Copyright abuse in SL

Jopsy,

I agree that government recognized currency is generally not relevant to copyright law. L$ are not, however, equivalent to the real dollars I use to buy IBM stock or the stock itself. According to LL, the analogy is wholly invalid. Unless I've misunderstood, that is LL's legal position whether you agree with it or not. Argue with the LL attorney's, not me. I have honestly not decided whether I agree - and do not have the legal knowledge to make that determination even for myself. Several here have argued that if there's no profit, there's no copyright infringement. They are mistaken. My point, precisely, is that the argument about profit is moot since there is no such thing.

Off topic, I understand your point, but the doomsday scenario still stands if LL ever loses their argument in court case. It's about the ultimate legal determination of L$ status - not copyright law.

I acknowledge and agree that blatant copyright infringement is both illegal and immoral. As this forum has demonstrated, however, there is still a much larger gray area than many here would would acknowledge - both legally and morally. SL presents concepts not even thought about in the courts, much less, decided.

I don't disagree, but I have seen it argued otherwise, on the grounds that a Poser pose is merely a set of dial values, and therefore no more capable of copyright than the arrangement of icons on your computer desktop, or the setting of the thermostat in your house. What's the difference between setting a thermostat to 20 and setting "Hip twist -20"?



I agree with you entirely. But I am think of my experience in the online art communities. An issue that comes up frequently is when popular artists get their pictures ripped off to make Paint Shop Pro tubes and the like. Usually the artist reacts as if someone shot their dog, but a minority are simply happy that someone liked their stuff enough to "steal" it. And some also know that even if their logo is removed from the picture, people will recognise who was the artist by the style.

If you want to extend that then books are merely a collection of words picked out of a dictionary, but that doesn't make them any less copyrightable.

Digital art is merely setting the R, G, B value of every pixel to a number ranging from 0-255, it's still copyrightable.

Take a look at http://www.anseladams.com. Note the "All rights reserved" at the bottom of the page. It means that all rights granted under existing copyright law (i.e., the right to reproduce and/or publish a work) are retained by the copyright holder and that legal action may be taken against infringement. The quality of your reproduction or the medium you publish the reproduction in, be it a digital medium or printed on paper, doesn't matter at all. You're not allowed to publish it without permission, period.

If you run a phone sales company, you also depend on a technology that may be outdated at some point. Same goes for an eBay shop, or a shop set up at Renderosity, selling 3D content that can only be used within certain versions of Poser or Bryce. Doesn't make those businesses or their copyrights any less real, nor does it allow the business owner to infringe on other people's copyrights. Try to sell StarWars Poser props on Renderosity, and Lucas Arts will sue you. Try to sell StarWars costumes in SL, and you might not only get yourself in trouble but also LL, who don't pay any license fees to LucasArts Entertainment.

First, the Fair Use doctrine is null and void outside the USA. Whatever you publish in Second Life is made available to an international audience. Second, if you sell something within SL, you clearly don't do so for nonprofit educational purposes only. If you ever cash out, and earned your L$ by selling reproductions of other people's copyrighted work, you commit a copyright infringement. Even if you don't take money at all and give it away for free, it's hardly for educational purposes. With your logic, you could take a copyrighted novel, scan it with an OCR software and publish it as an eBook for free. Fair use? Bullshit. Quoting a few sentences of the novel in a dissertation is free use, nothing beyond that.

See above. There is a way, within the USA, to use the copyrighted work of other US residents for nonprofit educational purposes. That's all. It does not instate you or give you a charter to copy and publish digital content or digitalized copies of RL artwork just as you seem fit, without permission of the artist, no matter in what limited environment you publish their work.


Aside from that, SL is no game. It's a platform for communication, artistic expression and business. The fact that you can play phone sex scenarios doesn't make a game of the phone network.

True, but linden labs is bound only by U.S. law and the residents are only bound by the law of the country that they live in and parts of U.S. law per the TOS limits on litigation.



I assume your talking in the narrow scope of creating in SL and selling copyrighted material because otherwise that's absolutely false as proved by the numerous things being sold for 0L or 1L as freebies and things that are sold to educate people in how SL works or even in general.

