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"LL promising better protection for content creators"

Porky Gorky

By Porky Gorky,
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Porky Gorky

Porky Gorky

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Hmm, not sure faster take downs are an adequate response. Firstly people can just counter file which result in LL washing their hands of the issue. Secondly, so much of the content is ripped and taken to 3rd party grids. If LL are going to get serious about protecting our IP rights then I think something more drastic needs to be done rather than just speeding up an already flawed DMCA process. 

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Chelsea Malibu

Chelsea Malibu

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That "certain adult entrepreneur" happens to be one of my best RL friends and my SL business partner in many ventures.   His contest, as it has always been, is that LL does little to nothing to protect IP rights though they had promised this from day 1.  As we have seen, their DMCA policy is little more than that, policy and their AR system by their own admission, responds to very few complaints.

I have been involved with these activities and have even spoken on the IP Legal panels at SLCC yet after 6 years in SL and over 20 years as a lawyer, I am still baffled at the antics of Linden Labs and their perception of the law.

It really comes down to ones interpretation of their actions and moreover, their interpretations of reality. Time will tell however, I must commend them in that they have begun moving in the right direction since this law suite began. A bit too little and bit too late but time will tell.  I wish them the best of luck and more important, clarity.

 

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Ohneil

Ohneil

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Hiya, you can call me the Friendly Copybot user.

I will not go into full details here, but I will try to explain briefly to everyone as much as I can.

You can't stop content theft from Second Life unless they get rid of all (TPV) Third Party Viewers, and run a separate program which is updated once a week, and authenticated with Second Life, and SL Viewer which automatically update like for instance Divine Souls, or any other popular MMO title on the market.

Is it possible? Yes it is, In fact it is possible to bring down content theft by at least 98% I would say if LL did this, but at the same time people could no longer use third party viewers at all period, and SL would become closed source for Second Life. With weekly updates this would keep people who crack it constantly updating, and with people like me informing LL of any and all cracked clients out there through secure Jira, and other users their copybots would become useless really fast.

As it is right now, the Could Hard truth is that you can't stop content theft on any grid, if a user can see it, you can copybot it no matter what. Some grids like Avi-Nation have limited function on Copybots, but I found ways to exploit security in Avi-Nation, as well as new exploits in Linden Lab security which I am currently researching which could possibly Damage SL for a lot of users, I will not note what it is here until I finish getting the details, but I will say that it could be very bad if the information I have is correct.

For example, Animations can not be Stolen by copying directly to the inventory anymore, a Copybotter can obtain the UUID, and make a client AO, or use these animation UUID's freely in scripting and give them away to any and all users in Second Life. Also you can download them to your computer, and take them across grids if you wish, or use in other applications, nothing can stop that except a DMCA, and the other company, and their TOS, which if the copybot counter files you may have to go to court.

Textures, Sounds, and Gestures, are all easy to steal from creators, and asset spoof onto prims in Second Life really easily done, and so far LL has not found a way to stop this.


Demo Hairs are easy unless the textures have a copyright on them to steal, take the box attached, make it alpha, then drop it inside the hair base, and give it away full perms.

Copybot Defense System (CDS), and Zf Red Zone, as well as other bot detectors.

While these detectors claim to stop copybot, all they do is Data Mine residents in Second Life, I am not going to go into much detail about these because I do not want to start a big debate here, but basically they work through the Media, and log IP address, Operating System, and a few other details about a user without consent. This can be used to track alternate accounts, and is not always 100%, and as we know under the SL community standards is a violation of Disclosure, and Defaming individuals if it gets it wrong.

People in SL will flame me for saying this, I really don't care because it is the truth. If I can't see the script, and if it is not full permissions I would not trust it on my land, but that is me, especially if it connects to another persons DB, but I guess you could say that about a lot of things.

Linden Lab

While I give many Thanks to the Technology Philip Rosendale created for us, it is not used for his intentions as he dream.

Second Life is suppose to be a Unique Experience for any and all users, but instead it is nothing but Drama, People Griefing, Using Guns, and Hacking, or Copybot/Theft. I myself can not understand why people have to do such, and why many people in SL are so Ignorant to support privacy violators, or groups to cover up bad things their members have done, as I have seen many snapshots on the internet of groups covering up Copybot in Second Life, even the most popular, and it is stupid.

I do enjoy Second Life, as Resident, and so did a friend I knew in Second Life who got banned maybe a week ago I honestly have no idea when or why they got banned. This person was hate by many people in SL for many reasons, and they saw things no one else did, a person I will Trust, Respect, and Give my honors to for doing the right things. While this person I am sure has violated the Community Standards, and TOS in many ways by Disclosure of information on residents at times, and even risking their account by using GL Intercept and other various methods of content theft Tracking, which was reported back to many creators, when this involved a large number of stolen content. Yes all content theft is bad, but with the amount of information we have to report, we would be contacting the same merchant every single day in SL when a stolen skin, or clothing was found, and that is how bad it is, and this is just an example.

