Will this solve the problem of theft? No. We'll always have to deal with it, but something as simple as this is a good first step. It still makes it easy for people to try SL using an unverified account (something LL has stated they want) without completely crippling the experience. It doesn't require anyone to actually pay for their account to get access to the build functionality (just use a credit card and provide some basic information). And it just might take away some of the incentive to steal content (which would be a good first step for LL to show content creators that they are actually listening and build a little trust).

These are simple things that LL could do to be seen as more proactive on the issues of theft. I know that not everyone with no payment is dishonest but in all seriousness anyone who is running a business is bringing real life into SL and taking it back out in the form of real USD funds. They should be willing to name themselves in their private account with Linden Labs and pay their taxes to their government or they shouldn't really be in business anyway. Can I really trust a business person who is unwilling to do that?

While it is not a 'fix' of any kind, it might be cheap and easy to implement. And although it wouldn't thwart a determined thief, it could help reduce some other infractions. A griefer might think twice if they knew they had to wait another 2 months before they could do it again on a new account.

To go more into why it will tank the economy even though new residents will be able to buy items there will be a prohibitive barrier to new creators which will lead to a stagnant economy, you'll end up with the same creators making the same stuff, the same cronyism and price fixing in certain markets (read skins and shapes) as well as with rez restrictions it will severely impact the land market because even if they could buy land they wouldn't have any reason to if they can't build on it and there already has been a backlash to previous ideas such as this such as restricting to payment info on file or payment info used avatars which very few residents (from my experiences) actually use because nobody likes to turn away potential customers and the ones that are notable enough to get any sort of PR buzz don't want the bad effect from using it.

@ Gordon Wendt - You appear to be suggesting that increasing the amount of users with verified payment information (which is what this suggestion would mainly do) would REDUCE the economy? So keeping hoards of unverified accounts who CANNOT bring in new money (earning LL commission), even if they want to, is better? That's comical...

If the economy survived the ban on gambling then it would survive having some limits on unverified accounts. No-one's suggesting restricting access to SL, just the opposite, we need more users. The suggestion is to restrict the facilities unverified accounts can use only until they verify. To get verified you don't have to give a personal history, a professional reference and a vital body organ - just a credit card number or a PayPal account.

The single thing which will do the most damage to creativity within SL, and therefore the economy, is theft. Stealing someone's work and selling it cheap (or free) destroys the value of that work, both financially and creatively - and if your objects will have no real value in SL why would you bother making them in the first place? Theft also reduces prices, which sounds great, but that also reduces the amount of money entering SL, reduces the transactions on Lindex, killing one of LL's main revenue streams and again, kills one big incentive to create in SL because you can't make any real money from doing it.

Thieves ideally need two things to succeed - opportunity and anonymity - currently SL gives them both. We can fix the bugs (but not the features) that allow content theft AND we can limit the anonymous while still leaving the platform open for everyone to use.

There's a simple unavoidable rule for every platform - CONTENT IS KING. Users, and their spending money, follow the content. In SL the content is all made by the residents. If that content is not protected and valued the residents who make it will just leave. Then SL has no new content worth a damn and all that's left are the griefers, the thieves and the trolls swapping the same old stolen freebies. That just might have a slight effect on the economy too...

How about this for an alternative suggestion? Make accounts under a certain age or without payment info on file unable to set objects for sale or receive L$ via a script in an object they own. But leave their ability to receive L$ via scripted objects owned by others so things such as money trees still work properly and give newbies the chance to obtain L$ and participate in the economy/society. This will also allow those who are new to SL or don't want or can't verify their account at the time, the ability to use the many creative tools in SL such as scripting, building and Texturing.

-Eristic, you have a better sense of humor than me then, but bringing new money into the economy isn't the only way to stimulate it, money creates wealth as it moves around and even though they can't bring money in they can get paid for goods they make and then spend that money for goods or services which stimulates the economy, or I could be entirely wrong on this I don't make myself to be an economic expert and may be entirely wrong so let me know if I'm mistaken.

The fact that you can close others issues I wasn't aware of until after I posted my comment...but didn't want to edit cause I just couldn't bring myself to silence you when obviously posting your little flaming comments in here seems to be so important to you. The fact that you would think it ok for you to close someone else's issue/feature because you disagree just shows your lack of respect for anyone else's opinions or views.

Anyways back to the legitimate discourse.........

I would create a new proposal suggesting this approach but the many different proposals on here make the likelihood of any of them accomplishing their goals unlikely and who knows, this proposal may already exist somewhere in the jumble that is Jira.

AFAIK there are only a few ways to actually grow the economy, one of the main ways is to get more Premium members because they stimulate the land market and the stipend that Linden pay each week is new money that gets added into the economy (i think, correct me someone?). The recent announcements about ad-farms and the Public Works projects are pretty significant. Linden are losing Premium accounts instead of gaining more, not good, it's a major revenue stream which also drives and grows the economy. So suddenly they're clearing up and beautifying the mainland to make owning land there more attractive. Did anyone think these initiatives were introduced to please the residents? OK, maybe partly they are...we've been complaining about ad-farms long enough.

Now we need to get their attention about content theft, make everyone realise how important that is to the economy and get some constructive changes made, not necessarily this one (altho' i think it would help and be less painful to implement than it first sounds) but something needs to change, or we'll start losing the stuff that makes SL fun in the first place.

