Is Copybotting a Real Problem?

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Your solution ASSUMES that the original uploader not only has the right to upload that texture, but holds the copyright on said texture.

There is a reason why the DMCA requires the copyright holder to file the notification themselves: We cannot assume that it is an illegitimate use until the copyright holder has stated that it is.

6 minutes ago, Sabrina Tamerlane said:

Now if two people would download the same texture from "somefreetexturessite.com" then both textures would be watermarked differently, but a third person would have to go to that site and would not be able to grab this very texture with a copybot viewer from SL.

And that's just stupid, there is no reason to force people to duplicate textures/assets that are identical.

People who use textures from free texture sites do not own the copyright on those textures and therefore have no right to dictate the usage for the copy they uploaded in SL.

It's not the act of copying SL content that is the problem, it is copying content without the permission of its creator. The tool isn't the problem, the intent is.

 

If someone use a modified client to export from SL content they made, they are within their right to do so, even if they aren't the original uploader.

[Sabrina Tamerlane]

1 minute ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Your solution ASSUMES that the original uploader not only has the right to upload that texture, but holds the copyright on said texture.

There is a reason why the DMCA requires the copyright holder to file the notification themselves: We cannot assume that it is an illegitimate use until the copyright holder has stated that it is.

And that's just stupid, there is no reason to force people to duplicate textures/assets that are identical.

People who use textures from free texture sites do not own the copyright on those textures and therefore have no right to dictate the usage for the copy they uploaded in SL.

It's not the act of copying SL content that is the problem, it is copying content without the permission of its creator. The tool isn't the problem, the intent is.

 

If someone use a modified client to export from SL content they made, they are within their right to do so, even if they aren't the original uploader.

It does not assume anything. Nobody prevents you to file a DMCA when necessary. You may have missed my edit where I said that watermarking could be optional. However I don't think that using a modified client to export textures complies to the terms of service of Second Life, so it would be more efficient and legal to have an option that would make the texture public, with its key and rights to save to disk.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

40 minutes ago, Sabrina Tamerlane said:

would not be able to grab this very texture with a copybot viewer from SL

I'm kinda missing the "..., because" part here - ignoring the little detail that it doesn't take such a "copybot" viewer to download any textures.

[Whirly Fizzle]

40 minutes ago, Sabrina Tamerlane said:

but if the textures were watermarked and the upload of these blocked afterwards  then copybot as we know it would be seriously limited.

Wouldn't work.
Just get the UUID of the texture & apply it via UUID. No upload necessary.
Skin creators have watermarked their textures for years, yet people still rip skin textures.

[Sabrina Tamerlane]

8 minutes ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

Wouldn't work.
Just get the UUID of the texture & apply it via UUID. No upload necessary.
Skin creators have watermarked their textures for years, yet people still rip skin textures.

You are right, I didn't think of that.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Sabrina Tamerlane said:

Watermarking textures would prevent someone from downloading a texture from SL and then uploading it as "creator".

...

Furthermore, it would allow you to add a signature texture in your package that would mention "Kyrah Abattoir Original Product" and while it could be counterfeited it would not be as simple as downloading/uploading. Also, it does not have to be done by LL, you can watermark your textures yourself, but if the textures were watermarked and the upload of these blocked afterwards  then copybot as we know it would be seriously limited.

Now if two people would download the same texture from "somefreetexturessite.com" then both textures would be watermarked differently, but a third person would have to go to that site and would not be able to grab this very texture with a copybot viewer from SL.

Let's just give this the benefit of the doubt and assume it could work... How would it work, exactly?

LL gets the texture, does some "magic" to create a second key or something and checks whether this has already been uploaded by someone else. Sounds simple enough.

Now -- the texture was from a freebie site, and someone else uploads the exact same texture. LL gets the texture, does some "magic" and checks whether this has already been uploaded by someone else... oh no.

Okay. Maybe LL should hide the second key in the texture file?

Now -- the texture is ripped from SL with its secret key included. Uploading it back won't work because LL will check for its existence.

But since the file (and secret key) is on the copybotter's computer... They can just edit the file to slightly change or remove the key. Maybe the copybot viewer will just remove it automatically.

It wouldn't even necessarily be difficult to figure out. You upload a small, simple texture file as a test, rip it, and see what changed.

LL would have to re-implement their own image/cache file, requiring lots of time and a rewrite of lots of code. And then you can still rip the texture straight from the GPU, without having to decode LL's custom files. It wouldn't even include the secret key unless it's embedded in the color data... Which could potentially reduce quality. Even in that case, all you would need to do is change a couple pixels to change the secret key. Never mind that if the key is in the color data, all textures from the same creator would have the same colors in the same pixels, otherwise adding the secret key to the texture would make it a different texture that would generate its own secret key on the next upload...

