I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again.
The chances of being copybotted are very slim. The chances of you suffering at the hands of copybot are very slim.
Now awareness is one thing which I’ll happily support – but there’s a sensible way of doing it. When you start panicking yourself that the grid is doomed and there’s no future for Second Life, that would class itself as hysteria.
Every now and again (usually when there are lawsuits being bandied around) the whole IP theft and copybot issue crops up and a lot of people get worked up about a minuscule proportion of the grid who are ripping content and start jumping on bandwagons and kickstarting witch hunts.
Now I’ve seen my own products copybotted and being resold, and it’s most definately heart breaking to see your designs that you spent hours having been ripped off and someone else profiting off your hard work. I don’t blame content creators for being angry, and rightly so too.
But the vast majority of designers in SL will never be copybotted – that’s a fact. I’ve heard grumbles from people who haven’t been copybotted, but blame theft for the SL economy downturn. Copybot isn’t killing the SL economy at this time – in fact the Lab reports the economy is perfectly healthy. If your sales are down, then don’t look for excuses.
And screaming foul when you’ve been copybotted may make you feel better, and garner sympathy, but does it benefit the community? If people keep hearing stories of copybot over and over again, then people start to think it’s a rampant problem which is destroying the grid. That disheartens designers, and makes them ponder if there’s any point in creating content in Second Life. And no matter how you cut it, that’s not good for community spirit. If you’ve found your work has been copybotted and want advice, I wrote a guide here some time ago based on my own experience.
The rising prominence of these copybot clients means that we need to stand firm and make sure Linden Lab hear our concerns when we demand something is done to protect our intellectual property rights.
Screaming around that the end is nigh, and overreacting to every copybot case isn’t helping anyone, and does more damage to the community than good.
Gwyneth Llewelyn on September 28, 2009
Hear, hear, Prad. After all, every day, millions of Web sites get copied (images get stolen, designs get downloaded and re-used, movies get duplicated and redistributed) and the Web hasn’t gone away because of that…
Hysteria is also bad for another reason (besides being contagious). It pushes Linden Lab to attempt the impossible (e.g. DRM on the SL client) while they could be doing something possible that would benefit us all… quietly, in peace, thinking well over the issues.
Adric Antfarm on September 28, 2009
Bravo.
Needed to be said.
Joshua Meadows on September 28, 2009
Pulling this over from plurk because I’m too verbose for 140 characters.
I don’t agree with this. I think that anyone who achieves any level of popularity is going to be ripped off. You asked “what’s popular” and I think the bar is set really low in SL– there’s no manufacturing costs and popularity comes via word of mouth, so there’s really not a high barrier for entry. As I pointed out, I’ve been ripped off several times in SL, and I made tiny robot avatars, which couldn’t be any more of a limited niche if I wanted to. If that got stolen, then any decent hair, skin or clothes designer is going to be stolen from too.
Now the point that keeps getting missed in the rampant hysteria is that you will never, ever, ever be able to stop theft. No one can. Walmart can’t, Target can’t, video game developers can’t, makeup companies can’t, on and on. Theft happens in every industry, with every product, it’s a fact of life. Large companies have entire divisions dedicated to loss prevention. I don’t get why people in SL, any time a new screech of “zomg an easier faster better way to steal!” go the route of shutting their sims off and closing access. Seriously, because you’re afraid of losing sales to theft you’re going to close your store, thus guaranteeing you lose money?
A more accurate way to phrase this issue is not that you’re not likely to be copybotted– because you are, face it. It’s too easy to do, the same way that torrenting a video game is easier than walking into a Gamestop and trying to shoplift. But, and here is the important detail, while most content creators are going to be ripped off, *most* people are not thieves. *Most* people will actually purchase content over knowingly stealing from someone else. The people who steal? Probably weren’t likely to buy anything anyway.
So don’t pass the concern off as unreasonable, because it’s not. Theft happens in SL, to enormous degrees, and I don’t know a single content creator– big or small– who hasn’t been ripped off on some scale. But thankfully, most people are honest.
chestnut on September 29, 2009
/me stands and applauds. Excellent post once again Prad. Thank you.
Lizzie Lexington on September 29, 2009
Yay for Prad…Great post, well thought out.
Roslin Petion on September 29, 2009
I do agree with you that some people have blown things out of proportion. I do think it’s unlikely that a specific instance of copybotting will negatively impact your business in a big way. However, I disagree that it’s a sale you wouldn’t have gotten anyway, at least when it comes to full perm goods being passed around for free. That said, I think that we need to be vigilant and not allow a culture that thinks stealing is ok to arise. Right now, there are a number of people who think it’s ok to accept full perm stolen content for free since they aren’t the one actually stealing it, it’s ok to use pirated software, it’s ok to create content based on non-licensed photo sources, it’s ok to imply an association or refer to ip that is not their own in the creation of their product, and that it is ok to buy a product that does this sort of violation. I’ve heard people openly say that they don’t care that it’s wrong to do so because they like the product so much. Is thinking it’s ok to copybot content really THAT far of a stretch from all that I’ve mentioned so far? When I had my skins ripped off, I was a bit upset about the feeling of violation but what bothered me the most was not the theft or concern about loss of income, it was over the way the process of handling it all works. We filed our DMCA and received notice it was missing information but they DONT tell you what’s missing. You have to GUESS. When we compared notes with another content creator filing a DMCA against the same person, there was no noticeable difference. In the end, we just got the mall owner to remove the content from the thief’s shop and gave up on LL. I think there are a good number of content creators who are just fed up with LL not really addressing these issues and dealing with not just prevention but the making sure there are consequences to the act of theft.