I do agree with you. Whenever possible, permissions must be obtained from the copyright holder. It is their right - and our legal obligation.

Unfortunately, and this is not a legal argument, I think many artists do not understand the potential benefit of the SL audience for marketing. While none of us has the right to make the determination for anyone else.... if *I* were a starving artist - I would still want images of my work plastered all over SL. If I were an SL participant I would prefer they be from my own shop... but still - Getting images of my work out there would be great publicity and might even lead to a Real Life sale or two or more... with real life currency and put some food on the table. Still - I know that legally that is irrelevant - and other artists have the right to disagree with me and protect their work as they see fit.

LL uses the safe harbour provisions of DMCA to try to prevent just that.



Similar principles to fair use exist elsewhere of course, but it's possible that there are places where they don't. Similarly, there could be places without copyright law at all. How one deals with that may depend on where one lives, and the laws in that country. OTOH, LL is going to remove content based on US law I think since they're based in the US. I think the safe bet here is to assume that US laws and your own local laws both apply, and err on the side of caution, especially if your local laws are significantly different, and your local law enforcement particularly zealous.



Agreed that fair use isn't carte blanche to copy whatever you want, wherever you want, the scope of fair use is greater than just nonprofit, educational purposes.



I don't see why a game can't also be a platform for the aforementioned things. It is at least a continuous simulation environment, at least one step removed from the real world (via the need to log in with an avatar, and use Linden dollars for the economic portion). I would call it a game, although fundamentally different from something like chess, or space invaders, or monopoly.

This obvious argument has been made before. Clearly a book is a creative work, whereas a thermostat setting is not. The question is where the dividing line comes, and whether a collection of dial settings in Poser is one side of that divide or another.

I'm not going to try and argue one way or the other regarding poses. What I will say is that any answer is disputable.

Imagine what SL would look like if all copyrighted material were removed? Pretty bland I bet....

Copyright infringement is merely a figment of a deluded imagination, spawned by evil facist countries such as France...here in America, we try to maintain a sense of decency and civility, but we don't cry every time someone's feelings might be hurt. The point is, copyright infringement is everywhere. What we should really be worried about is the fact that most modern art sucks, and about 95% of all paintings aren't worth copying. There is no reason to make a huge deal out of this.

Star Wars is a trademark and while LL can hide behind the safe harbour provided by the DMCA for copyright violations no such thing exists for trademark infringement, it doesn't even matter that a resident put it there, they're liable.

They're using the passive approach where you have to notify them of trademark infringement, but abuse report a Coca Cola machine and it'll vanish soon enough.

If you go to renderosity right now, Today, in the Freebies section, Page one, or possibly Two by now, you will find a Light Sabre Modeled for Studio Maya.
I have Downloded from Renderosity, and several other sites FREE reproductions of;
~ALL the R2-D2 Variants
~All the Lightsabres, reproduced from the Movies, the Comic series, and the Spoofs like Space Balls (Use Da Schwartz)
~Tie Fighters
~Tie Bombers
~X, Y, and B wing Fighters
~The Death Star
~Darth Vader
~Oola (Jabbas Dancing Girl)
~The Princess Leia Slave Costume
~The Empires Uniforms.
~Chewies Bowcaster
~Han Solos Blaster
~An AT-AT
~An AT-ST
~Both Types of Imperial Star Destroyers
and a Few dozen Other assorted ships, and props, and that is just the stuff from Lucas's productions.

I also have things from;
~Star Trek (Classic, TNG, DS9, Etc.)
~Alien
~The Preditor
~The Terminator
~Thunderbirds (Original)
~Battlestar Galactica (Original and new)
~Lost in Space(Original)
~Babylon 5

The list goes On, and On, and On. All from Renderosity, and Linked sites, All Free and in Years of downloading Poser Props from these sites Only Once did one of them Remove Material (Star Trek Uniforms) Due to Objections from Paramount Studios (One removal among Hundreds of submissions).

