For instance, say that two years ago I used what I thought was a freebie texture in my home. I spent hours aligning it to get it to look good on a wall or floor, or whatever. The creator of the texture eventually finds it has been copied, and issues a DMCA request.

Suddenly my home has broken textures everywhere.

So do homes all over SL who happened to use that texture, which was used in good faith by the builders, thinking the texture was a freebie.

This has the potential to destroy hours of work aross dozens of sims. Is the solution to texture theft the potential mass breakage of content? This has the potential to throw out a lot of babies with the bathwater, and the creator of the texture won't be seen as the victim of copyright infringement, but rather "that jerk whose whining broke my build".

Not good.

Just my three cents...-Z

In addition you can make the argument that a blocking notice actually informs people that the content they are using may be infringing, so they can move on to more reputable sources. It makes people care about the issue. Not blocking this content means that the infringing use can continue indefinitely without anyone ever caring. People will discover their houses have blocked walls, their outfits have blocked textures perhaps, or their skins have gone blank. If the blocking notice is informative enough, they can find out why, and they can start to take action to correct it. That sounds like a good thing for everybody, as I don't think most people don't actually want to be using infringing materials by accident.

The main risk I see is DMCA notification griefing. If I hate creator X, I can send in a DMCA notification, causing all content by creator X to be blocked, leading creator X in trouble. Creator X will then have to come up with a counter-DMCA notification. It's important that especially counter notifications can be processed quickly so that such griefing can be countered quickly.

Zorin: In almost every other instance, I'd agree with you that breaking existing content is something LL should avoid at all costs. However, in the case of intellectual property rights, I think breaking content is fair game in order to protect the rights of someone whose rights have been infringed. There's no "good faith" clause to copyright law: just because you didn't know that a certain material you bought or received was unlawfully distributed to you doesn't mean that you get a free pass to use it. It does mean that you're unlikely to actually have to pay damages, but that's mostly because the penalties for a single use of a given copyrighted material are relatively minor. If you don't have the right to use an illegally copyrighted material, you don't, and your use of it shouldn't be defended to the detriment of its copyright holder.

The only other legal loophole I know of that applies here is that of trademark dilution. Trademark dilution law (legal precedent, actually, I think) says that if you don't defend a trademark that's being infringed for a long period, then you can't suddenly start trying to sue everyone who's started using your trademark. For example, "kleenex" is a trademark for tissue, but it's become so commonly used that the trademark holder has mostly lost control over the word and can't suddenly start suing everyone who uses the term as a generic word for tissue.

I don't know whether that kind of dilution even applies to copyright, but if it does, I still don't think it'd apply in the case you've outlined UNLESS the copyright holder was well aware of the fact that the texture was being distributed and purposefully waited for a long time until a large number of people had received and used the texture.

In short, I don't think that putting a few hours into building using a given texture gives you rights that trump the original copyright holder of the texture. If you want to avoid this kind of thing, you should be sure of your right to use a texture before using it.

If I create and upload a texture.. it is assigned a UUID.. if someone steals that texture.. wouldn't it be the same UUID unless they re-uploaded the texture in order to get a different UUID assigned to it?

If it is the same UUID.. then wouldn't that interfere with all the items I built with the texture.. and those who bought it legitimately from me? If it is the same UUID.. then it would make me look like a thief even if I am the original creator / uploader of the texture.

Seems to me it would be easier to find a way to digitally sign the texture with some type of watermark that includes the Avatar name, date and name of the texture.

This way if two textures need to be compared to each other.. LL could extract the digital watermark and compare dates, times and names.

Linden Labs needs teeth when it comes to dealing with issues like this.. just canceling an account.. or telling a person to take down the products/texture and having them re-rez it under an Alt.. LL needs a way to kick the offender from the service completely.. killing account, banning based on payment information etc.. would have more effect than just a take down order.. and would have more effect than blocking UUID's system wide.

Why punish the innocent for the offenses of a few?

Removing UUIDs which are different can and should be done, since it only stops the stolen items. Removing stolen items which use the same UUIDs probably is no good idea. (unless the creators are willing to give a new item to all that were deleted)

In cases where the UUID is the same, but the creator is different its still is possible to distinguish between a real and fake object, (combination of creator and UUID) and if what Lex Neva says is true, it is probably technically possible too to block those.

It would be helpfull if some UUIDs were linked to the creator of an item so if the UUID is used in an object with another listed as creator the object it won't work. (this probably only works for skins and clothing, since in other objects people can add a prim and change the creator)

Lex, could you please give us some more information about the anecdote or the name of the friend? It might help this thread a lot.

And Miss Hera, if you right click on an object - select More - then select More again - you can then select Inspect which will tell you the original creator of every prim in an object.

