Ban all non SL viewers, stop stealing

[MoxieJett]

Why doesn't Linden Labs make everybody use just one viewer? Reason I ask is because I came across this website (removed) They have illegal viewers so people are coming in copybotting stores. And just banning doesn't help, IF they even get caught, because they find ways around the banning of ip addresses. Besides, those stolen items are now out there as freebies and worthless now. I also wish LL would keep adult SL adult, and teen SL for kids. Because it's all teenagers doing this. They cause grief and drama to the grown ups. Some people make rl money off their sl businesses and to them it's just a joke when stealing things. It's just a suggestion. Something I think would help. Keep the kiddies in teen sl, and ban all non SL viewers, period.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Banning all TPV would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  You probably are not aware that a lot of popular and useful features that have been added to the SL viewer over the years were a result of them being developed by the TPV developers.  LL just doesn't have the staffing, for whatever reason, to do a lot of R&D of new features and relies on the TPV community.  If TPV's were banned, most of the R&D would cease.

Aside from the above, I'm not sure they could even do that at this point.  The viewers are open sourced and code is already out there.  In addition many people don't like the SL official viewers as they don't have a lot of features that TPV's do and some people find the user interface awkward.  To ban TPV at this point would cause a mass exodus of a good number of people, since he majority of residents use them.  The SL viewer is not the number one viewer in use, it comes in at number 3.   It has been a long time since a SL viewer was in first place.  The last one was SLV 1.23 that is now obsolete and has been for several years now..  It was rapidly displaced when innovative TPV's became available.

Banning TPV would not stop theft.  Any system can be hacked no matter how secure you make it. 

 

[Anaiya Arnold]

Many people cannot use Ll's viewer at any one time.

Without TPVs and open sourcing of the viewer, it's still possible to steal.

With open sourcing, it's too late to stop stealing by stopping TPVs because any current copybot enabled viewer will undoubtably have viewer-spoofing capabilities and would sneak in despite the banning.  So the copybotters would keep using their copybotter viewer, a bunch of folks would find their experience degraded and many others would be unable to use SL at all.

 

So I'm going with "no".

[MoxieJett]

I guess you're right. Just shocking to me how boastful these people are about "sharing" (stealing) people's things.

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

Yeah, and you post a link to their site too... This hasn't been one of your best days.

[Aveline Stein]

Perhaps it would be an idea to remove the link. A site like theirs certainly does not need any promotion.

That said, i have always found content thieves in SL to be of the lamest sort. Essentially they are taking pennies out of creators pockets that most of the time dont make enough money from their creations for it to be worth the time. They are most certainly not robbing any 'big bad corporations' here. It's more like beating granny over the head and taking her purse =/

2 years ago a friend of mine got access to the site and showed me some screenshots. They even copybotted my freebie item. How daft do you have to be? LOL :matte-motes-evil-invert:

[Griffin Ceawlin]

Reporting policy violations

If you believe that you have direct evidence that any third party viewer (whether listed in the Third Party Viewer Directory or not) may be in violation of the Second Life Terms of Service or the Policy on Third Party Viewers, you can file a violation report to be investigated.

[Tiffy Vella]

Hi Moxie...yes it is disgusting, and I find that site really offensive, for the reasons you said. It'd be great if you removed the link, and didn't inadvertantly promote them.

I thought that if anyone logged in using a TPV not okayed by LL, that they'd risk instant banning, if they were able to get in. That's why I'm unable to use my old favourite Meerkat, which I used to use to backup my own creations on my hard drive. It will no longer let me log in. Are people really still getting away with logging in with copybot viewers? Howcome they aren't detected? Howcome they aren't banned from logging in like I am if I ever tried Meerkat again? I don't get it.

I do however support TPVs in general. I use a range of them, and love many of their features. they give me freedom, choice, and a better product. I think many TPV creators are more in tune with our needs than LL is.

 

[Griffin Ceawlin]

I don't believe that viewers have to be in the TPV directory (what you might be referring to when you say "okayed by LL") to be able to log in.

Being listed here means only that the developers of the viewer have represented that they comply with the Policy on Third-Party Viewers and the Second Life Terms of Service. ... Beware of third-party viewers that are not in the Viewer Directory: they have either declined to self-certify their compliance with Linden Lab policies or been refused for noncompliance with the policies.