Now Ishtara DID specificly say "Try to SELL StarWars Poser props on Renderosity".
I'm Guessing there is one of two things going on here, Either the Copyright Holders in Each of these cases Has been contacted, and the Materials Have been Licenced (Though None of the read-me's contain any more than the simple Fan work Disclaimer i mentioned Previously) OR the fact these Items are Given, and Not Sold is the reason the Major studios leave them alone.
I tend to belive the Latter despite the One removal i mentioned before.
"Fair usage" doesn't seem to be the Issue in these cases either as these are things created completely by Poser users, but perhaps this "Safe Harbor" provision has something to do with it?

Angel.

Fans tend to react rather badly to studios being extraordinarely agressive in enforcing their copyrights/trademarks when it comes to fan art/derivatives distributed without charge. They may consider the minor offenses preferable to a community backlash.

It might also simply be a matter of effort as well. I don't know what renderosity is, but it doesn't sound like it focuses specifically on one things which means they can't simply go after the site operator (who can probably use the DCMA safe harbour), but would need to take action against every individual uploader.

There have been more than a few instances (even in the pre-DMCA era) though, where studios were agressively moving from community site to community site, having their lawyers draft take-down notices, with the threath of further legal action if the site didn't close down, or severely restricted what content it made available (user fan art, stories, etc).

Just because they don't choose to persue any action doesn't necessarily mean it's 100% legal though, unless they would have an explicit statement on their site stating what the permitted use of their IP is.

There was, some years ago, another Poser freebie site that offered various models for download with this cautionary strategy: instead of labelling a model as R2-D2, it would label it as "Looks like R2-D2" - presumably on the grounds that this is a statement that the model isn't actually R2-D2 at all, and therefore can't infringe any trademark.

Whether this strategy has any value or not I wouldn't like to say.

Just FYI, Renderosity is a site dedicated to Poser, and other 3D modeling programs, it provides News, and Forums, as well as software for sale, the Largest portion of the site is the marketplace, and the Feeebies section where Poser (And other animation systems) props, Characters, clothing lightst, settings and other things are made available to Poser users. Almost Everything in both Market place, and Freebies is provided NOT by companies, but by Poser users. The site has been up for years, there is, i believe over 2000 page of Freebies and a large proportion are based upon Copywritten materials.
Renderosity also links to about 4000 3D animation related Websites.

It's Big, and One of Many.

Angel.

I'm glad to see that moral *and* legal issues are being considered here, as they are very different topics.

Now, lawyers and the courts simply do not agree on copyright and trademark issues, especially when it comes to technology. They have had to "invent" concepts on the fly.

Consider: today, EVERYTHING is considered copyright. you need not declare it. This message that I am typing is considered copyright. Did you know that? The odd thing here, is that *copying* this message in quotes, in order to reply to it, is a VIOLATION OF COPYRIGHT.

Yes, you read that right.

Even the people here moralizing about it, are themselves, in the middle of moralizing about it, are in violation of it.

Here is what the courts decided about that... it is like a letter to the editor. If you send a letter to the editor, the might publish it. Yet nobody gives their consent to that! The courts have said that the *context* is all important in copyright... a letter to the editor, one will assume, is intended to be published by the newspaper, so the paper's use of my letter, or your use of this letter, is an expected use.

I point this out because literal violation of copyright is no indication of wrongdoing.

If you surf to the CNN news cite... you are literally making COPIES of their photographs, held ON YOUR MACHINE, so that you can see them. They are in your temp folder RIGHT NOW in .jpg and .gif, and .png and other formats.

Care to debate the morals of that?

Point: Copies are not always a bad thing, nor illegal.

And the purpose of copyright law is important: It is designed to maximize the benefits of creativity to all of society. When you allow someone to reap benefit of their creations, you encourage creativity and innovation.

Now, in SL.... if I were to make an Star Wars fighter model... will this kill or hamper the creativity of Lucasfilm? Will this take from them, a segment of a "market" that they could benefit from?

This is where the morality of *potential* copyright issues begin to meet the legal aspects.

