EliseAnne85

I disagree that a photographer has carte blanche to do whatever they want just because it's public. There are also celebrity laws for the U.S. you may want to look up. In the U.S. it is also known there are also peoples who feel if you take their photo, you steal their soul which could create legal problems. Blackmail is also against the law - that's why it says "legitimate" purposes. Here is what ChatGpt has to say about it: As an AI language model, I can provide information on a general level, but I am not a substitute for legal advice. Laws regarding photography and privacy vary by jurisdiction, and it's important to consult the laws of your specific region or country for accurate and up-to-date legal guidance. In many countries, photographers have the right to take pictures of people in public places without obtaining their consent, as long as the photos are taken for legitimate purposes, such as news reporting, editorial, artistic, or educational purposes. This is because public spaces are generally considered to be areas where individuals have a lower expectation of privacy. However, there are some important considerations to keep in mind. While photographers may have the right to take pictures of people in public, they may not have the right to publish or use those photos for certain purposes without obtaining consent, depending on the circumstances and the laws of the jurisdiction. For example, using someone's image for commercial purposes, implying endorsement, or using the image in a way that could be considered defamatory or harmful may require obtaining consent from the individuals

I put "tos" in quotes because it was late and couldn't think of what to call it. It's a new term or something, Rowan posted it, here it is: Now where do I find that? Privacy Preference Integrity Second Life provides a set of privacy controls, such as limiting who can communicate with a Resident, who can see another Resident’s online status, who can discover their location within Second Life, and whether profiles are published on publicly visible web pages. Scripted Agents may not circumvent these privacy controls.

It's Friday night. lol

I don't think most good actor trackers care whether it's a questionable place or not. Most good actor trackers simply want to know the 'most popular places'. But, when it comes down to tracking, stalking, harassing by bad actor bots, all it is is trouble at the least and blackmail at the worst. Certainly there could be something in the TOS to prevent this latter part because it's stalking and stalking is illegal to my knowledge, so is blackmail. Oh, and to make it all worse, I know there is some kind of new "tos" but I forgot what's it's called so I don't know how to find that.

For private use to solely and only for one's self to view, yes, but that's not what these bots were doing. They published them. So, it needs to be written you can take snapshots of others for private use but you may face litigation in publishing photos you have not received consent for or something to that affect. Also, in the TOS, I think it should state the copyright belongs to the username who took the photograph and it's their property as long as they followed all the guidelines, meaning took the photo of themselves where photos are allowed. Some sims don't allow taking photos at all nor machinemas.

I'd agree in that our profiles are copyright protected including the photos we take of ourselves or of others who are our friends, family or partners. Not to mention many people have poems and other things they have created solely themselves which should not be allowed to be harvested en masse. If it happens here and there and we don't know about it; all I can say is 'nothing is perfect' but we can do way better than this. And, the Machinema and Snapshot Policy needs to be written correctly to include one must ask a resident for consent before taking their snapshot because at the bottom of the MSP it says consent is not required for snapshots. Well, in the real world consent is needed, as far as I know. The Machinema and Snapshot Policy is poorly written even though it says more and less AND (paraphrasing) RL laws apply the same in SL for photography. Here is part of it: For machinima, you must have the consent of all Residents whose avatars or Second Life names are featured or recognizable in the machinima. This includes avatars who are featured in a shot, avatars whose names are legible, and avatars whose appearance is sufficiently distinctive that they are recognizable by members of the Second Life community. Consent is not required if an avatar is not recognizable and is merely part of a crowd scene or shown in a fleeting background. Consent is not required for any snapshots. https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Snapshot_and_machinima_policy

I'm not sure how much I've used that either but I have some. I make mostly items without HUDS because it's furniture. I'm not sure if that's a HUD thing or not. The only way to fight it then would be counter bots looking for bots and reading what objects they are trying to get details about. Talk about painting ourselves into a corner.

Okay, say the lsl script for data collection is gone, which it should be because any and all harvesting could contain our own personal artworks or writings (poems, lyrics) which may be copyright protected, how would this particular script have made our lives better? Let me just give an example: Let's say my profile has original artworks by me and poems written by me. How would the harvesting and third party publishing of those I put on a SL inworld profile make our SL's better?

I think this ^^ is the most likely outcome. But, I have a question, not directed at Sid Nagy, just a general question to anyone who might know. What if estate owners need their scripted agents to run their estates. So, now these are whitelisted scripted agents by the estate owners, so will that whitelist carry thru to all split off "estates/regions/parcels" even if some of the people want to set deny_bots? How will this work - estate owner needs scripted agent(s), but someone wants to deny them?

