Just a discussion of wishful thinking: I wish I didn't need a bank account for mesh liability.

[Myk Mode]

Note that this is not a complaint.  The purpose of this thread is merely to spark a casual, intellectual discussion.  If anything, this could be a thread to stir up some good alternative ideas. ._.

I appologize in advance for the trolls and irritable people that will, inevitably, cause this discussion to lose it's fun and draw this thread to a close, this being the internet and all.

 

I, personally, do not have an income, and, thus, a bank account.  Due to this, I do not have a "card" of anytype, nor a paypal.  I understand that LL uses payment info to have a way to track me down for uploading a mesh that is copyright protected; I have no problem with this.  I just wish they were able to have an alternative method of doing this in situations like mine (where I do not have such information to provide).  I do understand the difficulty of this because only the post office really knows where you are, aside from your bank (at least in the United States.)

 

What are your thoughts on this subject?

[Jennifer Boyle]

LL could accept faxed or scanned government-issued ID document.

A possibility for you now is to use a prepaid debit card that you buy for cash.  I have read that some work and some don't.  If it didn't work for SL, you ould use it for something else.

Another possibility for you now is this:  If you have a friend who has a credit card or PayPal account band trusts you enough, your friend could, temporarily  add you as a secondary user of the account.

I doubt LL is going to do anything to help people in your situation beccause I think that there are so few of you that they won't think it is worth their while, which is probably right.

I do wonder about one thing:  Why would it be more important tor LL to be able to identify up loaders of meshes that infringe copyrights that to indentify  uploaders of infringing proms or  images? 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

The problem with sending in an ID by fax, email or something, is that anyone can create a fake ID that looks good enough when sent electronically if they know how to use photoshop or a similar graphics program.  I doubt LL even knows what all the official state ID's look like, let alone ID's from all over the world and they sure don't have the staff to verify it is an official ID every time someone sends one.  Someone uploading illegal content would have no compunction about creating a fake ID.

Since you have to submit payment info and they do verify it with your bank, it has to be a real credit or debit card and is less likely to be 'borrowed'.  If you use PayPal or a similar service, it has to be backed by a verified card too.  I know when I first put my payment info on file, my bank called me up when they got LL's first transaction as verification to see if it was legit before they would process it.

 

[Chosen Few]

---

Jennifer Boyle wrote:

 

I do wonder about one thing:  Why would it be more important tor LL to be able to identify up loaders of meshes that infringe copyrights that to indentify  uploaders of infringing proms or  images? 

---

Very good question.  The answer, of course, is that all types of assets are equally important, and LL really should have required ID verification for all uploaders, all along.  (In fact, if you scour the forums for previous discussions on this topic, you'll find a few posts from various Lindens, in full agreement with that sentiment.)  It just happens that they didn't think of it way back in the beginning, and they didn't implement a system for it until mesh support came along.  Had SL been launched now, instead of 10 years ago, it's very likely that everybody would be required to verify before being allowed to upload anything at all.

I'd imagine there's probably a healthy debate among policy makers at LL these days about how, when, and if to expand the verification requirement from uploaders of mesh content to uploaders of all content.  Obviously, those of us who are concerned about IP rights would welcome such a change.  But of course, the potentially huge down side of that is that people like the OP, as well as people in certain countries, wouldn't be able to upload anything.  It's not an easy dilemma to resolve.