As the SL "economy" continues to grow, I have no doubt that the issue will come to the surface.

But for SL USERS to PUSH US over the edge and literally LOSING SL.... because they feel that they must INSIST that $L is real money, or that there is real commerce in SL, is *foolish beyond measure*.

I suggest this metric: COPIES ARE NOT INHERENTLY WRONG. SO: Ask youself this question: "Is the copy I see in SL materially damaging to the copyright holder?"

In other words, is someone being hurt by the copy?

If not, I suggest chilling out about the issue.



Next, and this is a new twist....

Ask yourself if people have the "right" to invent?

We are the INVENTORS of Second Life!

Linden labs sold tools and a blank landscape to the users of SL. Everything in world is part of a collaborative effort to creat a realistic *model* of the real world!!!!

Do you not have the right to draw or paint scenes from the real world? Complete with all of the "stuff" that man creates?

We are all, on one level, part of a large cooperative work of art... the modeling of the real world in the digital realm. We design clothes, even though there are no clothes in SL. We, make houses, even if there no homes in SL. and on and on.

If you take a picture of the Mona Lisa when you are on vacation... did you violate the spirit of copyright? Now, what if you take the same pictire... but your friend is posing next to it? What is it a picture of? The Mona Lisa? Or your friend on vacation, standing near a precious work of art?

Capturing the essence of reality in a non real format, just like the example above, happens all the time. As model makers of the real world.... are we not, one object at a time, creating a context that is one of experimentation... creating a reflection of the world as part of an online experience?

In this context, the individual *parts* of the creation we make are not especially relevant, any more than the Mona Lisa, as "part" of our vacation scrapbook is relevant. Object by object, we are making a MODEL of the real world. And I submit that we have the right to do this. And to do this, we MUST copy the objects of the real world, just as surely as we must copy the Mona Lisa to chronicle our vacation.... and in neither case, is there a foul.

Best regards,

Ryder

Well, aside from the fact that being cached in your browser cache is a necessary function of the publishing mechanism that was chosen by the copyright holder... which, to me, implies that cached copies for personal use are part of the "intended use" of copyrighted works published on the web. I'd say that citing/quoting forum messages falls under the same 'intended use' of content submitted to the forums.

Personally... I equate L$ with poker chips. They have value, but I doubt the govt cares until that value is exchanged for currency or assets that it acknowledges.


SL Gambling may be at risk... certain sticky-fingered profiteers may be at risk... but I just don't see us "LOSING SL" because of tax or copyright issues.


That doesn't make copyright infringment in SL any less of an issue however.

I think that copyright law actually has provisions for the legal use of quotations, so it's something that has been thought about.

The Mona Lisa is out of copyright. Go into a gallery and take a photo of a painting by a living artist, without permission to do so, and you may find yourself in difficulties.

This sort of discussion is often encountered at Renderosity (since that site has been mentioned) and there is even a dedicated forum for the subject. Some people there have extreme (and to my mind ludicrous) ideas, such as that you can't take a photo in your local street and publish it without getting the permission of every auto manufacturer whose model you might catch in frame.

That pretty much misses the point doesn't it...


*pretend* the Mona Lisa was paited last week. K?

Now, if you take a picture of it, with you standing next to it... did you violate copyright?

have you done something unethical? Immoral? Damaging to the painter? To the owner of the copyright?

*That* is the point.

Right... but it is just another example of copies being *ok*.

Or put another way... just because something is copied... it does NOT AUTOMATICALLY FOLLOW that it is wrong *or* illegal.

You will find on some web pages a notice that the copyright owner does not allow duplication of any kind, using any method, including electronic. But isn't that odd, because the technology used to distribute that notice seems to *require it*.

All this is saying is that *many people do not understand* the many aspects of technoligy and copyright in this digital age, and it makes for significant confusion and conflicting and even self destructive policy / use.

