However, end users should also not assume that simply because they are uploading an image to have on the wall in their private home, that it is fine to take someone’s work from elsewhere online to do so without permission. Even if you are certain you are uploading with the appropriate permissions to prevent others from right click -> take copy, you are enabling further violation of the creator’s copyright should someone using copybot come along…

With Linden Labs emphasis on Second Life as created by the users, and the emphasis through the showcase and Solution Provider Directory on premium well created content being desireable, then there needs to be openness and transparency with those involved in the creator community to plan what can be done to work together. This has not happened.

In my time within Second Life, this has been a very sore point for me. I love the concept of virtual worlds, and enjoy participating – but get very frustrated that Abuse Reports are not to be used to report copyright violations — especially when I am wandering around the grid and come upon a shop where someone is selling work from multiple artists and friends elsewhere online, with the only current option being for each of the artists to go through the DMCA filing process. This is garbage.

I realize that I’ll have various people tell me to shut it since I don’t have any huge game-changing suggestions of how things can be improved. We’ve seen how various in-world community-based groups get regarded by others — accusations of witch hunts and causing unwarranted drama, especially by their detractors. I applaud Stroker and Nomine for pursuing this avenue — it isn’t a happy-happy-joy-joy joyous celebration, at all (as I recognize and agree with various others in that this may be a no-win situation for the community as a whole), but it feels very much necessary at this point to get actual meaningful changes implemented, as well as to shift the paradigm within the community in attitudes toward and treatment of intellectual property.

Why does the Solution Providers Directory exist? ( http://work.secondlife.com/en-US/getstarted/findpartner/ )

However, that is a moot point.

The bigger issue is the general public perception of digital content or content intended for primarily digital consumption or experience as not being worth paying attention, or that the person who created it was “just playing”, that thing which are digital are not real, things that are digital in origin do not matter.

This extend as well to public perception of things a simple a images — the number of times I have been in-world, and seen users that have gone to an image search, grabbed pictures they thought were cool, uploaded them in world, and are now selling them. I haven’t always been able to get ahold of the creator– and the DMCA process must be done by the copyright holder, rather than a sympathetic third-party.

In terms of the issues within Second Life as a platform: there are two methods of dealing with things and both lead to potential repercussions for creator whose content has been stolen.

Going through the DMCA process potentially leads to the violator creating a new account to do the same thing on, or trying to counter-file, and personal contact information being released to someone potentially bent on trolling and harassing across physical and virtual worlds (or distributing the information to others who would find it amusing to do it for ‘t3h lulz’)

The other option is trying to contact the individual copying and distributing your content illegally, and trying to educate them as to what is wrong with what they are doing — but then the potential for them to attempt to abuse report for harassment.

I have found it very difficult within Second Life to quite grasp how Linden Labs thought the (still) current and past method of not dealing with stuff would work in the long run. Granted, my background prior was on the Policy Violation Team on deviantART, so enforcement and follow through on posted policies is something that tends to be a prominent issue for me.

Knowing the atmosphere toward content, creation, copyright, that exists within the general populace (as opposed to the creators), has discouraged me from getting really into creating within Second Life, as well as feeling wary of my original goal of using my land within Second Life to showcase my artwork, due to the awareness that someone taking a screenshot of my work in world, uploading it to their inventory, and then selling it in their shop is incredibly simple to do, and difficult to fight, in term of finding the person.

(Of course, the same is true of anything posted on the net really, if someone has the motivation to want to do so…)

I realize that arguing based on essentially flat-works is very different from dimensional and scripted items, I am mentioning my point of view, as it is what I am most familiar with. I very much appreciate the amount of work put into creation of sculpts, having fiddled around a bit, but not coming anywhere near to the quality that others have mastered.

As for the issue of Linden Labs profitting from the theft – this is a huge issue. The analogy of landlord profiting from the drug dealer renting their property isn’t quite equivalent. As people who sell (or give-away) stolen content generally are not (or not just) renting land, but paying for their content uploads of stolen content, usually multiple times as each account gets banned, as well as through the LindeX fees for cashing out to physical world currencies, Xstreet transaction percentages, classifields, land listings, etc, etc — the landlord would have to be charging the drug dealer tenant currency conversion fees, fees to post signs on the lawn, fees to bring the substance onto the property each time a new shipment is needed – for it to mimic the dimensions of the situation of what is occurring with Linden Labs profiting from content theft.

The capability for LL to check things before they are sold will not be a long drawn out process. It will be a digial verification by a computer system.

A Transation Authentication Server.

In other words … the check will take take seconds.

The fallout from the Lawsuit will not be LL having eveyone fill out a form and then waiting while they go through some manual sales verification process of the objects for sale.

Neither the residents performing legitimate business transactions nor Linden Labs has the time or money for that.

If an object is being sold by someone other than the owner … or by an individual without the rights to sell the object, the transaction will be cancelled immediately in REAL TIME and the customer, Linden Labs and the Creator of the Object will all be notified in REAL TIME.

This process should not inconvenience anyone, other than the thieves.

