Do people care about Content Creator rights?

They already are:

I should have added to the poll the choice to ban copybots entirely

As a content creator i am kinda myself in a dilemna.

Mainly because i am completely against the copyright laws as they stand currently, copyright laws have been created ages ago when reproduction and distribution had a serious cost, the current state SL is in is that a lot of us are selling products that we can distribute and duplicate with absolutely no costs, which means when a so called artist create a piece of crap, there is no way another artist can create upon it himself.

Some creators are totally afraid of being copied while it has been a very common practice on internet since it's beginning.

I do believe artists can probably still live from their work without the backing of the copyright laws, but it's going to require a change of mentalities.

I'm a composer in RL and part of my income is derived from royalties. There is still a "serious cost:" my time.

If you know a viable way in which I can earn royalties without copyright laws, I'd love to hear it. But I'll fight tooth and nail to keep those laws if all you can promise is that we "artists can _probably_ still live from" our work. (Emphasis mine.)

It isn't necessarily, actually. Obviously it has to be released if things ever go to court, and one has to pass on one's RL information to the body you are filing with, but there's no legal requirement at the stage of filing (having had DMCA filed against me, I have done a bit of research here).

This quandary is really the situation of any responsible creator, RL or SL, in a time when intellectual property law has been so egregiously distorted.

I'd also submit that it is not possible to have an informed opinion on this subject without having read *something* by Lawrence Lessig, and having considered what "chilling effects" means to the future of virtual worlds. It's all just peachy to think warm thoughts about content creators, but the wrong protections can so damage the creative environment as to destroy the value of that which they purport to protect.

And DMCA itself is far from innocuous in this.

Change of mentalities...?

And how do you propose that would come about? If there is one thing you may be certain of, it is the utter dependability on some people's desire to "get something for nothing". The day you can rely on morality and inherent desire of people to do right to guide them... well, call me cynical but I don't see that day around the corner.

Artists work damn hard on their creations - and they should be rewarded - not crippled or stifled.

I'm a content creator and I don't like how the law is so extreme and tries to equate copying with theft.

As an artist it's up to me to decide whether to create something. I know the conditions and I know that many people aren't going to pay for the item I create. But I take my chances.

I think of each purchase of an item of mine as a donation to my cause and as encouragement. But I don't think I have a right to earn anything from my items. I just take my chances.

Just like I don't have a right to swim in the sea without having my ass ate by a shark. I take my chances.

Sharks need to eat too. and no! they can't get a job like everybody else!.

If the waters of Second Life become filled with sharks then I'll go swim elsewhere. Simple.

But for now, I take my chances.

probably that artists shouldn't expect to reap the rewards of one creation during 50 years.

As i said i'm not sure but the typical knee jerk reaction is to think that without copyright laws being paid to create is impossible.

Yes i know i haven't a solution but i'm searching.

But the copyright laws do not hold much water today, we talk about billions of peoples copying stuffs, and you can't police that, even with the best faith in it.

The is no real protection for ones creativity, either in RL or SL. The current Copyright, Patent and intellectual property laws are a joke. You can have all the justice from these laws that you can afford. If you are a large corporation with big resources you can steal anything you want, legally. If you are a small time individual, there is no protection for you.

I figure that anything I create is public property once I reveal it and especially if I sell it for profit. When it is copied I have to simply move on and create something new. I can't continue to milk it, nor do I deserve to. Why do you that think you have eternal rights to everything you make and sell? Take your profit and move on.

There can be major deterrents. There can be a system to register and sign creations inside SL which is required to sell an item as well as reasonable guidelines defining what a copy is and a mechanism which would catch copies.

IP needs a major overhaul. A recent paper shows just how idiotic these laws have gotten.

"How many copyright violations does an average user commit in a single day? John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, calculates in a new paper that he rings up $12.45 million in liability (PDF) over the course of an average day. The gap between what the law allows and what social norms permit is so great now that "we are, technically speaking, a nation of infringers."


http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071119-overly-broad-copyright-law-has-made-us-a-nation-of-infringers.html



An interesting talk on IP rights.
Video

http://mises.org:88/ASC08_Kinsella

When people speak of the expiration-date issue regarding copyrights, large corporations (especially Disney) often come to mind. But this affects others, too.

The French composer, Arthur Honegger, included a chapter on copyright from the artist's point of view in his autobiographical book, I Am a Composer. He compares the circumstances of someone who can leave his business to his heirs, but an artist can only leave rights to earn royalties for a limited period of time after his death. Honegger makes a strong case that this is unfair to the artist and his heirs.

While I don't believe creative works should be excluded from an expiration to copyright protection, it's also important to keep in mind that the laws affect far more individuals, such as Honegger, than mega corporations, such as Disney.

I agree that big businesses have an advantage over "small time" individuals in these matters, but they have advantages in most anything you can imagine, not just copyright protections. I disagree, however, that individuals have no protection. I suspect I fall into your "small time" category, but when some of my work (RL) was illegally copied, the copyright regulations led to an out-of-court settlement very much in my favor.