On DMCA griefing, I do not know whether LL currently notifies the user of the DMCA request before or after they take action. I was assuming after - the DMCA procedure only requires this. The DMCA-ed person can then turn around and file a counter-notification, which can then return the block.

If LL sent that DMCA notification information along to the potential infringer, it'd be a very simple matter for an infringer currently to invalidate the DMCA notification, by moving things to another store (or even just moving things in the same store might confuse the Lindens enough to reject the notification). LL will then do nothing.

Of course if item blocks were to be issued instead, another system could be devised which would get the accused to respond before the block takes effect. It would still be relatively easy for someone who wants to do harm to prepare for the block and start selling items with new UUIDs instead. This means the store would be relatively unaffected - customers would be, and they could then recontact the store and the owner could then issue the new items immediately. It'd be better in that case if the store were directly affected first and repeat-infringers had to respond after the block. It's hard to say how serious an issue DMCA griefing would be at this point.

If a thief steals a texture with the same UUID, then simply blocking the UUID won't be any good, since it will destroy the legal objects too. In NO case that should be done.

But it would still be possible (for skins, clothing etc) to block ONLY the stolen items, by taking into acount the creators name AND the UUID. (UUID + wrong creators name = block object). Then the legal objects will be unaffected, but the wrong ones blocked.

For a prim object it will be harder, since people can add a prim, and thereby list themselves as the creator. But for skins, clothing layers etc, it would be a good solution.

In no case people who bought legal content should be hurt.

Upon getting a DMCA complaint.. the provider MUST remove all alleged infringing content in a timely manner... without judging whether it really is infringing or not.

Upon getting a counterclaim, the provider MUST restore the content in a timely manner... without judging whether it's infringing or not.

After getting the counterclaim, the provider gives each party the other party's contact information, so they can sort it out in court.

It's that simple.

As for DMCA abuse.. the DMCA includes severe penalties for people filing false or frivolous DMCA claims.

I agree that it is a serious matter that should be given full weight. SL should take all sides of this problem into acct. Yes, it is a legal matter and we need a legal answer to it. If content is truely stolen it should be removed/disabled/blocked/etc. I also feel that those who paid in Good Faith for the stolen item should be refunded the money they spent in Good Faith for the item.

Punishment should fit the crime. I agree, banning accts is the way to go for the theif, and let's see the funds, if any, on that banned acct go to refund the purchases and then to damages for the content creators. If SL is going to "police" the issue, they need to also included a way to file a claim against the theif for all victoms of the crime. There should be a time limit in place for this also, ie 30 days or such. The Good Faith consumers are victoms as well as the creators of the stolen items. Why let the theif go on in SL? Ban the acct, block the IP and black list the RL info of the acct (ie cc info, billing address, name etc.).

As far as banning the theif's acct, I believe SL should ban ALL accts from the IP, payment info (cc#, paypal acct, etc) billing adress, any and all RL info as the banned acct. SL should send a strong message to the theives. If 1 theif has 4 accts,for example, all the accts should be banned and any of the above described identifers should be black listed from having future accts. I also think any accts linked this way to the banned acct should be drained of their funds, setting up an escrow acct to fund the claims filed against the theif. Once the set time has elasped, the remaining funds would then be released to the Plaintiff Creator.

I believe it would be a mistake to simply say "settled it in court". That is all fine and dandy for the creator, but SL should honestly keep an eye out for the consumer as well. If its left with "settle it in court" how do we get notified of the the info to do so? What standard is going to be used? Is there going to be an island setup for ppl to go to read the legal notices and receive a notecard from so they too can "go to court"? If its "policed" here, we need to keep it here. If the Legal Creator so chooses RL court, thats their choice. SL needs to put in place a full system for penalties if they go to blocking items which should include a path for consumers. If we make the arguement of RL legal content infringing, we need to also include the fact that ppl use RL $ to fund their purchases (atleast a good portion do) of said infringed content.

Just my own personal thoughts. I am not a creator just yet but please don't dismiss my views. I am a consumer and I do care about this issue.

Don't remove stolen content, but remove ALL permissions for it.

Honest, scammed buyers could keep on using the things they already bought, but further distribution would be blocked.

As far as I can see, this would protect both parties.

I think that is an excellent idea.

However controls should have been put in place years ago before people even started building-

With this system implemented today, any legitimate builder who used a texture in good faith from one of the the many thousands of textures out there from the many texture stores out there could still have their products blocked by buying a full permisions or Copy/ Xfer version of that texture.

I honestly think this problem is much too big for Linden Labs to handle in this manner without doing some serious damage to the SL environment. Unless however some type of reporting and notification could be done and time given so that it would allow creators to take action, repair products before their wares are disabled from being sold.

We have had a "Snowball" effect and I think it's a bigger problem than anyone realizes.