LL will ban a viewer when/if they determine that it's in violation of TOS or TPV policy.

[Sassy Romano]

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MoxieJett wrote:

I guess you're right. Just shocking to me how boastful these people are about "sharing" (stealing) people's things.

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It's not the viewer, or opensourcing that's at fault, it's the attitude of those doing it, who usually do it out of ignorance or in some cases as if it were a birthright to be able to share content.

It's the same for music for example.

Ask any child with a phone about swapping mp3's and they won't have the first clue about artist income, IP rights or anything, it's *just* "music" to them.

[Phoebe Avro]

The original copybot existed before there were any other viewers other than LL own one if my memory serves me right!

[Ann Otoole]

Yes. Even if LL could prevent TPVs from connecting the old original copybot would return and LL could never detect it.

There is no solution beyond simply never creating anything.

 

[Linda Brynner]

Although i have never been a fan of 3rd party viewers the problem for many users is that the original viewer doesn't work well for them anymore. I have no sympathy for extra options the official viewer doesn't provide since i believe in a pure equal experience for all users, however a huge problem since V2.8 is that the rendering code has been changed in such a way that it makes the official viewer almost unusable for a huge pool of users, even if their computer is beyond recommended requirements.

I can login with V3, but i think i would login a lot less because of a basic FPS cut by half with the new rendering engine. With Phoenix - which uses the V1 rendering engine - i get an average of 35 basic fps as i always had ( i would be satisfied with 15-20), but V2.8 - 3 brings my fps to a halt like 10 average and drops to 3 with the same graphical settings. In too many areas i can't move consquently and makes the thing sheer unusable.

There is nothing i haven't tried and LL doesn't seem to be able to resolve this. Consequently i am forced to Phoenix.

And the copy infringement? That's as old as SL back to the days we had the official viewer only. Is it really a high priority worry? Not really to my opinion, we are just talking about some 3d pixels. It's like somebody has driven a car too fast so i call the government and they forbid that car brand for everybody. Really a few steps too far i would say.

[Czari Zenovka]

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Phoebe Avro wrote:

The original copybot existed before there were any other viewers other than LL own one if my memory serves me right!

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This ^^  I recall a lot of forum discussions re: copybotting when I began in 2007 and iirc it could be done with some type of scripted item that didn't involve the viewer.  There were likely other TPVs back then but the two I knew of were Nicholaz (LOVED that viewer, which looked just like the LL viewer but performed better) and Cool viewer by Boy Lane (I think).  Even back then many, many people used one of them.

Many residents (including me) absolutely detested LL v2.  After Nicholaz quit offering viewers I switched to Phoenix.  If only LL's viewer was available, as another poster stated, some people could not even use them on their PCs and many others would just leave SL.

[Rosemaery Lorefield]

Sorry, but there has always been greifing and copy-botting, even before the teen grid was merged.

I for one, have noticed absolutely no difference in the people I meet, even though everyone was like OMGAHZ TEH TEENS WILL RUIN EET ALLL!!!!

Sheesh.

As for 3rd party viewers, LL knows that their own viewer is deficient. They should employ the people who make wonderful 3rd party viewers so that their own will be great. That is the only way they can outlaw TPV without a mass exodus.

[Czari Zenovka]

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Rosemaery Lorefield wrote:

 

I for one, have noticed absolutely no difference in the people I meet, even though everyone was like OMGAHZ TEH TEENS WILL RUIN EET ALLL!!!!

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LOL - I remember when the grids were merged and those reactions.  "Someone might unknowingly be "with" a minor and then get slapped with a lawsuit" - sky is falling.

So far I haven't heard of any lawsuits.

[Circe Ishtari]

Hello ^^

I do not think to "ban" or block TPVs will solve anything. The original "copybot" was a creation by LL as some admin tool as far as I know. As mentioned before in this topic, the whole viewer is open source and can be changed to the programmers like. So far I only do know one tool which detects viewers on the harddrive, even if the viewer is masked at the login, inworld they have no chance to "survive" at your sim or area. If they have been detected once and switching to a legal viewer, they will be banned also because of the suspcicious behaviour and use of illegal viewer(s) in the past.

