Second Life Sued For Allowing Sale Of Impostor Virtual Goods

Then there was that Rase Kenzo case too! For that one, 6 plaintiffs went after Thomas Simon aka Rase Kenzo. That was the copying of products via rollbacks and such like

http://virtuallyblind.com/2007/10/27/content-creators-sue-rase-kenzo/


Stroker has a history of going after the individual perpetrators....yet still LL doesn't seem to want to put their house in order, so it's hardly surprising that this latest action is against the company itself.


.

For DMCA notices, I don't think they need to do any investigations unless they're taking action over and above what's required by DMCA. They get a DMCA that meets their documented requirements, they take down the content and inform the alleged infringer. If the infringer files a proper response, they restore the content and inform the original complainant.

If they're going to do more, such as suspending or banning the alleged infringer, then yes, they should do more investigation.

Well, I can't speak for what LL does, but I do know what my own policy is for dealing with DMCA takedown notices, and that is to most certainly research the complaint to be as sure as I can be that it is properly referencing the content, the person/company who is responsible for it, and that there is good reason to believe that the filer is actually the owner of the content before I take down a customer's content. That also includes confirming the identity of the filer so I can give to my customer the most correct and complete info possible so they can respond to the complaint in a timely manner.

In short, I refuse to become a patsy to someone's false DMCA ploy. DMCA notices are not court orders; I can, as a service provider, choose to not honor them if I feel that there isn't sufficient proof of their validity, at my own risk of being named in a suit, of course. That standard for proof isn't too high, though, because I am not a court, in a position to determine the actual truth of the matter, but there are some base litmus tests I can apply to prevent spurious or false notices from impacting me or my customers.

I believe that LL operates similarly, or at least should.



It is also to my benefit to research the claim, because it is a ToS violation for my customers to host infringing content on my servers, and I certainly want to pursue that issue with my customers directly if it is actually the case where it is happening.

The thing I do know of cases where someone who filled a legit claim was banned. I know of many cases where nothing was ever done when a DMCA order was filed. Until LL can get its collective program of action to be a consistent across all Lindens thing (not sure I believe they are capable of that) nope I dont trust them. There have been too many instances.

You operate on one set of consistent rules. With LL the rules seem to vary by who gets talked to. This is not new...I remember folks "Linden Shopping" back in 2004 to get what they wanted done to neighbors.

So, they wrote that for the lulz



Now the *true* mission of LL:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Dollarnote_hq.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Dollarnote_hq.jpg

Which leads to our mission as customers:

http://ihatebadservice.ca/img/sad.jpg
http://ihatebadservice.ca/img/sad.jpg

Hi! Why! I want The Lab to win, and my evil twin wants The Lab to win too, but I do admire Ol' Stoke's hutspah (that how you spell that) caws The Lab has every right to suspend his accounts indef and Ol' Stroke has NO legal recourse for that. I want The Lab to win because the lawsuit is the ultimate in frivolity. I LOVE Second Life (and am fully commited to it). So, just as i always opposed sim crashing so I too oppose anything which will shut my sl down! Yay LL! Boo Eros!

No. You spell it 'chutzpah'.

Why bother to have a DMCA process at all, if you're going to do that?

You may want to check with a lawyer. The purpose of having the DMCA process is to protect you from liability - which could be very expensive. Failure to follow all the requirements will cost you your immunity.

we dot know how to spell! and we are the slpress and virtual mens of letters and stuff!

A purpose of a DMCA process may be to protect oneself from liability. But there are other reasons too, and one big one to make customers feel safe creating content in Second Life, with profit on the back end for Second Life. A DMCA process is a vital part of the "you too can make real money" selling point.

Remember that one of the unique features of Second Life is how content creators are allowed to keep rights in their creations. Linden Lab uses that as a selling point. It's not a "we have to because the law makes us" situation, it's a "buy our product because we do this" situation.

Linden Lab needs to have integrity with the process, which means both acting on legitimate claims, and rejecting bad claims. And there is just no other way to do it than have a trained human being examine each claim to determine its validity.

Executing a good process protects them from liability anyway. The requirement is not to get it perfect every time, but to have a reasonable process that does a good job of handling the claims.

That IS the DMCA process, Kidd.

If someone sends you a notice, as a service provider, you have to do due diligence to authenticate both the notice, the source, and the specific content being described in order to comply. All of that takes research. You don't just go taking down content willy-nilly from some piece of paper that anyone can write you without some verification.

It's not my job to determine the ownership, but it is my job to insure that whomever is filing such notices does so properly and in accordance with the law before I am going to honor such a request.

For example, if someone sends me a notice without any (or proper) RL identification, I am most certainly NOT going to honor it, because, according to the LAW, I don't HAVE to.

Think of the timing of this - Stroker and Philip Linden (SL Founder) Just did a BFF interview last month and now this case is filed - also last month Linden Lab announced the new content creator licensing coming out (and if you have ever been suspended you cannot be a content creator under the new rule).