It is more than likely that a group of content thieves, or supporters jumped this person with Abuse Reports, but there is no way to tell without knowing who file the report which LL does not disclose any information in AR's so only they know, and yes they had a ton of enemies.

All Content Theft is Bad!

Content theft will always continue for the most part at least for now, All I can say is that Lawsuit against Linden Lab should not be done because you know now by creating content in Second Life that your work is, and can be stolen at any time, that is just how it is, and how we as residents have to deal with it for now.

I myself, as well as the other people who work along side of me, will continue to do what we can when we can to assist, and protect the community from griefers in Second Life, as well as content theft, we can't stop 100% of it just as RZ,or CDS cant. The difference between us, and these systems, is we work without disturbing the peace often until we find without a doubt that a group, or person is using a copybot to clone items, or supporting content theft, at that point we file abuse reports to LL with evidence, and notify the group owners.

I Encourage the Community of Second Life, to do what they can for your content developers, and remember that they work very hard for you with every piece of content they make. Believe me I am a content creator myself, I do LSL, and C++, as script weapons, so I know how hard and how many hours it can take to have some dumb person steal your work.

The only fault I see with Linden Lab currently, is sometimes they are blind to see the truth and what is really going on. I myself am a registered member of many copybot networks that are out there, and I know all about their new viewers and such, which is how I stay up to date on trying to protect the SL community. Now the only problem with LL is that sometimes they ban the wrong people. One of my group members, and by group we are an unofficial group, we don't group in SL, but use IRC, and Ventrilo & Skype to Communicate, got permanently banned from SL recently, and all I know is they may never be back in SL again. Yes they broke the community standards a lot of times, and do not have a clean history with Linden Lab, and Yes they broke the SL TOS by using illegal methods to detect stolen content in SL, but at the same time this person had the balls to not deny such to the public, Lie to content developers, Knew many of the popular SL creators, and did their best to do what was right for the community.

I ask that people please respect this person, and give them a moment of silence because I will sure as well miss them as a resident, and my friend, and for those that doubt LL makes mistakes, or wrong moves think again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnMzj-fRGvM Please read the video description.

In our view SL is decline a lot, and we do not know how long SL will be around for, but we will do what we can to protect the community of this game.

SL has had many lawsuit filed on them as well, from Sex Beds, to their TOS not being legally binding, and many other claims made back in 2007, and possibly early 08, and claims from 2003. Their Terms of service now has been updated, and would be considered legally binding, but for those that created an account way back, and played Second Life, there could possibly be legal issues for loss of access to their creations, L$, and lands. Sure LL gives 30 days to accept a new TOS, or get out, but back in certain early parts before 2009, LL made claims residents owned their Land, and their creations, and by LL restricting access to these users of SL they could take them to court  and such, but again this is a Civil matter that has to be taken care of in a court, or LAW.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/setView/news/gameId/83/showArticle/7893

http://virtuallanddispute.com/

I have no doubt that LL will try to remove this information from the Public Eye, and so this post will be posted on other blogs and archived so that it will be still available to people searching for such on the internet, because people deserve the right to the truth.

I ask that people look at who runs CDS, and RZ in SL, and before just saying I trust this Anti Theft system, do some research, find out how it works, and who runs it, because chances are they can't be trusted in our view again. CDS is run by Ex. Emerald Developers, who worked with JCool410, and other Copybot users. Both systems can log false information on residents, and both systems have had people manually add to them. which leaves trust where. Again people like myself, and others do not use, or support these type of systems, we do not ask for cash for our help, as the developers of these systems said we should start a company for giving help in SL.

SL is our Community, and as a whole, we choose what goes on in SL, we make up SL, we pay LL for what we use, Like & Support, we control SL, should everyone in SL Leave, and all of a sudden drop all their Land, where would LL be. My point is we call the shots not LL, LL owns the service yes, but we feed them, and pay for their work, and their support, and we trust LL to do their best.

I hope LL does not find any of this to be offensive towards them, and ask that they learn from this post a bit maybe.

At this time I would just like to give Everyone a big Thanks, and a Thanks to all the content creators in support of our operations for over 2 years in Second Life, it was good, and we did what we could as a resident of SL, and it is sad to say that some things are just beyond our power in SL, but we go on.

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Robert Galland

Robert Galland

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I am not certain just what Linden Lab means by promising more protection.

I know they have to comply with the DMCA as LL is a U.S. based company and the DMCA is the relevant federal statue dealing with the online copyright infringement.  I am sensitive to LL's need to protect itself from contributory copyright claims and the DMCA procedure is what allows them to do so.  