If you want to have a look at CDS (gemini ban relay system) which is available at the marketplace (just search for CDS, it will appear at the top of search results). Many brands are using this system a long time already.

Well, also a good thing is the direct delivery now, I really like the fact that a copybot now can not snag the content out of your magic box anymore. So direct delivery is a really nice addition, it tighten the "workspace" of copybotters even more.

Overall, you are never 100% protected, whatever you do, just do not end up totally paranoid in a witch hunt. A copybot can copy stuffs but how long can they sell the stolen products? It is no long run business for them or cashflow at all. It is more or less a hobby or sport of some people which, of course, is wrong to do.

Customers and also myself detected stolen products which I have created. All I can do is to report the "store" and person to LL but as said, better not to be paranoid and invest all your energy and time into hunting this people down. Just let us try to tighten their workspace a little more every day.

 

[Rosemaery Lorefield]

Nope, me neither!

[Dirtnap Mumfuzz]

How does listing the website for an illegal third party viewer, here for all the people who read your opening post, help prevent people from knowing about it? How does that stop any one from finding out about it, going there, downloading it, and using it?

How is discriminating against age (that can be claimed as any figure a person chooses to claim) going to stop people from stealing? From griefing?

How do you know it is all 'kiddies' or 'teens' doing this? How old am I? How old are you? How old are any of the people who replied here?

Do you know what effort is involved in coding your own viewer, and creating a web page for it?

What viewer are you using? What viewer am I using? What viewer is everyone else using?

 

You seem to have alot of 'knowledge' about things that cannot be known. How do you know this?

 

The answers: you don't, you can't, and it won't.

The only thing that is certain: you are part of the problem by blatantly promoting the very thing you say you are against, the third party viewer.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

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Dirtnap Mumfuzz wrote:

How does listing the website for an illegal third party viewer, here for all the people who read your opening post, help prevent people from knowing about it? How does that stop any one from finding out about it, going there, downloading it, and using it?

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The URL was removed by a mod not long after my first post to the thread. I RIC'd the post to have that done specifically. Perhaps other people did, too, I don't know.

No, posting the URL was not a good idea. And I must say that I agree with the rest of your post, too.

[Nataly Moonwall]

Well...my question is: Linden Lab can block logins from these known viewers with copybot capability? from what I heard they are able to do it. This would help a lot to prevent the content theft and put the things harder to the thieves

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Nataly Moonwall wrote:

Well...my question is: Linden Lab can block logins from these known viewers with copybot

capability? 

from what I

 

heard they are able to do it. This would help a lot to prevent the content theft and put the things harder to the thieves

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Copybotters will always find some method.  To repeat some earlier posts, copybotting was going on and being discussed in the forums *prior* to any TPV viewers having that ability, afaik.  It was being done via scripted objects or some such.  True, blocking logins from known TPV offenders would "help" but it's never going to "prevent" copybotting.

[Nataly Moonwall]

If Linden Lab blocks logins from viewers with copybot capabilities there would be a high reduction of thieves and content theft. Nobody uses the old "copybot" system nowdays (wich was a lot harder to use). Now with these viewers they just need one click to copy a full avatar...the thing is that NOTHING has been done from LL to offer a bit of help to merchants and residents about this issue. Nothing. Copybot is not going to stop, but it's a shame that these viewers have free acces to SL if Linden Lab is able to block them.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

LL can/does block viewers when/if they determine that it's in violation of TOS or TPV policy. Witness Emerald.

LL doesn't necessarily know which viewers to block until someone tips them off (unless you think that they can police the entire internet looking for those viewers...). Hence the JIRA category to report.

[Jez Ember]

Banning third party viewers would do nothing to reduce piracy (the copybot viewers would remain) but the loss of residents unhappy with being forced back to the stock viewer would most likely hit our trade rather hard.

Piracy is annoying but those of us who work in the RL software industry will be conscious that the rate of piracy in SL is way lower than for RL content. Speaking for my own SL business, I'm pretty sure I'm far more affected by loss of income during marketplace and in-world downtime such as the glitches that have plagued the grid today.

JE