But how would Linden Lab get away with making everyone stop creating items and creating an income. Well, LL gets sued and it is forced upon all of us, that is how.

So Linden Lab along with their boy Stroker is manipulating the American court system so LL can force a drastic change on its user base.

Don't believe the hype.

Incorrect. If suspended you would not be an "approved seller" or whatever they call it but you would still be in business. As for the conspiracy theory of yours? Incorrect as well.

Back to the suspension part: LL really needs to restate that in terms of "suspended for certain egregious activities". Otherwise anyone that ever missed a tier payment would be screwed.

Perhaps we're using the word "investigate" differently. I don't consider checking that the letter actually has a RL name and address on it to be investigation. Nor do I consider it verification. Either the name is on the paper or it's not.

Do you have to check that the person who sent the notice really is the person named as the sender in the notice? I haven't seen anything saying that you have to, nor have I seen anything saying that you can delay the take down in order to do that.

Exactly what due diligence do you need to do to authenticate the notice?

You think SL is behind a suit against itself in federal district court? You think Stroker is LL's "boy"? Nonsense. Also, LL needs no excuse to force a drastic change on its userbase, as it has shown repeatedly in the past. The idea it would gin up a federal class action suit against itself in order to deflect negative attention from its customers is laughable.

But ok: Why, exactly, would LL want to everyone to stop creating content for SL and providing a revenue stream under your hypothesis?

ETA: You also don't mention Munch's role in this conspiracy. Why do you think she is participating in the lawsuit? I hope it is not because you believe she is LL's "girl". That would indicate a complete lack of knowledge or understanding of her or this situation.

When I receive a DMCA notice, I verify the following:

1) The notice is in the proper format according to 512(c)(3)
2) The complainant is an actual real person or corporate entity via public records search.
3) The content referred actually exists on one of my servers.
4) The content referred matches the description of the infringed content.
5) (optionally, depending on the notice) The target party is actually the party hosting the content in question.

If any of these verifications fail, I will respond to the complainant with a denial until such time as the issues with their notice are corrected.

Once I get a notice, I immediately pass it on to the target party and give them a small window of time to either remove the content themselves, or file a proper counter-notice. If they do neither, I disable the content in question. I also will begin an internal investigation related to that particular customer and their content.

i think one can take this attempt at face value... at this level of bizness, sometimes even 'bffs' sue each other sometimes lol. ;0 not that the lab welcomes it by far; they're still dealing with zindra and classified/search cleanup and catching everything up, and then going for other deep overhauls for whatever's next. i doubt they have 'time on their hands' for this - faking it or not. ;0

it may not be a bad time though, post-zindra to draw attention to the issues and consider what's next and think over what tools and modifications could deal with these probs, even if the legal attempt itself is not successful... if they truly are underway with the 'roadmap' previously laid out, then maybe it's time to consider the overhaul afresh. :0

as i recollect in the time i've known stroker, he's gone thru at least two very major (and very unwelcome) ' 'emergency customer support' events related to inventory loss/deletion... he's seen so many sides of the prob first-hand; thieves'll take it away from you any way they can get it - region 'reset hacks' to filch copies out of the grid; copybotting (back before it was even called 'copybot' ;0), or counterfeit-branded works that can spread bad word-of-mouth for your own works... even dealing with over-zealous inventory deletions as the lab tried to mass-delete offending content, creating two-to-four weeks' worth (and maybe even longer) of unplanned-for emergency customer support. (probably the first attempts at that process that misfired. :\ if i hear around right, it seems they are continuing on occassion to use this process but much more refined to delete offending works, is that right?)

miss munch has long, long dealt with theft of her skins (in fact, one of my own first thieves produced one of the first oiled skin knockoffs using both our works). my original works were only out on market for only four months before thieves were actively attacking from many sides, getting 'reports from the street' every few days lol... it took a long time and a lotta detective work, but i managed to knock them back pretty hard, so they learned to keep their heads low, at least.

so i'm hardly afraid to use the process, but there are disadvantages and delays to it that (properly protected from abuse) could be made much faster and more effective. there are loopholes for account abuse that make it all too easy for thieves to 'alt-hop'. and - although i understand the lab needing to approach complaints between anonymous parties with a 'lean toward innocent' vibe - it seems the lab can often take too soft a stance upon which thieves are perma-banned, and which ones are not. :\ (which is maybe why a proper 'biz registry' could help create a faster process; get registered and approved for online filing, 'filing faq' pages and inworld tools to help hunt for offending objects and other such things...)

i haven't had time to read the text myself, so i'm only going on what's been distilled down at nwn and massively. it sounds so broad, (and yes of course ianal ;0) i'm not sure that it has a toehold on anything or not... and of course i don't want to see it adversely affect the grid, nor stroker or munch's or any of our businesses or tier rates (i kinda doubt it lol, i don't predict a 'landslide' of lawsuits). but i appreciate that if it is approached with the intentions to produce positive effects and changes it asks for, then i, as a creator and artist, thank them - stroker, munchflower, and the lab - very much for it.

