Stealing Second Life

people keep claiming textures are stolen or otherwise ...... most are gotten off google.... and are free for people to use. if the person had a problem with it disable a way for people to get the image of ur site!!!! its not that hard if u dont want people using ur work. its not really stealing cuz we are implementing textures on builds and not selling the iamge itself most times. irregardless it is kind of redundant to claim theft of textures unless u wanna get into copyright infrigment and then stuff gets a bit eerie in SL and we run into all sorts of road blocks with Av's etc. if your really think about it u cant actually steal a texture the persons name is always the original creator of the texture and u can have rights on a texture like any other thing there was a bug that allowed no copy to go on a thing and be copied or it may of been transfer im nto sure if that is still active but that is the only real theft one can claim.. and its a redundant bug either way people are gunna whine jsut deal with it people here use stuff like they do in real life or in other games images on the internet.. its your fault for placing them out there for people to get at. they have a right to usre them unless its copy righted or trademarked and even that really isnt an issue unless said company or person of trademark / copyright has a problem with them using it!!!

using this program to go elsewhere really isnt a problem is it? i mean think about that ...... we arnt going back in sl and reselling the product are we? i mean i could see if people were doing that but to complain cuz of use in other programs is a bit cynical cuz that is what half the people do by getting images off google. to claim any fact such as u are is in fact hypocritcal and there for of no effort to really continue fighting over good day!!!

are ur textures trademarked and or copyrighted? if they are then u have a legal right to do so if not there isnt really much u can do about it even challenging LL read the tos a bit mroe closely!!! ll is not held responsible for this issue .... and i can see where u would be mad but really just make it so people cant get a good copy of the texture unless they buy it from ur sites... that is really just a security flaw u urself caused is it not? u left it open to theft by not limiting what people can do on the site!!

copyright protects a work at the time of creation. with or without a stated claim.

but why whine over textures being used in a virtual world its constantly done. LL isnt responsible for it the person that did it is. u cant really prevent it like stated earlier without messing with stuff badly =/ ..

Lina, my point is that people *are* reselling my textures inside Second Life, as textures themselves. I hope to see people using my work in their objects they may put up for sale -- i.e., clothes, furniture, etc. However, to re-sell my images as textures in any online texture store or texture archive, etc. is in direct violation of my End User License Agreement, not to mention the copyright laws. (I run a membership-based site where people must pay and obtain a subscription in order to access the content located therein...so as far as your claim that it is a security flaw that I caused by leaving it open to theft "by not limiting what people can do on the site" is not a valid argument. My works are protected and I can re-sell them, but not someone else. That's just how things work. Would you go buy a Barry Manilow CD and then re-burn it to CD, re-package it with your label, stick it up for sale in your store, whether physical or virtual, and claim that the artist is really Lina Pussycat?)

So you see, the problem is that Linden Labs needs to realize that they cannot turn their heads to a huge problem that spans well beyond the Second Life realm. If they contribute to that problem by not adequately protecting the works that people bring into the game, whether that particular resident is the original creator of that item or not (and I'm not only referring to the original "Second Life" creator, but the original creator of the good, especially if the offending resident brought works in from the web which they did not own original rights to outside of the game), then Linden Labs will find themselves in very hot water with a lot of folks. . . . So my point was not to start a flame war about security issues concerning how I run my external website, but rather pointing out that I support the idea that content needs to be better protected in the game, and that relying upon "original creator" tags in-game are not going to solve the problem which stems from dishonest people who intentionally steal others' work and bring it into the game and call it their own.

And I suppose I must admit that a tad bit of my post was also to vent that I am quite new to Second Life and already find some of my texture admirers trying to take credit for my work, and also gaining financially from it. . . . And as a side note and as a little history over the problem I have very very recently experienced with my texture theft, this offending seller actually began uploading my textures for sale in his/her SL store over a month before I even opened my SL account...so the "original creator" would show as being that particular store owner, and not me, although I'm the true artist.

A side note to Sirex Cookie, you are exactly right re: copyright protects the work at the time of creation.

I suppose it boils down to this: the laws of the land which holds the servers upon which we play SL will ultimately be those by which the virtual land will have to abide, and Linden Labs cannot ignore those, or we will soon not have servers to play within. . .

that is a problem then but its not in violation of sl's eula they made sure to cover their ass as far as liability for this stuff. the person that does it is held responsible not LL so they cant really do anything mroe then they are trying to i suppose. like i said if they are selling the textures themselves its wrong but using them isnt. take care and good day ^^

A few things on said topic...
"The watermark would go away as it is transferred onto an object."
Then simply paste it to a flat surface and screenshot that.
Also the part about stealing textures from sites, perhaps the user doesn't know it was yours because it had been posted on one of those 1001free-textures sites. Like buying one of those repackaged band cds, not knowing it had been repackaged.

Still, that is a very neat program... it could destroy the SL economy and others like it in the future, and swipe maps and models from Myst games and the like. How could you police something like that? Also, would it be illegal to recreate a favorite item from a game or real life in SL and then sell it, even if you state where it originated? This feels to be a very touchie subject.

- Mike

... not likely. It could damage some incomes, but not the SL economy as a whole.

Having occasionally purchased transferable textures for use on custom architecture in SL I've noticed the problem of texture theft by unscrupulous resellers and by residents who abuse the transferable permissions to pass copies of textures to friends. It's a hard problem, because so many people think SL is 'just a game', and the SL abuse report system is overburdened, and widely viewed as too lenient on perpetrators.