<snip>
This is an extremely useful tool designed to PERFECLY DUPLICATE any prim OR LINKSET you have in your inventory, so long as it has "modify" permissions.

- IT DOES copy no-copy objects
- IT DOES copy no-transfer objects with transfer permissions
- IT DOES copy objects with unlimited complexity (no "memory upgrades" required)

Here's what you can't do with this tool, (or any other tool like this):

- YOU CANNOT copy no-modify objects
- YOU CANNOT copy the textures from an object unless the textures are full-permission
- YOU CANNOT copy object contents unless the contents have "copy" permission
- YOU CANNOT copy objects that utilise "megaprims"
- YOU CANNOT copy other peoples objects
- YOU CANNOT copy clothes, or any item which cannot be rezzed in-world.
<snip>

Frankly, I'm not sure what to say about this. For the most part, I make my own stuff, and I don't really sell much of it. I certainly am not trying to make a living off SL, so my opinions aren't really valid in this regard.

Still, I'm not sure I agree with the moral (let alone legal) implications of a device that circumvents the permissions a content creator intended. That's the sort of thing that put Starax out of the game. (Of course the circumstances were a bit different.)

Ironically, I soon found quite a bit of free stuff that was considerably better than many similar items that I paid for. And now, I build better than I ever bought. (Except for certain heavily scripted gadgets.)

There is so much good free stuff that imo, content creators really have their work cut out for them, if they intend to compete.

Anyway, the feature list I've excerpted from this product I've found offers a solution. Make your products no mod and watch the perms on your textures and scripts, and you won't have to worry so much about unauthorized copying.

I think creators have the right to their content not being 'botted' and reproduced as counterfeits.

But if someone independently produces items similar to someone else's, either by chance or through inspiration, that is OK. After all most content that people create is inspired by something that has gone before.

I am not an artist and not really much of a content creator in SL. I am pretty much just your average consumer of those creations.

I realize that the copyright laws, as they currently exist, are far from perfect. What "laws" in this world are?

But, I do believe that the person who creates something, whether it be a painting, a sculpture, a musical piece or whatever, deserves SOME kind of protection for the rights of ownership for their creation.

I also believe that anyone who violates those rights, needs to be taken to task for doing so. To me, as a consumer, I do see it as a form of theft.

Yes, I do understand the concept of "if it can be displayed on your screen, it can be copied".

Just because you can, does NOT mean you should. And. if you get caught doing it, then you need to pay the price for doing so.

AND


Agreeing with both- that realy was the OP - not whether it can be done- we know it can - but should action be taken by LL? Definitely - I am barely a creator... a couple of chairs and one skirt does not a Creator make- but I know how much it cost me for as little as I have accomplished.

Inspiration in other's work- sure! Me too - I guarantee my chairs are not original and my skirt I am sure is walking around SL - but I MADE THESE -ME- I sweated them and worked out how to place prims just so. No I do not want someone to steal them and claim them as theirs- build on it? If you think it's worth- it go for it- but put YOUR labor into it -I did.

Well, but these scripts aren't that much of a threat, compared to client-side content theft, and making items no-mod as a counter has *far* more often destroyed the value of the thing than it has protected anything. (Otherwise who would ever have considered trying to sell something so perfectly useless as "no-mod shoes," which have now become the standard offering to shoppers who don't know better?)

The real threats are from things like copybot that run on the client side and (can) have full information with which to render a complete and accurate copy of any non-scripted prim product.

In contrast, the ability of scripts to render accurate copies of mod-perm objects is critical for very common uses by builders. (Ironically, shoe manufacturers depend heavily on this very ability, to create bilaterally symmetrical pairs of object assemblies: left and right shoes.)

I always find myself in two minds on this.

I agree absolutely that those who have done the work to produce content should have rights.

I also, however, know that at the technical level, it is almost impossible to protect those rights without a huge amount of intrusion into the use of a person's own computer. SL would have to be pulled back from open source - which would be fairly difficult to do to begin with - and then the ultimate issue of "at the end of the day it has to get to the screen" has to be dealt with. Yes, you could insist on encryption of data at the video card level, but that means that somebody has to pay for the decryption hardware to be built into every video card, and that will take up time on the GPU, so a more powerful GPU will be needed for better performance..

Also, at the social level, we have to be ready to deal with the fact that consumers may simply not accept Second Life where strong content protection exists. As has been mentioned, people want something for nothing, but they also want a sense of growth and competence for themselves and SL's current content model doesn't provide that. And yes, this creates a tragedy of the commons for content creators: if someone doesn't provide more flexibility for consumer's money, SL's economy as a whole will be in danger, but it would be better if someone else did it so no-one does.

