Is Emerald viewer legal?

[Leigh Silverfall]

Last night there was an incident between a friend of mine and another resident.  My friend uses Emerald viewer and this other resident noticed this and approached her, accusing her of using this viewer to copy and steal content.  This friend of mine was pretty flabbergasted because we have never heard this about the Emerald before but, this resident threatened her with reporting her to LL and was quite ugly about the whole thing.  When my friend tried to explain that the reason that she uses this viewer for a game that some of us play, it really seemed to set this resident off badly and the resident stated that she was recording everyone who used the Emerald viewer and reporting them, in an attempt to have these people's accounts banned from SL.  The reason I'm asking is because I also use the Emerald viewer and this is the first time that I had ever heard anything about it having the ability to copy.  Is this true, that the Emerald can do this?  As far as many of us knew, it was a perfectly acceptable viewer and is used by quite a few individuals on SL.  Are we in trouble or is this person mistaken?

[Janelle Darkstone]

The Other Resident is most likely misinformed.  As far as I know, the current GreenLife Emerald viewer does not have any code that enables copying or stealing of content (it does have internal texture copy protection, however, which might lead to some confusion).  But you already know that. 

And if the Other Resident plans to AR each and every person using Emerald, she has her work cut out for her.  And as a side note, how did the Other Resident know your friend was using Emerald unless the Other Resident was using a 3rd party viewer too?

[Clyde Lindman]

I have used Emerald almost exclusively for months now. I suggest your friend keep this link and give it to people who insist Emerald is used in content theft or is in any other way a violation of TOS:

http://modularsystems.sl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=8

One has to remember that Emerald is open source (Like LL's Snow Globe) so individuals can and have changed and added code for their own purposes, sometimes not so pleasant or legal. That is the downside of open source.

The upside is many features that LL might or might not ever get to in a few years and support on both a website and in-world group that leaves LL in the dust.

As far as content theft, Emerald as provided is no more a threat than the program Second Inventory sold on Xstreet. Anything saved to disk must be either your creation or full permission and the results on full permission items is not consistant. I use this feature sometimes to transport builds from OS Grid to SL and visa versa. Trust me, it is a far from perfect system and useless for content theft.

Let the anti-Emerald crusader AR us all. EMERALD IS LEGAL!

[Skills Hak]

Emerald is perfectly legal of course, you can't use it to "steal" other people's content. As for propaganda read here.

Thank you.

[Arondelle Ladybird]

The current version of Emerald does contain a utility for exporting/importing objects to/from your local hard drive, which is handy for builders who have way too many "Oops! Moments" the way I do.  I suppose that could be construed as a copying utility... except that it doesn't work on No Mod/No Copy/No Transfer (or any combination thereof) items of which you are not the creator, or on things that don't belong to you.

As for being "legal," the Viewer Police have yet to knock on my door, nor has my account been banned. I suspect the person with the anti-Emerald sentiments has probably gotten a bee in their bonnet over copy-bots, has heard about the aforementioned utility and has decided that Emerald made the perfect target for their ill humor without actually looking to discover the facts of the matter.

[Leigh Silverfall]

Thank you!  That does help alot and I will be passing all of this to my friend.  The resident who was threatening to AR my friend is a creator and I can understand her worry about copying but, she does need to be more informed before going around and accusing people. 

As for the question on how did she know that Emerald was being used, some of us are guessing that she may be using another viewer that shows what others are using.  Someone mentioned that Gemini can do that, so maybe that was how she seen it.

This is also a huge relief to me as well, since I really like the Emerald viewer myself and would hate to have to give it up because it contained a program that I had not been aware of.

Now I"m off to log in, on my favorite viewer and alot more informed, thanks to all who answered my question so very well.

[Veralis Basevi]

I`ll tell ya people get so worked up over viewers its killing me lol

its 3 years ago all over again with the bots and copying stuff same shi** different year

its like the old story goes,i tell you something and by the time it gets back to you 1000 people later its totally a different story!

so much miss information and frantic sellers and well some just crazy lol

Emerald viewer is prolly the best ive seen yet no way to steal content

Cool viewer has a export function but only for your full perm items of your items you make

As for any of the others i dont know these are the only 2 i use and if this person is using a 3rd party viewer then pull an ar on her lol

As with any creator especially if you make huge builds its awsome when you can right click and save the build on your hardrive in xml

man if i had that 2 years ago i could have saved myself tons of wasted time rebuilding

Anyways yano how people get it only takes one person to screw up the facts i suggest taking that link copy the entire page in a nc

and when someone gives you crap post it in in local chat  so they have no choice but see it!!!!   thats what i do lol

Happy Sl`ing

BTW there is a wonderful function built into the viewers ...MUTE LMAO i use it frequently !!

