Second Life Sued For Allowing Sale Of Impostor Virtual Goods

The problem is that I never saw anyone come up with a workable solution on what to do after the duplicate is spotted. People often throw "first use" around but that doesn't really count for anything.

Marlin Studios was the original copyright (or license) holder but their textures already existed in SL prior to their (or an authorized reseller's, the details are kind of fuzzy in my head) entry into SL. Or the cases where people are trying to sell Flickr or DeviantArt art in SL where you have two ordinary people both claiming ownership over the same work.

It would be madness for LL to try and arbitrate who owns what IP, real world courts have to settle that issue.

Just that really: it's still technically possible to create whatever you want, be it original content or a recreation of someone else's content, but everyone would - by default - be prevented from transferring anything from their own account to someone else's unless they've been thoroughly screened to qualify for that privilege.

While draconic, it's the one thing that LL can implement that would be foolproof since it relies on code that runs on the sim and noone else can influence (the occasional exploit aside).

If someone with copied content can't sell it (or even distribute it for free) then whether they can or can not copy it in the first place isn't much of a pressing issue anymore since they're limited in what they can do with it.

An accessible content platform is a benefit when you're starting out, but once you're established it can just be thorn in your side though because it makes things like content theft possible as well.

I'd be surprised if some "big names" wouldn't prefer to see SL evolve to a far less open platform where only a handful of businesses are allowed to create and sell content in each market, particularly since they know they're going to be one of the ones that survives.

This wasn't intiated by content creators as whole but two specific ones so only personal interests will be defended and whether or not happens to coincide with other people's interests remains to be seen.

"Linden Lab has created in Second Life a system in which it directly engages in piracy, actively allows its users to engage in piracy by providing the tools for it, and by which it profits from its own piracy and the piracy of its users," the lawsuit alleges. Alderman also alleges that some of the fakes are defective, which damages his goodwill.



I'm sorry but what toold does LL allow to directly engage in piracy? Also, sexgen I can totally understand however, clothing designers give me a break if I make something starting from scratch (which I do) and I see a week later 50 more like it it is not content theft it is idea theft and all I see here is big name big money sellers whining about someone else is trying to make a profit and getting blamed for theft.

I think the anger at Stroker and Munch is misplaced. LL must address theft in order to retain the innovative, talented people who provide SL's content. I know of too many content creators who have quit working in SL after battling content theft without any real assistance from LL. Now that LL owns Xstreet, there is a direct link between ripped content and LL's profit. I hope this lawsuit pushes LL to provide measures for secure content as doing so will benefit all of us.

I don't think he can succeed at getting all menu driven sex furniture declared his intellectual property. It is too easy for the author of competing menu driven system to prove they independently developed their scripts. Also even in the case he did win, he won because his ACTUAL ANIMATIONS were pirated and sold not the MLP scripts in the offending objects.

I think this is really about the nightmare creators go through to get their IP rights enforced and the fact that financially actually taking it to court is out of the question for most content creators.

The really sad part in all of this is the high cost this litigation is going to inflict on most folks. LL cannot and will not ignore it. There will be changes and very likely most of us are not going to be happy with alot of them. LL is in a lose/lose situation and love LL or hate LL we are all in the end at their mercy. If LL takes too big a hit either financially or from people saying I am done and walking SL as we know it is done. It may continue in a different form but what we know and love is over.

It is a sad sad day for our world that things have progressed to this point.

Hmmm, the conspiracy theory possibilities are intriguing.

On this we agree. IP theft is almost to the point of breaking over to the "everyone else is doing it" mentality that is so prominant with file sharing services.

Does anyone seriously think any lawyers or judges care about the posts here or elsewhere?

Does anyone think that someone willing to file major class action lawsuits is not willing to file libel/defamation lawsuits?

SRSLY?

I don't see any evidence of that. What I do see is that Linden Lab does not care in the slightest about creators, and even provable and known thieves are allowed free reign.

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Where did you find that in the complaint? http://download.prototerra.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/Complaint_-_FINAL.pdf

I don't see it.

There is more disinformation here than at a joint DNC/GOP press conference.

Has anyone read the court papers that Lord provided the link to?

It's interesting to see the Eva Capalini incident mentioned there, but now I'm having a hard time remembering exactly how that went down:

I do remember when EC's assets were being deleted from Secondlife, and I do remember the outcry from users that the open source MLP scripts should not have been deleted. But, what happened after that? Was it just the MLP scripts that were unpurged, or was it all of her assets, or?

Also, when reading the article I got the same impression as Rhonda about all menu driven sexbeds, but when I read the court papers I don't *think* I have the same impression now, that the complaint is more about the misleading use of the word sexgen in product descriptions on xstreet or in-world classifieds by competitors. I could by off-base though

Linden Lab promises to protect intellectual property. Relying upon that promise, someone invests time and money creating a business. Due to Linden Lab's failure on the promise to protect intellectual property, someone loses their time and money. Linden Lab should rightly bear liability.

