Someone is selling many pirated children's books in Second Life

[FairreLilette]

2 minutes ago, Skell Dagger said:

Tell that to an author. I know quite a few of them. I'm one myself.

"Hey, you know that book you spent months sweating over? The one that went through multiple rewrites, two content edits and three line edits? Yeah, that one. What on earth made you think all that work was worth anything?"

Did you even look at that Imgur album? It's not "just a few books". There are approximately 330 or so books shown.

Well, I've given out copyrighted stuff for FREE.  Is that ethical?  I gave out copies of vintage Woodstock posters.  I felt it was a commemorative sharing experience.  

It's not the same as selling real life counterfeit Woodstock posters.  That could bring in a large amount of money in real life and the artist or their estates receive nothing.  

And, no I did not look at how many books.  

 

[Skell Dagger]

11 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

And, another thing Skell, you work for Catwa or said you did.  Now, that's a big item.  Most of the littlest sellers never even cash out into real money in SL.  So, most likely she does not even have any real money to pay them. 

You just beggar belief, Fairre. Dig in your heels and call me the "ethics committee" all you like. I'm done with you.

And don't you ever hold my job over my head like that again.

[FairreLilette]

3 minutes ago, Skell Dagger said:

You just beggar belief, Fairre. Dig in your heels and call me the "ethics committee" all you like. I'm done with you.

And don't you ever hold my job over my head like that again.

Ditto and I'd please ask you not to keep quoting me.  I said you all be the ethics committee here because I am done with the issue.  You all decide, is what I mean.  I'm done with the issue and gave my perspective on it having to deal with real life counterfeits as I have in my real life work.  

Edited July 13, 2020 by FairreLilette

[AyelaNewLife]

6 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Well, I've given out copyrighted stuff for FREE.  Is that ethical?  I gave out copies of vintage Woodstock posters.  I felt it was a commemorative sharing experience.  

It's not the same as selling real life counterfeit Woodstock posters.  That could bring in a large amount of money in real life and the artist or their estates receive nothing.  

And, no I did not look at how many books.  

Just quoting this in case you try to hide your admission of guilt later.

The raw arrogance of some people...

[Love Zhaoying]

So..the argument is something like, "no need to follow copyright laws, because the $/L$ amounts are so low.

How'd I do?

[Love Zhaoying]

8 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Well, I've given out copyrighted stuff for FREE.  Is that ethical?  I gave out copies of vintage Woodstock posters.  I felt it was a commemorative sharing experience.  

No

[FairreLilette]

4 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

Just quoting this in case you try to hide your admission of guilt later.

The raw arrogance of some people...

Yes, I gave out commerative Woodstock posters in 3D for FREE to users in SL, I admitted it.  And, I don't think it is that big of a deal.   

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Pussycat Catnap]

This whole issue looks like what DMCA's were made for.

Frustratingly they only let the rights holder file those, and not anyone who sees it.

 

That noted - these are just cover images right? So cover artist conflict... But...

What would be the legal ramifications if I walked into a bookstore and photographed a rack of books, then posted that picture in a photography album I put out?

- Is that or is that NOT the right analogy here, IF these are just covers?

(I can actually see in the imagr link that a few of the books are open, so it's actually NOT just covers... so this analogy might be a moot point anyway regardless of how it maps out.)

 

People seem to very often think Copyright is link to Capitalism - as in, its about the money. It's not. It's about creative control. So it's illegal to take a work even if done for free, and even if the original work was ALSO free.

Sometimes that pro-capitalist, sometimes it's not. ie: it's just, unrelated... like toast and space aliens... 😉

This is actually WHY the open-source license exists the way it does - to create an opposite of a Copyright and declare something public. Because something else people forget; Copyright is automatic. You do not have to claim your Copyright to have it, in fact you have to disavow it to lose it (the, at least original 1990s, open source license - these days companies write weird licenses that they call open source that then claim more rights than even a closed source license would...).

 

For an SL example... look at the 'grid' texture I hand out. Clearly "stolen" from another user. So click on the link I have to the original. He's got a note there disavowing his copyright and telling people to redistribute. You have to do that, otherwise by default an item is Copyrighted.

I won't link my version, here's the original: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Basic-Builders-Grid-Decimeter-Scaled/8667959

- see the specific words he used. Without that, the item would by default be locked, even though it's free and fullperms.

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[FairreLilette]

14 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

So..the argument is something like, "no need to follow copyright laws, because the $/L$ amounts are so low.

How'd I do?

Well, what if it's like FREE or 20 lindens total or something.  What if her heart was she just wanted to share those books just as I wanted to share a commemorative poster to a few friends.

What concerns me and really concerns me is all this talk of OPEN SIM in the LL acquisition thread. 

Isn't that OPEN SIM thing stealing everyone's work?   Or, how is OPEN SIM viewed, it's just "using it" or "borrowing it"?  Open sim concerns me as I don't understand it and I feel I would be stealing people's stuff if I went to OPEN SIM.  