[Indeterminate Schism]

For a more authoritive 'OK' for the Emerald viewer - and LL's whole view on the subject - you might also like to look here, or show it to people that are moaning about you using it: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Alternate_viewers#Third-party_Viewers

Since LL say third-party viewers are OK and specifically mention Emerald I think you are pretty safe :-)

[Jessanne Janus]

They way that this person knew is that right next to your name (which appears bright green when using Emerald) there is a little tage that says (Emerald).

Naive people need not use. I love it and i don't steal anyone's things. Don't know why people fly off the handle for nothing.  Linden Lab's very own test client has a copybot in it.. rtfm.

[Leigh Silverfall]

From what I was told later, there is another viewer that does show you what viewer other residents are using.  Some one did mention that Gemini does give you that info as well.  Since I have never used that one myself, I'm not 100% sure on that information but, it's possible.  As for the individual who accused my friend of stealing, based on her using the Emerald viewer, from our understanding she has been banned.  We do not know for how long but, it was due to the way she harrassed and the language she used when the incident occurred.

[Chancellor Bayn]

That's good, hearing that someone who was starting stuff irrationally got banned, but it's bad that she was a creator who was just misinformed about Emerald and it's NORMAL (non-user-modded) capabilities. She rightly deserved to be banned though if she went off the hook ARing people just for using a viewer she didn't like. Well, c'est la vie... That's life.

[Frederic Prevost]

We, since already establish that Emerald(Greenlife) Viewer is not illegal.

 

As for the ppl who are collecting names of Emerald user and reporting, she is filing *Frivolous Abuse Report*, which drains LL's already severely limited resource. Maybe you should report her as AR abuse.

 

Any reseidents should understand that AR, sometimes, is not the best option to solve certain problems. Always, first try to use *self governance tools*---which means that you *ignore the problem and mind your own business*.  In this case, this individual knowingly creating unnecessary problem by going around griefing people with unfounded and incorrect assumption. That itself could viewed as abuse.

The best course of action to deal this type of individual is to remove yourself from the presence of that person. (TP may be easy enough solution)  Do no engage in stupid, time consuming argument. Unless you are too bored to waste your own time.

[Blacky Swansong]

I would like to thank everyone who responded. It would appear that there should be no problem with using the latest version of GreenLife Viewer.

I suppose if Modular Systems were just a little more conscientious about providing some documentation it would have helped immensely. I want to be sure and stay in compliance with TOS and with all the talk of content theft and viewers that helped with this, a guy just doesn't want to get caught up in a guilt by assosication type senario.

I do feel that GreenLife Emerald has many functions that I so wish the standard SL viewer had but until that happens I, hopefully, can assume (you know what happens when you do that!) that it is safe to continue using the new version even though they don't tell anybody what the new features are  or how to use them. It might even be nice if they at least explained what the new features were for and allow you the option of disabling them for those of us who will probably never have use for them. (Or at least don't know if we do or not for the above mentioned reason)

Again, thanks to everyone for your input and advice.

[Benski Trenkins]

First time I hear that lol.

If creators are going to ban Emerald users from their stores, good luck to them! I notice a huge increase in Emerald users visiting my business and at times Emerald users outnumber any other viewer easely.

I think personally that the back-up options 'can' be abused by some, but again the original viewer can be abused as well.

If in the future, LL would deside to ban Emerald, they better make sure that their viewer will be up to the task. In my humble opinion, Emerald is what the SL viewer should be.

Keep on using Emerald

[Chancellor Bayn]

Emerald is quickly becoming the most popular viewer. And it's popularity will only grow with the newest features of the release... Breast Physics and an extended attachment area (Like two of the most-used spots like pelvis, stomach, spine, and chest) will make Emerald's popularity skyrocket.