It would be different if Linden Lab did not entice people to do business in Second Life with promises that you can make "real money." It would be different if Linden Lab openly stated that it can't protect intellectual property in Second Life. But that's not what Linden Lab does. It promises what it doesn't deliver, and when people waste their time and money based on that promise, Linden Lab has liability.

This won't be litigated. Linden Lab will aggressively settle. Worse than an ultimate win or loss in court is publication of and media attention to Linden Lab's failures to deliver what it promises. Whether Linden Lab wins or loses the lawsuit, companies with real money to spend don't want to do business with the type of company that the lawsuit reveals Linden Lab to be.

Agreed. Talk about killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Nope. This is for our own speculation, entertainment and a heads up about possible policy and/or price changes caused by the fallout.



Only if there is money to be made. Oh, but then there is "The List™" named in the *coff* lawsuit filed by one well known blogger.

For what it's worth I like both Stroker and Linden Research. I want to see them both do really well.

What really saddens me is that this whole thing probably could have been avoided.

And it's not like Linden Research isn't responding, it's more a matter of timing than anything else, possibly. They are baking textures on the next major release, I'm told, before the textures are streamed... there *is* a lot that can be done, and I know that at least some people at the Company are trying to do it.

At any rate... whatever any opinions any of us might hold on the matter... the 'hidden' costs of piracy and theft are going up, and spreading out to touch everybody.

Linked for the copy/paste impaired. If you want to do this, all it takes is a question mark and img tags in place of url tags.
http://download.prototerra.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/Complaint_-_FINAL.pdf

I love this line


But the pertinent lines are here.


You can look up some Strokers posts and perticularly the threads he has started over at SLU for additional details and to see where he has talked about this before.

[ETA]
knockoff - an unlicensed copy of something, esp. fashion clothing, intended to be sold at a lower price than the original.

This is the definition the court will be using. How the copy was made does not matter, as long as they look similar. Thus a menu driven animated bed could be a knockoff.

Lawyers play SL too.

*sighs*

Dunno how many times it has to be repeated for it to get to all the ignorant masses out there, but here goes:

COPYBOTS ARE NOT FROM MODIFIED OPEN-SOURCED VIEWERS, THEY ARE BASED ON A LIBRARY WHICH WAS CREATED FROM REVERSE-ENGINEERING AND MADE AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC LONG BEFORE THE VIEWER WAS OPEN-SOURCED.



No. None of that was due to open-sourcing the viewer, so even if the viewer was NEVER open-sourced, we'd still have ALL of it.



Open source has NOTHING TO DO with stealing content. Please get your facts straight before saying such things.

Thanks!

One thing you have to look at is that lawsuits are like haggling with a street peddler. You ask for the sun and stars up front so you have some room to compromise.

I do not like Stroker personally. Professionally he is a solid, stand-up guy. You have to be to last as long and get as well known as he has. He has the resources to take LL to the carpet for their negligent attitude towards content theft and I applauded him for doing so. It is a huge risk to his own pocket to do so. I just hope he does not get everything he asks for because it leaves everything else up to monopolization. Who was the first to make prim hair? Prim skirts? Teleport pads? Privacy screens? Sky boxes? This list goes on and on.

The case isn't taking knock-offs and competition to task for existing. If anything, he is claiming infringement of his trademark, used by his competition. So, when other products try to use the SexGen(tm) name to confuse people into buying them, thinking they are buying a SexGen(tm) product, trademark infringement is occurring. That is the meat of his argument with respect to his competition. He CAN NOT stop his competition from making competing products. Well, unless he has a patent on the idea, but it appears not.

This needs to be clarified.

Yes, copybot predates the viewer going open source by a good 6 months.

Yes, an actual "copybot" program has nothing to do with open source or hacked viewers.

Yes, LL disallowing anything but their own viewer would absolutely NOT stop people from being able to make illegal copies of stuff.

No, a program that makes illegal copies of things doesn't necessarily have to be implemented outside the viewer. You *COULD* (and some probably have) change the open source viewer so that it made copies of everything it saw.

The term "copybot" has become much overloaded in the last couple years. When most people use the term, they are talking about the action of making copies of stuff - not necessarily about an actual bot program.

My reaction to it is ABOUT TIME. If LL has been lax on their handling of DMCA takedowns (which has been reported frequently), and isn't doing anything to give us the tools to easily locate and identify content theft, then they are complicit in the infringement.

In short, they need a proverbial kick in the pants to get them moving. It has been 3 years since they made their commitment to give us these tools, and NO amount of time is allowed to comply with the DMCA safe harbor provisions to take down infringing content when a proper DMCA is filed.

The point is that it has nothing to do with Open Source, and constantly haranguing the decision to open source the viewer (and the people who work on it) is naive and unproductive.

The vast majority of the instances of copying tools are based on the libsl/libomv library than built into modified open source viewers.

OK, that makes a lot more sense. If that's what this lawsuit is about then the timing is very strange. Or was the suit filed BEFORE the recent change in the XStreet terms of service regarding trademarks?