Most creator's have to pull ourselves back quite a lot and take a view of our creation from the eyes of a newbie, even a newbie who's a few days old. And, then, many of us realize we need to write an instructions notecard. And, those instructions could be quite long when looking from a newbie's perspective. It's also interesting to note that even though creator's take a long time writing out instruction notecards, most are not read and people just go to their friends to ask 'how do I do this' instead of reading the dang notecards. But, you can view SL thru a newbie's eyes but it's not really the same sense of wonderment we actually had when we were newbies. Also, I think Dinkies and Tinies have that sense of newbie innocence as Raglan Shire hasn't changed in approx. 19 years. It's built pre-sculpty even. People can visit Raglan Shire and see what SL used to be built out of. It has original SL builds from the beginning, plus rides.

I have a question about scanned in real life artworks and how they will work with PBR. Now, I've been told that only a color should go in the base color area. However, I'd assume that the base color area is where the texture of the real life artwork would need to go. So, what does one do next for artworks? Does one need to make a roughness and other maps? And, how does one make the maps? Are there any PBR map makers for free? I don't want to invest in a PBR program at this time. Or, if this is NOT the way scanned in real life artworks would work with PBR, then how would they work? Thanks in advance, very much.

So, as it stands now, region owners and land owners can check PIOF required for now to keep out bots, or attempt to block certain bots by name which sounds like a hassle.

Okay, thank you for saying you weren't trying to dumb someone down. But, I think it's time to get beyond this now and discuss the issue, if there is anything to discuss. Generally to the thread, not directed at M Peccable: My homes under ABOUT LAND show no way for the region owner to turn on deny_bot. So, I have no protection from deny_bot that I can see.

Invasive practices. @ The Above. I knew what Silent meant. I knew she wasn't using that quote above to mean a watch. Silent, is no dummie, techno nor otherwise. However, the above is what we are trying to establish in how to protect ourselves from invasive practices. Right now, data scraping may never be 100% free of. But, at least, in people's homes (parcels), we'd like to not have bots popping in any time they damn want.

Okay, I know nothing about how SL data structures and sim data works, but I have a question. Is there a possibility of Caspervend being able to do it? Such as, a part of the Caspervend menu selection could have deny_bot or allow_bot? Or allow_scripted_agent or deny_scripted_agent. And, if that would do nothing either for a happy medium to this whole situation, what would? My main concern is bots popping into people's private homes. Let's deal with that first as I'd think bots popping into newbies homes could be especially harmful to SL. Can you imagine a newbie rents their first home and they are all excited and ready to decorate their own first virtual home, and then come in "some bots". It would be a total turn-off, I'd think. Just not good for SL. Data collection leave out for now. How do we keep them out of parcels and mainland?

Yeah, I thought the same thing after I posted.

While I disagree that someone could use creating a nuisance and then having to buy protection from said nuisance wouldn't be a scam. Unsuspecting and naïve people could fall for it. The thing with unregistered bots though, is they'd have to "out" themselves that they are unregistered if they published the data and want anyone to read or use said data, such as buying the most popular new items. Plus, sending IM's to sell stuff is spam and against the TOS, so I can't see unregistered bots contacting people about "their data" wherein said unregistered bots want to sell residents 'something'. They'd have to out themselves they are unregistered and the scraping data seems a complete waste of their time.

It appears that way now. But, there may still be a way for parcel owners to have control both ways. Allow_bot and deny_bot. In the meantime, you can contact your estate owner to whitelist your scripted agent but that's an *if* they agree to your particular scripted agent or not.

Absolutely. The question is: Can they?

I was using Bloodlines and the creation of the free garlic necklace as an example. And, I didn't mean every resident needs one at all times. People need to use common sense when I said "need" because there have been those to whom it was a need - it was too much for certain residents while others were/are or never were bothered by Bloodlines at all. But, selling security orbs to get rid of bots on parcels appears a bit of a scam and opens doors for other like-minded scams. Bloodlines, however, has kept their garlic necklace FREE. My saying that in no way means others can just choose to ignore those in Bloodlines, or deal with it however they choose. However, if bots are in your parcel, it's a nuisance and one should NOT have to pay to gid rid of the nuisance and disturbance of the peace.

I don't think it's as absurd as you think as I have been thinking about this for weeks. What if these bots set this up so we will have to buy some kind of security orb. And, irony of ironies, I wasn't the one who brought it up. Someone else did. It's an open door to a scam. But, I don't have much further to say at this time about it.

This is not about free scripts. Free scripts are free scripts one can make all kinds of things with free scripts. You are saying free scripts for stuff people don't necessarily need. Using Bloodlines as my example of the garlic necklace shows that the garlic necklace is a need if you don't want to be bothered by Bloodlines. It would be the same need for a security orb to protect one's self from bots coming in their home or whatever. And, then the next bots come along and one needs to buy a security orb to protect one's self from those bots, and so on and so on and so on. That's a scam. Creating a nuisance and then making people pay to stop it.

🙄

I don't know, I think you are arguing just to argue. What is your counterpoint about a bot invasion that then people would have to buy bot protection from in a security orb? How is that not a scam? And, btw, to use an example, the Bloodlines garlic necklace has almost always been free or near free, maybe 10 L. If people don't want to be bothered by Bloodlines, at least they have allowed it to be near free to have a protection (garlic necklace).