[Akayoo Nyoki]

The confusion with people thinking Emerald is a bad program is because there IS a viewer or two out there that display in Second Life as Emerald (and can also pretend to be other viewers as well) which is used by griefers. This is because they're using the Emerald source code as the base for their malicious viewers since Emerald has a lot of goodies packed in that your standard viewer doesn't. This sort of thing, false accusations, are going to start to become more common place as long as the mass of SL fear and are misinformed. You will not see a whole lot of these griefer pretenders out there, so don't freak out with every Emerald viewer user you see, cus there's a lot of us. On my sim alone there's at least 7 of us that use Emerald, and many of my employees also use Emerald.

[Lusus Saule]

Filing a lot of false AR's is against TOS, so if the person in question filed a lot of AR's against people using Emerald maybe thats why she was banned.

[Baeric Constantine]

Personally I say, AR that person for harassment.

[Monique Rajesh]

Yes, Emerald Vewer is completely legal, in fact it comes on a page of Second Life together with other viewers approved by Linden Lab-

[Yichard Muni]

The person who attacked you in this way was moss likely a griefer, at best somebody who went upset by false information. If somebody has to be reported, it is most likely this person.

 

However the multiplication of third party viewers arises the issue of one day finding a tampered viewer, allowing to steal passwords, grief other users, and of course rip off copyrighted elements. It is said that some already exist, allowing for instance a griefer to know that somebody is caming on him or looking at his profile. However such things are not available in the open.

Putting the viewer open source, including the safety parts, was a bit like lefting the door of your home unlocked, thinking that this will make the burglars suddenly become honest.

For now, the obvious cautions are to use only LL approved viewers, and to alway get them on the site of the manufacturer (as of any other software) and not on geek sites, forums, etc.

[Leigh Silverfall]

Actually, it wasn't me, it was a friend of mine who was accused of using an illegal viewer when she was on Emerald.  The individual doing the accusing was a merchant and the last I saw, she was briefly banned due to my friend ARing her for how she handled herself (wasn't very nice, let's say).  As for using only LL viewer, it's nice but I still enjoy using Emerald and LL seems to have no issue with this viewer.  As long as they are fine with it, I know many people who will continue using it.  The tools on that viewer are varied and very popular for different reasons, be it for building or just simply moving around the grids and enjoying SL.

I do want to thank everyone for all their terrific input into this thread and for their help.  I think it's very safe to say that this question was thoroughly answered. ;-)

[Yichard Muni]

I saw, she was briefly banned due to my friend ARing her for how she handled herself (wasn't very nice, let's say).

well, not nice, yes, but often, alas, the only way to make ourselves understand from stubborn or evil persons.

 

As to which viewer to use, I said "LL aproved". If emerald is ok for this, then it is all the better. I shall give it a try :-)

[Yichard Muni]

because there IS a viewer or two out there that display in Second Lifeas Emerald (and can also pretend to be other viewers as well) which isused by griefers.

This is the reason why, if we use Emerald (as well as any other software) we need to download it on the manufacturer's site, and not on third party sites (geek sites, forums, advertisings, etc.) so in this case just follow the link indicated by LL.

[Eve Swenholt]

Hi....the viewer that is used in the theft of content creation is Cryolife.  You can find all sorts of info if you Google Cryolife.  Actually Emerald has a setting that lets you DETECT those running Cryolife.  It is activated in Edit/Preferences/Emerald/Page 1/Shields.  Enable active Cryolife detection code.  There is also a clothing layer protection mode that lets you mask individual clothing layers to prevent theft.   

I am sorry your friend had such a bad experience.  The content creator should have been asking clients to USE the Emerald viewer to help protect her content.

[Autumn Osterham]

Bonjour

Si vous etes resident sur une sim entiere avec droits manager, N'UTILISEZ PAS le viewer Emerald : de nombreux objets peuvent disparaitre aléatoirement. Information apportée par le support Linden Lab.

Merci

 

Hello

If you are resident on a whole sim with manager rights, DO NOT USE Emerald viewer : many objects can be deleted randomly. source : Linden Lab support.

Thank you

 

Got that in a Group Notice from a land owner's group that I belong to.  Any truth to this or just more Emerald bashing?

[lovee Foehammer]

That is about as reliable as all the Elvis sightings near Graceland.

Turn your "Ignore" switch up a couple of notches.