced to - then they'd risk later being blamed by a copyright holder if any material slipped through. If what I've read about "joint and several liability" is true and applies here (and I don't know if it does) then LL may well be worried about being included on a copyright lawsuit.

.. for those reading this thread, is that we do not have a justice system in the United States. We have a legal system. These are two very different things.

Essentially you get precisely the amount of justice you can personally afford to pay for. Even if you yourself are an intellectual property attorney, you can not possibly hope to recover any damages from somebody selling anything of yours in SL by a legal action against that person. At least, no damages worth pursuing. In legal terms, infractions are certainly actionable. In practical ones, you'd have to be patently insane to pursue such an action at the expense of your mortgage, your car payments for the next two years, or feeding your family.

I have read the most remarkable rants about how this or that merchant plans to sue Linden Labs over IP problems of various types, and all it shows is how little these people know of practical matters. Dear reader, please do not be swayed by the mindlessness of these posts. While they rant and stew, the world passes them by.

Trademark violations are handled very differently from copyright/IP violations. The latter requires the copyright/IP owner or their legal representative to contact you or LL and deal with the issues and LL is protected by the safe harbour clause as long as they deal with DMCAs as they're filed.

When it comes to trademarks, the creator is obviously at fault, but LL is liable in this case as well and they're the bigger fish. LL can't and won't actively go look for infringing content (which would probably make them instantly liabable for even the one texture they'd miss?), but it doesn't take the Coca Cola company to AR a vending machine. If you AR it, and they don't act, they're liable so it is going to just suddenly vanish from in-world when someone handles the report.

lol if everyone thought like this the sci fi conventions and star trek movement would be totally dead ...

A lot of people reproduce and even sell custom costumes all the time
spider man
bat man
star trek (lord the over done star trek)
star gates and the stuff that goes with it

its fan gear and usually helps business not hinders it

i'm not sure about those gallery photos but I do know that I market stuff for a guy who sells his art online and i reproduce and show pieces of his art all over the internet

Is it possible that this stuff was originally intended as a marketing tool in the first place ? like the can of coke

copyright is a sticky thing especially in SL its not real and its not being used for its intended purpose its only a reproduction

like say of the what i consider "infamous" blue boy or mona lisa its not real its not the original and everyone knows it


Anyhow just some food for thought but is star wars, star gate, star trek and michelangelo and others got all up in arms about their stuff being copies and made at home and sold in conventions because everyone likes their movies and art so much the world would be very borring indeed

also i saw a commenton public domain if we wanna get picky about it your not supposed to SELL public domain stuff but this is SL and the currency is not real so its no big deal really..

arggh...

anyhow if we are gonna go down the copyright route you better run around sl and ask the stargates be removed, all the photos, the star trek space ships, the simpson avatars, the futurama slot machines...

the list is endless

copywrite infringment or "biting" anothers work goes on in SL in some form or another.
just because You dont put the lable on it. doesnt make it Yours, however, to jump on one form of it is hypocritical.

case in point: i own a very nice outfit from a well known designer in SL(dont ask me i wont tell You, i love thier stuff and will continue to shop there), i love that suit and in my mind considered the designer to be an awesome talent, original even. until i saw the suit in a fashion mag under the calvin klien lable.

so if You wish to stop copywritten robbery, stop it on all fronts, not just the ones that offend You.


p.s: i want to state here that the designer in question still has my admiration for gettin the detailing perfect on the outfit. my question: does it make them less of an artist?

...anyhow, the people able to pursue a copyright infringement suit, are the ones who will benefit the least from that pursuit. It makes very little difference to the bottom line of a giant corporate whether someone sticks a "TM" after their product name or not.

The person who it DOES make a difference to when their creations are stolen, is the little guy - the one who can't afford the legal work. Today I found an SL T-shirt vendor who has ripped off, without credit, the art of a good mate of mine by the name of Vince Ray. Vince is both authentic, and a one-man-band; he lacks the wherewithal to chase either SL, or the vendor in question, for what should rightfully be his.

the irony is, copyright infringement in SL hurts EXACTLY the SAME kind of small grass-roots creators in RL, who we are told should be "protected" by SL's approach to the big names. It's simple rampant hypocrisy.

Wow, this just turned into a personal battle, I`m afriad to say anything.




I do have a question though and it ties in with what Maggie writes.


Yes, there is A LOT of copyright infringement going on in SL, I think a lot of it is because when people come into SL, that`s all they see, they view SL as some fake out of tune with the real world game, crack open google, and get to work.

If you run into someone who is selling copyrighted work there`s a GOOD chance it is being done out of ignorance, and you should IM them in a NICE manner regarding the issue.

However, where does copyright stop? You dont just have to TAKE something, like an art picture and upload it. What about looking at an art picture, drawing it freehand, and uploading it. I have seen this numerous times with clothing, and yes some very well known clothing designers. Even furniture! Is this legal?

if its a case of on Sler biting from anothers Sler's own ORIGINAL works then hell yeah legal action is the course to take. another one is to speak up. some of the things in here that are being bought by others arent labeled "this is so n sos original work" etc etc.

however i stand by my original posting: copywritten and original works from artisits, designers, and the like are gonna get "borrowed". does it make it right? no. will it stop? probably not. however Gummi in Your friends case, i'd would perdue some sort of legal action even if he just tells LL. or speaks to the vendor.

Boris is a Big boy, and so are his Lawyers.
If the trading of his Images on SL, or anywhere else for that matter becomes a concern to him, He will deal with it.
The same goes for the Disney corporation, who Have in the past Siced thier lawyers on a small urban Daycare for having Disney styled Winnie the Pooh Pictures painted on the walls of thier Playground.
Rest assured, these people don't need ANY help what-so-ever in Tracking down, and dealing with Copyright infringement.
If it worried them you would Know.

Angel.