Edited July 13, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Pussycat Catnap]

8 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Isn't that OPEN SIM thing stealing everyone's work?   Or, how is OPEN SIM viewed, it's just "using it" or "borrowing it"?  Open sim concerns me as I don't understand it and I feel I would be stealing people's stuff if I went to OPEN SIM.  

Open Sims have a long history of being on both sides of these issues.

Some of them were seen as 'dens of scum and villainy' full of stolen goods. Others worked very hard to protect creator rights. I think the big issue with InWorldz was that it was known for protecting creators, and then on the final day they just gave everything away... which really damages the ability of the next Open Sim to get people to believe it will protect their rights.

 

[Cindy Evanier]

33 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Well, I've given out copyrighted stuff for FREE.  Is that ethical?  I gave out copies of vintage Woodstock posters.  I felt it was a commemorative sharing experience.  

It's not the same as selling real life counterfeit Woodstock posters.  That could bring in a large amount of money in real life and the artist or their estates receive nothing.  

And, no I did not look at how many books.  

 

You should not use copyrighted, trademarked, or celebrity material in Second Life, unless of course you are the intellectual property owner or have permission from the intellectual property owner. Your use of Second Life is subject to applicable copyright, trademark, and right-of-publicity laws

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Intellectual_Property#:~:text=You should not use copyrighted,right-of-publicity laws.

https://www.lindenlab.com/legal/second-life-terms-and-conditions

[FairreLilette]

2 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

Open Sims have a long history of being on both sides of these issues.

Some of them were seen as 'dens of scum and villainy' full of stolen goods. Others worked very hard to protect creator rights. I think the big issue with InWorldz was that it was known for protecting creators, and then on the final day they just gave everything away... which really damages the ability of the next Open Sim to get people to believe it will protect their rights.

 

Thanks for some input.  

I've never visited OPEN SIM...I've never felt comfortable as I don't understand it, but I don't want to see SL grid go down and all that's left is OPEN SIM that's for sure.  

 

[Lindal Kidd]

Whoa.

It's not the amount, Fairre.  Theft is theft, whether you give away what you stole or make millions from it.  Skell is very correct on this one.

David Spotted Eagle wrote a great article, a long time ago, called "My Voice, My Choice".   Everyone should read it.  https://www.videouniversity.com/articles/copyright-for-video-producers/

His focus was on copyrighted music and its use in video productions, but the points he makes have broad applicability.

The idea of "copyright" is simple:  The creator of an original work owns the rights to that work, and has the right to decide who may use it, how they may use it, and how much they must pay for that use.  "Copyright" is just that:  the right to copy.  Only the creator may say who has that right.

My gut feeling about the "stolen children's books" in this thread is the same as yours...my feeling is that it's OK, if all the creator of those displays is doing is using copies of the books' covers to make her racks and shelves look more realistic.  I don't think it's taking money away from them to simply display the cover art in SL.  But how you and I feel is not what's important.  Skell is right, and it's how the writers and the cover artists feel about it that IS important.

OpenSim is not "stealing everyone's work" per se.  OpenSim is a platform that works a lot like SL, using the same viewers we use to log in on SL's grid.  But because anyone can set up an OpenSim region on their PC, and put its address out there for anyone else to log in to, there are no controls over intellectual property.  You're a lot more likely to have your creations stolen if they're on OpenSim (and you've put your little grid on the Hypergrid network), because there's no policing, and it's pretty difficult to find out who you should send your DMCA notice to.  It's not "stealing people's stuff" to just visit some OpenSim regions.  But using copybot to rip people's content on OpenSim is just as wrong as it is to do it in SL.

 

[FairreLilette]

5 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

You should not use copyrighted, trademarked, or celebrity material in Second Life, unless of course you are the intellectual property owner or have permission from the intellectual property owner. Your use of Second Life is subject to applicable copyright, trademark, and right-of-publicity laws

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Intellectual_Property#:~:text=You should not use copyrighted,right-of-publicity laws.

https://www.lindenlab.com/legal/second-life-terms-and-conditions

Yeah, but there is a bunch around especially when trying to give a sense of realism and I'm not going to report it in a build if it may not be older than say 70 years old or so.  However, many even what may seem public domain items are held by an estate now but the estate is looking for pirated copies of their items that are fake and in that they don't receive any monies due to counterfeits.   Sharing a few pictures with friends is not like real life counterfeiting, especially the musicians who have lost billions of dollars with file sharing and other serious issues plus it's not even full perm.  lol  Good grief.

Well, you all be the ethics committee here because I don't want to look into how many books she has or what. 

I think OPEN SIM is a very serious concern to people's livelihoods though and I don't want to see that happen.  

[FairreLilette]

4 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Whoa.

It's not the amount, Fairre.  Theft is theft, whether you give away what you stole or make millions from it.  

Not in the sense if it takes away one's livelihood like it can with real life pirating.  

I won't be giving out any more commemorative posters if it's so dang horrible.   I apologize for being human and having to work with real life pirates.  I think there are other real concerns in regards to pirates and especially when it takes away your livelihood. 

[Lindal Kidd]

No one is saying you are horrible, Fairre!  We love you!

What we are trying to get across is that it's the CREATOR's choice to give away, sell, or re-use their creations.  Not yours, not mine.