Actually, that would depend Entirely upon the use to which you Put the Photo. If i Included it as Part of a Perspectus of New and Upcoming artists, or as Part of a Critique, or most any other journalistic, or educational usage, then No, i have Not Violated any rights at all. I Cannot, for example Make a Star Wars Game, but i CAN use elements from the Movies. (Clips, sound bites, or Photos) as Part of an Article (Print or other media) on Star Wars and all that is necesary is a Tiny Line on, or near each one reminding people the Material IS Copywritten. Just that Tiny little C in the circle, Followed by "Lucasfilms" or whatever, and it's Legal Usage.

As i said before, Copyright Law is Extremely Complex, and what goes in One Jurisdiction may Not in another. Just today the Supreme court in Italy Ruled that Downloading Music, Photos, and Movies from the Net IS legal as Long as it was for Personal use, and Profit was Not a Motive. This Ruling effectively Overturns the conviction of Two students who were Sentenced to a Year Each for Downloading Music for Personal Use. In Australia, Just having KaZaA, or Limewire on your computer can get you Jailed. In the US, you can own. and use them but you Cannot share Copywritten materials, The Peoples Republic of China Only recognizes Copyrights From Outside thier Country on a Case by Case Prenegotiated Basis. There Is no ONE Law, One Legal Precept, One Judicial, or Moral Constant that Governs this whole Issue. Each Nation, In some Cases Each State, Province, or Territory Within a Nation has it's Own Ideas on what Is, and what is Not acceptable usage of Copywritten Materials. The Same seems to go with people. Some ideas have more Common support than Others, But None of them seems at All Universal, So, as Individuals, we Fall Back on the Law Only to Discover it's as Unclear on the Subject as We are.

Angel.

Well, I would say that you *can*. What is the harm?

What you can not do, is sell it...

Which is why I emphasized the commerce aspects of what is happening here. (or the lack thereof). THis of course led people to have the tail wagging the dog, so to speak... since they decided that copyright was a violated in SL in advance, therefore linden dollars must be "real", and there must be "real" commerce here... instead of the other way round.... seeing *if* there is commerce, and *if* the $L was real currency, in order to better understand potential copyright issues.

No commerce in game, then no sales. No sales, then no profits. No profits, then no copyright violation... as was successfully argued in Italy.

Now, of course that argument has thin spots... clearly. But I am still dumbfounded by SL residents taking positions that expose SL to ruin. Let's let the copyright holders take those positions... they don't need encouragement.

Thank you... but I don't believe I've ever actually said that "copying is always wrong" so I'm not sure why you felt the need to 'shout' a correction on that point.



( re-insert blah blah about copying for purposes of publication and distribution vs. copying for strictly personal and private use... )

( and re-insert the point that uploading content to SL is most certainly a form of publication and distribution, even if it only stays in your own inventory, thanks to the license that LL has on our submitted content ).




I'm not sure I understand your point any longer. It sounds like you're saying: "Everything is up in the air... words don't have clear meanings... law is vague and not clear with regards to the digital millenium.. or secondlife in specific... but if we try to shape our thoughts about these things, doom will result!"

Court rulings will certain have an impact on what is or isn't allowable in the world of secondlife some day. What LL decides before then has as much if not more impact until then. What we decide for ourselves and act upon has an effect on us now and at that future time when real world law comes calling.

Much of law depends on people making a reasonable effort to abide by the spirit and letter of the law. "Wait and see if we get caught and punished." doesn't fly as well as "As I understood these laws and the environment I operate in, my actions were legal and proper."

Right, and if people start a movement in SL where copyright violation is assumed as if SL was the real world, as opposed to a model, then they will help generate the violation.

For example, most people seemed to assume that there is commerce and profit in game, yet all factual evidence that I have seen collected says otherwise. (in part because people have a hard time understanding the difference between transactions out of game, and "trades" in game.)



It is called a self fulfilling prophesy. If you act guilty, people will assume you are.

If one person panics, then panic can spread everywhere.

WRT SL and copyright: Don't panic, and fergodsakes, DO NOT CLAIM FOUL if you don't know what you are talking about.

It is one thing to say that "I see copyright violations all over SL." or "SL is full of thieves..." and another to say "I have to wonder if many of the things I see in SL are close to, or actually are infringing on copyright."