Edited June 15, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Lillith Hapmouche]

I suddenly feel reminded of the... the... ahem, alleged magic... of upload filters.

[Sabrina Tamerlane]

I was talking about watermarks, not secret keys. Here is a simple example showing how to do one:

 

 

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

Just now, Sabrina Tamerlane said:

I was talking about watermarks, not secret keys. Here is a simple example showing how to do one:

 

 

you could still edit that picture and then remove the watermark. its not hard to do really. or by using the copy of it where its not show and then copy that copy it wont show up because the other data may be removed at that point.

even watermarks are not fool proof methods to stop people from copying others artwork.

[Sabrina Tamerlane]

2 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

you could still edit that picture and then remove the watermark. its not hard to do really. or by using the copy of it where its not show and then copy that copy it wont show up because the other data may be removed at that point.

even watermarks are not fool proof methods to stop people from copying others artwork.

Absolutely, this is why I never claimed that  it would solve all the issues, but it would prevent copybotters from downloading your creation and uploading it back to SL right away. At least, now they would have to work for that. For example your avatar key could be printed invisibly on the picture but I am sure there are more efficient methods than that.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

15 minutes ago, Sabrina Tamerlane said:

I was talking about watermarks, not secret keys. Here is a simple example showing how to do one:

...Oh.

Did you not realize people rip and reupload literally-watermarked textures, or that most creators do watermark their textures today?

The watermark can exist in parts of the texture that's never seen on the actual product. That doesn't prevent copybotting. If the watermark is visible on the product, customers complain. If the watermark is in an area that's never seen, the copybotter can just remove it.

Here's a texture I made that's watermarked with "STEALING IS BAD" (I did this in 2 mins, sorry if it's ugly.)

Here's a screenshot of it in-world:

You never see it unless you steal it. What does this achieve? Very little.

Likewise if you're the original creator and someone is trying to go out of their way to edit the textures, they likely know to look for watermarks, paint over them or otherwise destroy them, etc. Or they just don't care.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Sabrina Tamerlane]

With an OCR LL could see that it has your mark.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

To me this is an exercise in futility. Folks looking for some kind of placebo that will make them feel safer.

Funny enough, the most concerned citizens tend to be those that have very little to protect.

[Cinos Field]

The only kind of "copybotting" I've seen since 2007 or so is ripping textures. And there are actually quite a few valid reasons to do that. A lot of furry creators in particular expect people to rip copies of their purchased textures for personal use/editing. They can't distribute them full perm since that makes sharing allowed.

As for actually ripping entire objects I've only seen that exactly once ever. Someone cloned my avatar, and it was actually kind of neat seeing them become a copy of me. I felt like Agent Smith from The Matrix...

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by Cinos Field

[Ardy Lay]

2 hours ago, Cinos Field said:

As for actually ripping entire objects I've only seen that exactly once ever. Someone cloned my avatar, and it was actually kind of neat seeing them become a copy of me. I felt like Agent Smith from The Matrix...

Yeah, I have seen that done, at a meeting with five Lindens present.  The perp walked up to each in turn and cloned them, becoming them while we watched.  They did all five of them in well under a minute.  This was years ago and caused quite a stir among the residents present.  The Lindens all went silent and did not move for about 20 minutes after that happened.  It was weird.  When they did react, 3 just vanished, one said "What?" then vanished, and Nyx Linden started admonishing the perp in local chat, telling them that stealing his avatar, which he had purchased from a resident, wasn't a nice thing to do.

[Lucia Nightfire]

16 hours ago, Cinos Field said:

Someone cloned my avatar, and it was actually kind of neat seeing them become a copy of me.

Sounds like a sub-conscious coping mechanism to me, heh.

I've had it happen to me probably a dozen times, primarily because I used to hang out in SL's weapons testing sandbox where there is an abundance of idiots on illegal tpv's.

After running 3 sandboxes for over 10 years, I've encountered copybotters literally over 15,000 times.

These days, not so much.

[Adrian Rowley]

yes. You invest your money, create your avatar and ppl come and clone it for free. Yes it is a big big problem

[Maryanne Solo]

ANYTHING digital is copyable.
That's why I design in 3d and turn meshes into > real world physical products. <
That's why the space-age 3d print company I use signed a form stating that they DO NOT
"keep my 3d files in storage for my convenience".