As soon as any object or creation that is distributed with "Full Permissions". Thousands... maybe millions of copies of that product are created in game over time.

I have a much larger problem with "Resell" or "Full Permissions" than I do with SL trying to enforce the DMCA.

Imagine what would happen if people had the ability to sell a Shoe in Real Life for $ .25 with little or no overhead and the person who buys those shoes can duplicate them at will and sell them for whatever they want. What would happen to the price of shoes in general? Everyone would have as many pairs of shoes as they wanted and the companies trying to make a better shoe using more overhead (Like in Research and Development) would go out of business.

The Fact that items can be set with Full permissions for Sale has compounded the problem that is being addressed in this thread.

Besides, we're not just talking about "generic" textures using in building objects, we're talking about skins and clothing textures which are only useful for those purposes and complete objects stolen by abusing past SL bugs. None of these are usable as part of another object, so all of these could have permissions removed without damage to anybody's creative work. (and as for resellers, they can always just go to the original creator and ask for permission to resell as they should have done in the first place; material not explicitely licensed otherwise is considered copyrighted).

One might hold the argument that people may have bought something for resale, not knowing it was stolen. If this happened in real life, you would be legally able to sell such stolen items only as long as you are unaware of them being stolen. So; have LL send every person using the stolen object a message, then remove all permissions; these people couldn't legally sell the objects any more anyway, since now they know it's stolen.

With that said. I don't think anyone has filed a takedown request on a specific UUID located on the Linden Lab Asset server

Please keep this Jira on topic. Your opinion that creators should not be allowed to release their work for free is a pretty radical position and really doesn't have anything to do with this request.

You PROMISED content creators action after you messed up with Copybot, that was YEARS AGO and NOTHING has been done.

Content creators feel as if you've turned your backs on them ... when SL was an infant you needed content and made all sorts of promises, now there's lots of content, so you assume you don't need more.

The copy problem is getting worse, and that proves the theft : original ratio has is going tits up ... many creators are just giving up, you're creating a free-bee platform now, where everything will look the same throughout the grid, and economy will die. WAKE UP.

You need to get a team together and start creating action plans and implement them, without stopping.

That's not true - I know for a fact there was at least one such request. Linden Lab said they removed these, but in fact the assets continued to exist as before. There have also been several attempts to identify UUIDs that were not directly accessible indirectly by specifying a vendor location, but LL has not acted as requested in these cases either.

Want more than just a simple vendor set removed? find the UUID of the stolen content and supply that.

Incidentally ... There ARE ways to get the UUID of an 'infringing item'. The most notable would be using the same software that was used to MAKE the item in the first place. I also remember seeing a few in world items capable of getting UUIDs from just about any object .... And THOSE are well within the Terms of Service!

If all else fails you could petition LL to give you the UUID of an 'infringing' item ..... or just ban all content creation as a whole.

Sorry for the way this sounds .... No I'm not - I have no sympathy for those looking to make their job simpler or who refuse to follow the proper channels and methods.

Please hold all responses until they can be reasoned and well thought out.

Please hold all responses until you have read the previous comments, which explained this already.

At present the DMCA is NOT worded for a program like Second Life.

Barring a lawsuit - which could very well make certain that no one uses second Life at all - your only other recourses are to find a way to work within the system, or petition your lawmakers to reword the DMCA.

My solution in the short term (until case law sorts it out which it must someday) would be to recommend that permissions for an infringing UUID be globally changed to "no-transfer." Purchasers of infringing objects simply loose the right to resell it, while sellers can't sell it at all. This will hurt Business in a Box purchasers who got scammed the most-- I'd like to see an awareness campaign about BIABs in general-- but it seems a fair solution. Perhaps there are instances where this would cause issues for original creators- I think I've seen screenshots of copybot stuff where the original creator remained the same. If so, LL would have to manually create a new record for the item and grant permissions to the copyright holder.

EDIT: When a UUID is set to no-trans all "owners" of that UUID should be notified of the change and why. listens I can hear the database churning already!

Linden Labs is a company that wants to make money. Not a friend that will help us. And not the friendly company they are trying to look like.

Live with theft or give it up. Theft will always be here.. Linden Labs can get away with ignoring it .. did get away with it for over 2 years.. they just will go on the same way they do no. That's how commercial companies work, and thats thats exactly what is going to happen. Abyss' Khai Sinisters beautiful amazing art work already is in the business in a box and if you have a quality shop your work will be there too. Thanks Linden Labs!!!

Ultimately, I'd like to see some way of keying items with the creator's ID and perms such that trying to change those would render the object unusable. A fairly basic public key encryption system could do it. Sell or give away a no transfer item, it's encrypted with the creator's private key and the seller's public one such that they could copy it all they wanted, but that instance of that object would only work for them.