The proper way to make a commemorative poster to give away would be to find out who created the original, contact them, and ask.

[Love Zhaoying]

The exception is - I believe - for works that are in the "public domain" (so old that there are no valid copyright anymore, or copyright was relinquished by holders, etc.). Like with really old books. 

[FairreLilette]

20 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

No one is saying you are horrible, Fairre!  We love you!

What we are trying to get across is that it's the CREATOR's choice to give away, sell, or re-use their creations.  Not yours, not mine.

The proper way to make a commemorative poster to give away would be to find out who created the original, contact them, and ask.

Yeah okay, I agree.  If I ever have a Bob Dylan tribute, I will contact the estate first and see if I receive a reply because that's about the only other thing I'd want to do or share in SL but I love Bob Dylan so much, it's just something I'd have to do is ask.  I don't think I would receive a reply though, so I'd probably never do it.  I just don't think the Bob Dylan estate would care to contact me.  They don't know who I am, I am not a t-shirt company for example, and there is no cut of money I could offer them.   

But, what I'm also trying to say, in that my having to deal with real life pirating as I have, pick your battles too.  Some people are just sharing something they love and not making anything or much nor anything off it and are just sharing something they want to share with others.  That's kind of what I saw in the picture of the books...like she was sharing something she loved and maybe it was not mean-spirited.  We share all the time on social media without permission.  Just having a permanent picture you can place in a 3D home of the same photo you can share on FB, I don't see the big deal about it.  

Also, the person who files a DMCA has to pay lawyers a lot of money!  It's not for free to file a DMCA, that's why I say pick your battles in this because it's very expensive for the copyright holder.  

Edited July 13, 2020 by FairreLilette

[BirdieGallo]

2 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Please clarify:  Are only the book COVERS being copied?  Or are these "vendors" that are selling the actual text of the books?  While both are a violation of copyright law, I would be a lot less concerned about the former.  Perhaps the maker of these only wanted to create a simulation of a children's book store in SL.

Its not just a cover! The books are scripted to turn pages!!! IT contains the full book, illustrations... even dedications! A lot of work has gone into pirating these books to look like real books. 

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by BirdieGallo

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

Twenty lindens per book or what?  She can't be making that much off of these books.  lol  I'm like whatever.  You all be the ethics committee here and do as you see fit. 

 

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

, I don't see the big deal here.  It's not like it's a Maitreya body or something that could be making hundreds of thousands of dollars in SL.

Yeah, my son tried a similar argument with me when he was 7 and stole a candy bar from the store:  Gosh, Mom, it's only $1.00.  It's not like I robbed a bank.

 

Amount of money doesn't matter - theft is theft.  

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

Yes, I gave out commerative Woodstock posters in 3D for FREE to users in SL, I admitted it.  And, I don't think it is that big of a deal.   

 

If you paid for all of them before giving them away, then that is okay --- because they were paid for initially.  If they were given to your store to give away as a promo item, then that is also okay.  

If they were given away when they were supposed to be paid for, and nobody ever paid for them, that is theft.

[BirdieGallo]

3 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

The real worry of pirating is when fake books REAL LIFE BOOKS are printed oversea's illegally and the book sellers receive nothing for the fake copies of their books.  

You really think it's a big deal if someone has a facsimile of a real life children's book?  I think it's cute and a nice tribute.  Or does it just matter because there is a price?

I have two book facsimiles for sale right now but they are of antique book covers and thus are public domain.  I was a real life antiques dealer...so I lean towards the beauty of antiques, plus most are public domain.  

But, still, I don't see the big deal about this as it's not hundreds of thousands of dollars a writer could lose in real life because of fake reproductions made in China or elsewhere.   You can't even read these books.

As an author, some of my books literally make less than this lady is selling them for. One of my self published books makes me 50 cents per copy after everyone takes a cut!!! (Printing, lawyers, illustrators)  My main selling book makes me 4 dollars a copy!!!!! 

[Lindal Kidd]

5 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Also, the person who files a DMCA has to pay lawyers a lot of money!  It's not for free to file a DMCA, that's why I say pick your battles in this because it's very expensive for the copyright holder. 

Nah, filing the DMCA is free.  Well, it costs you a postage stamp.

It's effective, too.  Linden Lab is required by law to take down the allegedly infringing content.

Where the hassle comes in is when the person you accused of stealing your content counters.  Then, if you want your claim of infringement to stand, you gotta get the lawyers involved.

 

[Lindal Kidd]

Thank you for the clarification, Birdie.  That's a much more egregious violation.  I hope the authors and publishers are notified and decide to take DMCA action.

 

[FairreLilette]

18 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

 

Yeah, my son tried a similar argument with me when he was 7 and stole a candy bar from the store:  Gosh, Mom, it's only $1.00.  It's not like I robbed a bank.

 

Amount of money doesn't matter - theft is theft.  

It's not the same comparison.  

An equal comparison is sharing on FB or sharing here in SL because neither are tangible.

What is the difference?  

EDIT:  And, there is a whole music thread of sharing videos without people's permission.  Is that right?  

Edited July 13, 2020 by FairreLilette