Woe betide them if I see my original stuff anywhere. 🤬😈👉 BOOF! 👊 BANG!💥 KAPOWW!🔫

[Finite]

There are viewers that exploit SL's export DAE function which is only intended for items that you created however these viewers allow you to export nearly anything rezzed in world. So creators do have legitimate concerns on protecting their content.

However, as previously said, setting no mod no copy and what not doesn't do anything. If anything it encourages people who do want to mod your things to copybot them in order to do so and not necessarily do it in order to resell it as their own. 

How SL cannot detect someone downloading in some cases rather large files off their servers is a bit beyond me but I am no techie or anything. Closing the export DAE function probably solves a lot of copybot issues. I don't use this function so I couldn't say how useful it is for others.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Finite

[Quistess Alpha]

14 minutes ago, Finite said:

How SL cannot detect someone downloading in some cases rather large files off their servers is a bit beyond me

Everybody is downloading all of the "large files" all the time. If you see a thing, the information had to get onto your screen somehow. It's most obvious with textures, If you're looking at one, it exists in your viewer's memory or cache somewhere. Same thing with mesh and every other asset (except as mentioned scripts, as they are only ever run server-side) really, although I'm sure there are a few nuances in converting internal formats to something a copybotter would like to have.

Or think of it this way; normally you'd have to copy-paste an IM or in-world conversation you have in order to save it, but if you turn on an option in the viewer it will make a log of your conversations for you. Similarly, a bad viewer could keep a log of every asset you run into, and make that data easy to access by name and region.

As I understand it, "exporting to dae" happens after you've already downloaded the file (because otherwise you wouldn't be able to see or interact with the thing), so "closing the function" would do nothing to stop someone from using the code that already exists to implement it in a bad viewer.

[Coffee Pancake]

Oh these old threads have sooo much value.

We leant Black Dragon doesn't render people's pants, explaining why to this day @NiranV Deandoesn't wear any - It's a bug in his viewer. That people generally don't recognize in order to display a thing on the screen, the viewer has already had to download all of it, that the avatars in the please don't steal campaign from 2008 have aged liked milk, and pearls always need a good firm clutching 💦. That there is no system in place for fair use in SL and rather than recognizing legitimate customers might benefit from modify permissions and the inclusion of exportable files & textures (mainly textures) it's better to brand everyone a pirate. (Or in the case of BD users, a butt pirate).

Please, for the love of $deity, can we not auto lock threads after 6 months?

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Coffee Pancake

[Finite]

2 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Oh these old threads have sooo much value.

We leant Black Dragon doesn't render people's pants, explaining why to this day @NiranV Deandoesn't wear any - It's bug in his viewer. That people generally don't recognize in order to display a thing on the screen, the viewer has already had to download all of it, that the avatars in the please don't steal campaign from 2008 have aged liked milk, and pearls always need a good firm clutching 💦. That there is no system in place for fair use in SL and rather than recognizing legitimate customers might benefit from modify permissions and the inclusion of exportable files & textures (mainly textures) it's better to brand everyone a pirate. (Or in the case of BD users, a butt pirate).

Please, for the love of $deity, can we not auto lock threads after 6 months?

 

Awe, I use BD I can see your pants.... If I wanted to...

oof. didnt realize it was a necro...

Edited August 2, 2021 by Finite

[Coffee Pancake]

Look at ma butt, ma butt is amazing ... 

[Cinos Field]

Personally I'd be more bothered if threads that can easily be resurrected for still-relevant discussion were locked!

[Pussycat Catnap]

EDIT: Oh, I didn't realize I was responding in a thread that had been necro'd... Oh well, the comment I just made below was true a year ago, was true a few years ago, and is still true now... for some reason...

 

On 6/11/2020 at 2:00 AM, Mollymews said:

i think is less of an issue now than it used to be

This for most content. Copybotting itself seems have been replaced with both the 'ripped assets' thing you mentioned plus 'fullperm kit theft'.

As in, if you're a maker of full perm kits, you can be almost 100% sure your rights will be violated.

I love buying full perm kits and making things with them for myself and alts - so I'm looking at what's for sale in that area all the time. It's pretty much the norm that I see a few certain names pop up in the first 100-200 search entries, selling full perm copies of other people's kits - kits that state they're not to be resold at full perms.

This seems to cause 1 or 2 full perm makers to give up and stop making stuff every quarter or so... making it a constant source of frustration when we lose good content makers because they're being so frequently ripped off.

 

The 'thieves' in this realm are a very specific set of people - perhaps as few as 1-3 specific merchants, that have used the same accounts for well over a few years now. They could be easily removed from SL. So I am completely baffled as to why this issue persists...

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Pussycat Catnap