This is not rocket science … these capabilities have been around a while …

Identity Management (IDM) is a maturing technology. The Identity that is verified need not be RL IDM, it only need be SL IDM. This keeps everyones anonymity intact and also keeps LL and everyone else (who would rather spend their time more judiciously) out of the court systems.

In any case, these are digital objects and adding attributes similar to the following should not be difficult:

o Copyright Owner
o Patent Owner
o Licensee

I know that it seems we all beat up on LL.

Frankly, I applaud LL for all that they have done thus far.

However, I note that there are rumblings of competition starting for LL both because it is profitable and because of the level of dissatisfaction by many of it’s creative customers.

LL … those who create new content keep SL vibrant, new and alive. I hope that LL realizes that. If you lose their creative residents and are only left with the thieves / copiers then where will your new content come from??

IBM used to lead the Computer World. They were number one. Where are they now? Mainframes are no longer the primary systems in use; they lost the PC Market battle; they don’t own the laptop or notebook markets; none of their OSes or systems are number one in sales anymore.

Linden Labs … The court battles should not be your main concern.

You started with an Innovative ideas and concepts which made you successful. If you don’t protect, mentor and nurture your creative residents and continue to innovate, improve and be a market leader then your creative resident pool will dry up and someone else will take your market share.

… and the market …

… will leave you behind.

Cheers.

The final thing is the real law that is obsolete and dont help anybody, cos when u wanna sue someone from another country is very hard and expensive.

So my conclusion is that there are shit in all the places and I dont find any other solution than adapt, like in RL.

That campaign is all about educating the public about content theft; making them aware that content creators’ IP rights are being violated in SL; encouraging them to be a part of the solution by notifying legitimate content creators when they see a ripped/stolen item; and asking them to stop buying stolen content.

But that solution only goes so far. At some point LL MUST step up to the plate to help creators better protect their IP rights. Despite the fact that they are legally obliged to do so it benefits them as SL’s economy thrives on user-generated content. No content, no SL.

Instead, LL has chosen to drag their feet for years on this issue, and it’s high time someone took them to task over it.

If giving content creators better tools to protect their IP rights means that LL’s business model goes into the toilet (a situation I find HIGHLY unlikely to occur; in fact I think quite the opposite would happen), then they never had a legitimate business model to begin with.

End users absolutely should play a role in this situation, but that only goes so far as many of them will opt to continue buying stolen content. At some point it becomes the responsibility of the guy that owns the servers to step up and take some responsibility for what is going on those servers by taking a more active role in helping creators defend their IP rights.

And what if that “something” takes the form of a re-write of the TOS to the effect that all content uploaded or created in-world becomes the property of LL? Worse, they sell their servers to some corporate hatchetman who either sells them for scrap, or employs these same people back to reformat them, with or without an equivalent of the metaverse we are currently enjoying so much? Will you be advocating everyone who ever generated dollar one for use in world to launch a class action suit against Phillip Linden if he suddenly decides to reinvest his personal gains in numbered swiss bank accounts and declares himself bankrupt? Hey, maybe you might find him sympathetic to your cause… settiling it AND every subsequent plaintiff out of the coffers of LL until the organisation is insolvent… what then?

Admittedly these are extreme examples, but they are not beyond the realms of possibility. No matter how much real money and effort has been expended (and I understand Stroker has invested a fair bit and don’t blame him for being angry at the state of affairs) at the end of the day it is LL who controls and maintains the framework and they are under NO obligation whatsoever to keep it running if they deem its liabilities outweigh its benefits. This is precisely what I alluded to earlier when I said that no matter which way this argument falls out, it is undeniably the users will lose out through either reduced content or increased restrictions making it that much more difficult (and dare I say prohibitive) to upload it. And that’s the good news – we can and probably should entertain the notion that the metaverse rug could be quite literally ripped from under ALL our feet in the worst case scenario.

As I see it, that puts the onus squarely back on us, the end users of the product to bring about a solution. You can merrily launch all the actions your pocketbook demands against LL until the cows come home and it wont make a scrap of difference to the problem. People will still find a way to swipe stuff for as long as a market exists for it and in the end its the little guy who loses out.

And by the “little guy”, I am assuredly NOT referring to the content creators. I have recently seen a 2 year old 4 Corners report on Stroker and he is not a “little guy”. However nice he is, is ultimately irrelevant – he is an entrepreneur as much as Phillip Linden is an entrepreneur in that both identified markets they could make a buck out of, securing enough capital to turn their vision into a reality.

And yes, if his product is good enough to stick in someones home then he has every right to be paid for it. But not at the expense of others, many of whom like myself do not own, nor entertain the notion of owning their product legally or otherwise.

And that is the bottom line here. I don’t blame you for skipping blithely past the solution I presented earlier since its far FAR easier to go after the big lumbering target with the fat bank balance than it is the weasely parasites that cling to its sides. And heaven help us should we ever have to find fault with ourselves if there is a common enemy we might all point to. No, no and again NO, we must bring that beast to its knees to feather the nests of a sundry few like the good sheeple we are. And that goat up the back bleating the moral high ground? Oh, ignore him – he’ll never take ANYONE to court.