To be brutally and utterly honest, the most likely solution would be to simply hire all the most profitable SL content creators, charge users a monthly subscription for access to all the content that produce, and pay them a salary. That way, individual copying matters much less, and consumers get more choice for their money.

Yeah...and most of that free stuff out there was stolen.

I just opened up two art galleries, and in the next several days will be opening up another one. Last night, I invited a couple of artist friends over for their opinions, and immediately they both went into a pitch about how I should protect my art from thieves, that’s right we all used the word THIEVES, the ultimate form of griefing. Anyway, it was agreed upon that I should make my creations no mod, and put a watermark on my displayed art. All the stuff I am displaying are images of my original oil & acrylic paintings, and My 3D models in renderings. All of it came from me, and no one else.

It has never entered my mind to steal other people's art or their creations...I suppose I can attribute it to the strict upbringing I had, and the fact that I pride myself in my own creativity. I never could grasp what would possess someone to steal someone else’s creations...I compare it to rape. I am having a hard time understanding the mindset that would make them go out and do such things.

I am taking steps to protect my work, call me paranoid or artsy fartsie if you like, but if I am in business to sell my work why should I allow a thief to steal it, then practically give it away? Should I take it lying down? Not just no, but hell no! what say if EVERY original creator of art or content or whatever were to rise up and take back their rights...(yes, under international copyright laws they are called rights, not just privileges) and demand justice... we would be talking a whole different story at the moment.

We have been called artsy fartsie long enough.

The originators and creators of art and content have been very passive, and for way too long, thinking it’s a losing battle.
Again, if we artists all woke up, and stood on our feet and began to fight as a whole against the thieves, we would make a good dent in the problem. It would take a concerted effort

Do I hear an amen?

Honestly, scripts like that aren't much to think about. They're far less capable than other methods that are simpler to use. All they really do is goad builders into making their prims no modify, which makes their products less useful to honest buyers while offering no real protection against copying.

Quoted for emphasis!

Unfortunately, the majority in SL, and on these and other SL related forums could give a damn. The majority are not content creators. And an even greater majority of those that are, either do not do it for a living or are not as heavily invested as you or that small 1% of the SL population who do well enough to really know/experience the passion behind this issue.

One has to feel the pain, hurt, and yes anger that a content creator feels when dozens if not hundreds of hours worth of effort and creativity are stolen in a matter of minutes and then placed on sale at a discounted price with the low-life thief as the creator of your beloved creation, competing against YOU!

Nothing will ever be done until that type of pain is felt by all, and that will never happen. There is no excuse for theft. And even if the task of preventing it is daunting, it should never be casually dismissed as it is by some of the posters on this and other similar venues. I guarantee you if it were they who were spending dozens, god forbid, hundreds of hours sweating over an item borne out of their own ingenuity and creativity, they would not feel the same. But that will never be the case. Hence, you will continue to see the lackadaisacal and irresponsible dismisal of such an immoral act as the the copying and stealing of others creations for personal financial gain.

So, what is your plan to ensure that more than 1% of the population get to experience this - which, although a lot of work, is also a fantastic experience?

I was talking to a content creator (and forum regular) and we observed that the disenfranchisement of consumers from the process that creates the products they buy and use is almost as great in SL as it is in RL, even though the major differences that exist IRL (ie, the need to have a factory, to spend millions of dollars on marketing) don't apply in SL. Why is that and how can we lower the split?

Did you know that most pedagogic researchers believe that the "unteachability" of art is a fallacy - and that the main problem with teaching art is that too many people believe it's unteachable and cling to that instead of working to figure out how to teach it?

If creation is Second Life's Green Eggs and Ham, then who will be Sam-I-Am?

Yumi, I realize this has long been your fight in SL, as highlighted by your past sentiments on these forums. I understand your sentiments. But the fact of the matter is that we are not all created equal. We all bring different strengths and talents into the world. Some have the strength and talent of of creativity, some are athletic, some are talented singers, entertainers, great thinkers etc etc etd. It is no different in this particular venue called Second Life. Everyone can not be a talented and creative content creator.

That is just a fact of life.

I too wish I were able to create some of the beautiful sculpty creations currently being introduced into Second Life. But I do not possess that talent/skillset. I do however, understand that I am the only one who has the power to change my dilemma. It is not up to others to go out of their way to voluntarily teach me, pave that road for me, or lead me to my promise land. I am the one who has to take the proverbial bull by the horn and make it all happen. And that would entail time, commitment, ambition, effort and sacrifice, to name just a few. These are characteristics and traits that perhaps separate the current succesful content creator from those who you are representing as that percentage of the population who are not participating in this experience.

Having said that, is this an excuse for not supporting the content creators of Second Life? Is this an excuse for the casual acceptance of the immoral act of theft? Is this an excuse for the vicarious support of thieves and content theft by not exerting a stricter disposition and tolerance of this deplorable act of theft for personal financial gain?

These are two different issues worthy of their own debates. But I sincerely hope that the answer to all of these questions is a resounding, NO.