Ann Otoole on September 29, 2009
Factless post. You should have said it is not as likely that you will be ripped off by someone that will resell content stolen from you as the large and increasing daily odds you will be ripped off for personal use. Plenty of people are using Cryolife and it has but one purpose given how obsolete it is.
Now why don’t you go on over to Gothicatz and other large well known designers that use Cryoban or the LGG Cryobot and ask them for a copy of their ban lists courtesy of the Cryolife detectors and then come back and say it isn’t a much larger problem than any of us expected.
Cajsa Lilliehook on September 29, 2009
I agree there can be a certain “sky is falling” reaction to each new exploit – and that copying alone will not kill content creation just as theft does not destroy commerce in real life. However, there’s a significant difference you ignore.
In real life, the police and judicial system function to protect commerce and punish thieves. By and large, there is rampant indifference and a stunning laissez faire attitude toward content theft in Second Life.
Yes, LL did well in the recent wholesale thefts of content from several designers last week, but tellingly, everyone is shocked and surprised. That should be the norm. Official indifference to theft, cultural acceptance of theft and the technological ease of theft combine to make it harder for SL retailers to fight theft.
Shimere Felisimo on September 29, 2009
Excellent points. One thing I haven’t heard said yet is how these scares – warranted or not – affect consumer confidence. Although content creators have precious little protection of their interests, the consumer has nil. The people who are moved by the anti-copy uproar are the honest ones, not the thieves. And if they realize that content that they paid good money for could go poof because they bought it unknowingly from a thief, will that inspire them to buy? There’s a side to the copybot story that isn’t often mentioned…LL’s asset servers are, let’s just say, not as stable as they could be. In part, these tools arise because people want to protect their investments. Linden Labs ought to be concerned with protecting the rights of the consumer as well as the creator, and content creators need to be mindful that while educating the honest public, they don’t scare them away.
I agree that theft probably isn’t the reason a shop is doing badly…I think it’s because the economy has seen better days. There may be content creators that are doing well, but I haven’t met any. And the number of shops on the feed announcing they are going out of business is mind-boggling. Linden Labs’ stats on the SL economy…I dunno. Something not right there, some vital piece of information they’re leaving out…maybe like saying that your company has an average salary of 100,000/year when in reality the CEO makes a million and the other ten employees make 10,000.
Opensource Obscure on September 29, 2009
Excellent post, thanks.
Prokofy Neva on September 29, 2009
Prad, don’t you work for Rezzable now, a company that cynically left the grid, pouring salt as they left, and threatening to release builderbot to copy sims’ content wholesale, and only after posturing and manipulating public opinion with that power play, somewhat mitigating this copying product which they now *sell*? If you think you have credibilty now on this subject, you’re sorely mistaken.
People whose items are copied need to publicize this and not join the silent omerta of the Linden-ruled mafias, because that is the only way pressure will be brought on Linden Lab to take more solid measures and give up their copyleftism.
I’m not seeing hysteria whatsoever. What I’m seeing and hearing from merchants is *anger*, and *justifiable ourage*. Different.
It’s not impossible to continue to support the DRM they have (copy/mod/transfer) and take other technical and social and psychological measures to stop the copying.
And I’d like to note that many of the big cheerleaders for turning a blind eye to copyright theft don’t make their living on copyright, but make their living selling their consulting on top of their code or other people’s content, which they’d like to be free to reduce client costs. That’s all this is about. It’s an interest group pounding the merchants with their own agenda.
Nadine Nozaki on September 29, 2009
Great post Prad, The reaction of Ann and Prok show you are right.
Ahuva Heliosense on September 29, 2009
Good thoughts, Prad. Hysteria does not benefit any of us. There are problems in the world, but they are better addressed rationally.
Ari Blackthorne on September 29, 2009
@Prad:
Thank.
You.
@ all the others who “disagree”:
http://commonsensible.net/2009/09/28/watch-your-step-up-for-content-creators/
Belochka Shostakovich on September 29, 2009
I will entirely agree with those who say hysteria is a bad thing, it is because of its emotiveness and ease with which it becomes open to manipulation rather than some form of debate. Do I think those creators who have been stolen from are going to be emotive about it? Well, yes, of course some are. Very few people who are stolen from, including those that are habitual thieves themselves, are naturally inclined to stoical behaviour.
That any medium feeds off hysteria is also not exactly unusual, whether it is selling newspapers or bringing blog clicks.
I’ve joined the Step Up! campaign. Not because I’ve been stolen from, not because my friends have been stolen from (some I know have), but because of the act of joining others to say, in my own small way, that I don’t support acts of theft in SL or in first life. And that’s what it is to me; a public statement of recognition.
I do believe that LL could have taken some different decisions that would have been beneficial in creating a more supportive environment. That’s their choice, based on corporate decisions, just like this is mine and other peoples’ individual choices. That doesn’t equal being hysterical, in my view.