Toob, your site displays sample textures with lettering through them, so presumably the thieves are purchasing a subscription, downloading your textures, and reselling them as their own? It's not like they can google your site, and screenshot an image. I assume that you cancel a malefactor's subscription immediately? It looks like that would be your first line of defence.

You mention being fairly new to SL, so you might not have run into any communities yet. Most are informal aggregates of residents who may be loosely associated at various times. Some consciously strive for effective organization, including rules and procedures. Usually there are a few committed core members who do most of the work. In my opinion a community with rules could easily add a rule about protection of IP rights.

The Law Society, a non-partisan, non-commercial study group in SL, has an ongoing long term project to gather resident ideas and case studies on various topics like this. You can see our group forum here I invite you to start a Law Society thread on this topic, and maybe sketch out some wording that communities could use as a template for a rule on respecting texture creators' IP rights.

Yes, Traxx, you are correct, the textures displayed at my Preview area are watermarked images, and only subscribing members have access to the textures. I did have to cancel this particular member's subscription as soon as the person's identity was matched up with their membership identity. Therein lies another problem, the anonymity behind which SL residents can choose to hide should they so desire. <I have done extensive research on computer-based communications and its impact on the way people conduct themselves in online environments, and realize this phenomenon is not limited to SL by far!>



In peeking into The Law Society's forum, I am highly excited to learn more. I will certainly be following up there. . . . thanks much for the link!

Whilst I am concerned, this is an age old problem in SL one I an other old time texture stores have asked for better protection regarding other residents selling our textures in world by simply bundling them up in a yard sales or saving them to their PC and reuploading them ( something many ppl arent even aware they can do because texture store owners dont like to broadcast that for obvious reasons)

I still have one store that despite an official apology letter sent to all the stores he/she decided to resell their textures, 3 visits later and I still found upto 9 different 'creators' and even some of LL freebie textures being sold.
I AR them on the grounds of LL textures alone but LL have bigger fish to fry.

No point me chasing this one down anymore.

On the whole this is just a 'game' to many ppl and they lack the eductaion regarding the legalities of RL business issues.

Education is a way forward. I am not from a RL business background and know nothing about legal things but I am learning.


Regarding the hack thing.

Yes I am concerned but then CD writers werent made to make copies of CDs to sell nor were MP3 recorders...But it will happen.
We still buy CDs though.

LL NEED to offer texture creators the same protection ANY content creator in SL gets
Thats the option of Resell/Copy/Transfer but applied to textures alone with thier own permissions.

I have written to Philip Linden as has Drift Monde and I was told ' We cannot find a way around the transfer * as texture only * and transfer * once applied to a prim * ( or words to that effect) with and ending of ' If you can think of a way let me know!'

I have offered $100 in the forum for a solution that LL decide to use mths ago and as yes nothing.

I cannot help but feel in the grand scheme of things texture protection is some where about #98 on their top 100 list of things to do.

There are watermark regsitrations but apparently once a texture is DL to your PC its changed to TGA then you reupload it and its changed again ( not sure the technical reasons) and the watermark is then gone?

Or at least this is what I was told.

The LL solution stops IN WORLD texture theft but they are refring to fashion content designers NOT texture creators as such. Would be far easier to find some one using and selling your clothing design texture than it would to find a wood texture you made, used on some boardwalk some where in SL.

For texture stores this 'could' mean the end of business.

In the end, if sales drop we stop creating and SL is left with the same old stuffy tired old textures as no-one will be bothered or inspired to create building or fabric textures anymore....lets hope LL improve their offerings in that dept because w/o texture stores SL wouldnt look too good overall.

Note: this is not solely about me or my store but rather ALL texture creators in SL.

Seems to me that by doing so, he gathered greater attention to a problem that might not have ever been fixed otherwise (not that I see any real fix for it at the moment), so that when stuff WAS stolen by people who did know how how to do it, people wouldn't be scratching their heads and wondering how exactly that happened. Security through obscurity only hurts the customer, not the criminals.

No Comment..... What can part of "nothing can be done" do they not understand?

Copied from the Trademarks and Copyright in SL post of Torley Linden

/16/e3/102624/1.html#post1004864



Whichever copyright took place first (SL or iRL) will take precedence. So if it's copied from a long-existing artwork, it's infringing. Toob owns the rights and since the infringers are selling the stuff they have already violated "fair use."

Toob can rightfully seek redress regarding therse items using the DMCA process that LL outlines.

If you are smart enough to know how to extract textures from SL, surely your smart enough to know how to remove watermarks, it is quite easy.

simply put they are pics they dont really have a security tag. Exporting the texture for a motorcycle to re render outside of SL that basically uses textures one could find almost anywhere google etc proves nothing. If they give you credit for the work is there a problem? I know i'd give credit if it was an exact duplicate which i rarely ever use an exact copy. I may take work off the net sure but i change it in some form or another to make it different. I'm sure the people arnt trying to be disrespectful as i said in other posts i've made on the forums greed drives alot of people. They want money so they do it. I in fact never sell textures themselves other then tattoos which are placed on clothing. If its taken from a site definately not. But there are those that do and its wrong sure but they may not realize its wrong.

Realize how many people outside the U.S play this may not have the same laws where they are from and dont realize it. You can talk with them it usually helps!!!

I know this is away from the main thread of the conversation...

But..

I wanna know if anyone out there has used this to make a 3D toy fig of their Avie? Do you have that prototyper thingamahoozie???


If so...

Whatta ya want to make me one. You dont have to paint it, I will do that (or pay someone)

If i can afford it, that would be the COOOLEST thing to stand next to the Buffy on top of my monitor.