p.s. i didn't want to bump the whole thread just for this, but just had the idea - creators, what do you think of a 'ticket' system like the issue tracker for registering and tracking dmca filings?? :0 i found self-organizing all the information one of the big chores to the process; being able to organize this stuff online in the 'open/closed' fashion would hopefully make the tracking of past offenders mucho easier for both lab and creator. (with a list going by offender's names; i would use 'open/closed/closed and banned' perhaps ;0)

Impossible. Linden Lab is not known for being too shy to act like they want, whenever and for whatever. They do ever what they want, without exception, without asking and without listening. If they say 2 + 2 = 5 then *is* 2 + 2 = 5.

Also they learned much along 6 years: they *know* that we sign any e-document which claims that 2 + 2 = 5 and they know that we start very fast (after some protest) to believe that 2 + 2 = 5.

After the Zindra thing was running relative smooth (for them) - they learned also how to hold protests low and how to demoralize the protest groups.

They needed only *one* man to do the job and they needed not to send their best man/woman!

And what happened? Silence and peace is the fact on the grid. No one left the scenery. And we found out that Blondin is a nice guy and that 2 + 2 = 5.

For other major and drastic changes they wouldn't need a third or a fourth person from the customer base to be their "shield".

If they decide to take tomorrow all water and the sky and all mini-skirts and stiletto-heels out of the game and that we would have to run around with 3 meter long noses and with elephant ears, then we would follow and they know it.

They have no reason to fake something, to make all sorts of decisions and to survive economicaly any of them easy and with no sweat.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that there is a legal notice somewhere on the Second Life website that indicates that, "By accessing this web site, you assent to the fact that 2 + 2 = 5."

Leaving the "they have to to avoid becoming liable" completely aside for a moment there's a flip side to LL being diligent about DMCAs as well.

LL not only hosts content for sellers, but consumers as well so while effectively purging infringing material might make sellers feel safe(r) it could just as easily undermine consumer's confidence in knowing that what they buy today will still be there when they log in tomorrow/next week/next month/etc.

There's no way to know when you buy something whether it's the work of one individual, or a collaborative work between multiple people. Maybe one of the rocks of that off-sim decorative island I've just bought actually came from a reseller rather than being made by the creator, or maybe one of those skins is based on a Renderosity model rather than being the skin creator's actual work. Even if everyone was open about what is their work and what is someone else's there's still no way to actually verify *any* of those claims.

Texture stores claim that they created textures while in reality it they stole it from some website all the time. The texture then gets bought by a full permission sculpt reseller who's sculpts get purchased and used by the person who made something you bought. Eventually the texture store gets found out, LL blacklists the texture instead of returning the vendor prim and at best you'll need to retexture your purchase (if it's modify) or it was simply deleted because it contained infringing content.

In the end LL doesn't have any say or choice in the matter, anything that infringes (be it directly or indirectly) needs to be removed but the problem of needing *some* way for consumers to know whether any random piece of content is fully licensed and guaranteed to be safe to buy is even harder to solve than reducing content theft.

Across the street, there's more than speculation that LL asked Stroker to file a suit. I don't know what that means (not that this interfered with my posting wild conspiracy theories about it ).

I have to say I have been following this guys for some time in the way of the press and at first I thought he had some good points however now its getting to the point that I think its more of a "PR" "Keep my name in the press" type of thing.

The simple fact is that "WE" the users of Second Life do not own Linden Labs or their servers. The work yes is copyrighted but really all Linden Labs has to do then is say ok no problem and cancel your account and delete your items from their servers which by the way is most likely whats going to happen here.

If you ask me.... He just burried himself.

But thats just my 2 cents.

Across the street refers to whom?

Engaging in conspiracy to create a class action suit against yourself and use federal resources for personal gain would probably land rosedale and klingdon in prison. I still don't see smart people being that stupid.

One user agreed

Maybe and Maybe not we will just have to wait and see.

Stroker is no fool and I don't have a shadow of a doubt that he fully realizes that with this lawsuit his time on the SL grid may be finished and has made his own plans on what to do from there.

Speculation ...

Maybe he wants his lasting legacy to be a change for the better for protection of creators trademarks and copyrights on the SL grid.

Maybe he wants smaller less lucrative creators to not have to face the kinds of legal expenses and battles he has fought.

Maybe he is just flat tired of empty words that sound good followed by inaction on the part of LL in protecting trademarks and copyrights on the grid.

Maybe is just flat tired.

Fact: we are NEVER going to know beyond a shadow of a doubt.

No matter what happens with the case in the end the first things the lawyers involved on both sides told their clients (that is if they are any good) is STFU. Don't discuss it with anyone. It is also likely that a gag order will be put in place at the end of the case particularly if it is settled.

It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that after it is all said and done there will be changes on the grid. Thing is we will never know exactly why those particular changes.