Whether dealing with LL or any U.S. based online service, the DMCA is the legal avenue available to alert an internet provider to IP theft AFTER it is known to have taken place.  What is unfortunate is that LL has thus far limited their dealing with this pervasive issue to ONLY advising residents that they can serve DMCA notices.  There is no reason in my mind why this should be the case, especially where LL has gained the success it has largely because of its decision to vest in its residents the right to retain ownership of their content.  The content has built and driven the grid's success in many ways.

As a resident and content creator, I think is unfortunate is LL has taken a stance akin to making Second Life the wild west by not being more proactive to limit theft in the first place.   I admit I do not know the technical details, but they and others do, as evidenced by the post above mine.

I am sure stopping all theft is impossible and I think we as creators need to recognize it has happened and will continue to happen.  But, can it be limited?  In the end, I guess what I want to know is LL promising to respond to DMCA notices and AR's for violating the permissions system more quickly and, in the case of the latter, more harshly?  Or, are they also promising to take a look at the viewer situation and do something that is proactive?

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Porky Gorky

Porky Gorky

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Ohneil wrote:

Is it possible? Yes it is, In fact it is possible to bring down content theft by at least 98% I would say if LL did this, but at the same time people could no longer use third party viewers at all period, and SL would become closed source for Second Life. With weekly updates this would keep people who crack it constantly updating, and with people like me informing LL of any and all cracked clients out there through secure Jira, and other users their copybots would become useless really fast.

This would be the ideal solution in my opinion, The LibSL dev team caused the copybot problem when they publically published the source code all those years ago. Linden Labs embracement of open source is the root cause of this problem. Lets go closed-source, ban TPV's, continually adapt the code to stop the exploits and aggressively police the grid to put a stop to IP infringement once and for all. Even if this is not 100% effective, it will be a hell of a lot more effective than the half arsed approach LL have thus far adopted.

 

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Rene Erlanger

Rene Erlanger

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Porky Gorky wrote:

 This would be the ideal solution in my opinion, The LibSL dev team caused the copybot problem when they publically published the source code all those years ago. Linden Labs embracement of open source is the root cause of this problem. Lets go closed-source, ban TPV's, continually adapt the code to stop the exploits and aggressively police the grid to put a stop to IP infringement once and for all. Even if this is not 100% effective, it will be a hell of a lot more effective than the half arsed approach LL have thus far adopted.

 

 

Providing that the TPV's are commissioned to build the Second Life Viewer from scratch and monitored (or work with) the LL Devs. :smileyhappy:

V2 Sucks...let's be honest here!

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Porky Gorky

Porky Gorky

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Rene Erlanger wrote:

Providing that the TPV's are commissioned to build the Second Life Viewer from scratch and monitored (or work with) the LL Devs. :smileyhappy:

V2 Sucks...let's be honest here!

 

Yes, if this ever were to happen (which it won't) then we would have to sacrifice allot to create a more controlled platform. Bringing in the best TPV developers to create an optimal LL viewer would be essential I think to avoid a mass exodus of users.

Of course this plan would also put a stop to tools such as Second Inventory and put a serious spanner in the works for all those merchants spreading out to third party grids. It would be complete chaos and there would be massive opposition. But hey, I am an optimist and I find it interesting to envisage a completely secure platform where we have the freedom to create without fear of content theft. Its is but a pipe dream though unfortunately. :smileyhappy:

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Darrius Gothly

Darrius Gothly

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Ohneil wrote:

You can't stop content theft from Second Life unless they get rid of all (TPV) Third Party Viewers, and run a separate program which is updated once a week, and authenticated with Second Life, and SL Viewer which automatically update like for instance Divine Souls, or any other popular MMO title on the market.

 

I'm going to single out this one comment .. because it is not correct.

TPVs can continue to flourish because their main benefit is their UI, the features they provide and their particular mix of functionality. All of these are completely separate from the act of "Copybotting".

LL can create a verified and encrypted "interface component" that all TPVs must use to access the SL Servers. That component cannot be modified or manipulated and will ensure that any activities performed using it will be absolutely and undeniably traceable back to the exact user. In fact, the TPV makers can deliver their product without that component and require that users download it from LL directly.

Yes, a TPV can then still copy off any in-world item. Yes, they can then use a pirate TPV to upload it again with their creator information. BUT ...

 

  1. The Copybotter will be absolutely known no matter which proxy or exploit they use.
  2. The Copybotter will not be able to create an Alt to perform more illegal acts.
  3. The Copybotter will be completely and undeniably banned from SL.
The major problem with IP Theft these days is anyone can hide from LL. Simple tech tricks allow any ill-intentioned user to so completely disguise themselves that not even LL can tell who they are. However, once you strip off that shield and ensure LL knows who they are, takedowns will become permanent and legally actionable, consequences will be painful and verifiable ... and Copybotters will stop being able to hide without fear of reprisal.

 

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