Bugs need to be reported and bug-fixing should be a given, but new features are up for discussion and linking them together makes some sense - out of all the suggestions might come a way forward.

Uhm, this issue is linked to texture theft because it suggests removing upload/download facilities from unverified accounts, the link seems pretty obvious... Anyway, the linked issue is also about the wider problems of content theft and how we might deal with that, it's all part of the same discussion.

The point of verifying is to create a situation where if an account steals or distributes stolen content then it can be traced back to a RL person and appropriate action taken. It's a disincentive to steal, it's never going to stop it, just make it less likely because you can no longer steal anonymously. It's got NOTHING to do with how much money you have. I've never known a single student that doesn't already have a credit or debit-card - unless they're still in high school and shouldn't be on the main grid anyway.

How this tiered-access idea would work (or not work) on the teen grid is a very good question...

Anyhow, I'd gladly agree on enabling landowners to toggle restrictions like these on their land, but not on forcing it worldwide (well, except file uploading?... just maybe). I've been doing lots of content-creating jobs for my friends (mostly building but also occasional creation of textures and scripts), and this wouldn't have been possible without SL's openness.

Certainly there has to be a non-payment-based way to verify a Second Life account, as highlighted in http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-127 and while i'm not a fan of the threatened age-verification system maybe it could work as a fallback for users who didn't have (or don't want to share) CC or other payment info? Maybe it could also work for the teen grid, or teens when they get full access to the main grid (assuming this happens)?

Switchable build restrictions already exist for landowners so for this suggestion to have any point it has to be grid-wide. We're not suggesting closing down easy access to SL or to building, both would be fatal for SL. It's just about trying to encourage every genuine user to verify using basic payment (or equivalent) info and denying anonymity for those that come to steal.

It's a safe bet that anyone engaging in content theft won't be a newbie still struggling to make sense of prim shoes, and will have been around SL for some considerable time. It is also a very safe bet that where a stolen article can be traced to a new, unverfied avatar, this avatar will be an alt account of someone who has a much older, verified account as well. You may block their noob avatar from building and uploading, but how will this stop a thief from logging in with a premium account, stealing your skin or your gadget, building/tinkering with it to their heart's content--and then transfering it, perms-free, to an unregistered avatar for distribution? It wouldn't take the thieves very long to figure this one out.

Any proceeds an unverified avatar might receive from selling items in SL would seemingly be locked up in L$ without the benefit of a related Paypal account through which to cash out. Sooner or later, such money would presumably have to be laundered via transfer to a verified avatar. What this means is that if LL were to follow the money trail, it would lead directly to an easily traceable RL individual.

Fallinmy Webb makes an important point about restricting certain forms of transaction--this should have the added advantage of blocking some of the scriptie money scans that have appeared from time to time.

IMHO there is an urgent need for it to be possible to AR content theft and stolen items when they show up, and for LL to then take action against all accounts that can be shown to be connected with the scam (easily verified through transaction records.)

Another thing LL could do is to delete, say, a stolen skin or outfit from the purchasers' inventories. If those willing to buy stolen goods were to be made aware that the stuff could be 'confiscated', they'd think twice about supporting the thieves with their custom.

All such remedies would have the great advantage of not penalizing the (vast) majority of honest new players, or hampering new creativity.

IMHO everything necessary to trace and block offenders is already in place--except the wholehearted cooperation of LL. IOW what is needed here is for the Lindens to start taking content theft more seriously.

"...how will this stop a thief from logging in with a premium account, stealing your skin...and then transfering it, perms-free, to an unregistered avatar for distribution?" You answered you own question, under this system you could only re-upload the ripped texture using a verified account, the texture is then tagged and it doesn't matter who distributes it, the original thief is logged and traceable.

Linden cannot follow any money trails out of SL, they're not the FBI, they can only trace questionable transactions back to a user account - wouldn't it be better if that account was verified and therefore linked to a RL identity? That's the point of this suggestion.

No-one's being punished under this suggestion. All you're being asked for is simple ID verification using payment info - not a kidney and your first-born child - just a credit card number or equivalent. If Linden start confiscating previously stolen content from users' Inventory THEN you risk punishing innocent people - especially noobs who didn't know any better. New users are going to get pretty sick of their paid-for items being reclaimed by the Linden Police, that's not exactly making them feel welcome. It's about prevention not cure.

Who are we trying to protect here? If we're suggesting that forcing people to verify their account before being allowed to build is somehow hampering creativity then that suggests there is a significant group of users who are:

A/ Enthusiastic to create and build within SL
B/ Desperate to keep their RL identity secret

Who are these people? If you're here to contribute, create, share or to profit in Second Life then why is it so important no-one ever finds out who you are? You exist here with a fake name, a virtual body and your RL personal details are kept secret from other users. You can be whoever and whatever you want and you can tell other users whatever you choose. But still that's not enough anonymity for some people? Why?

Sorry, but I think it's better to try and protect the interests of the builders, designers and scripters making and sharing original content than hordes of anonymous users. After all, if there isn't a flow of new exciting content in SL there won't be many users.

I SUGGEST, as an immediate and EASY step towards this, that LL restrict file uploads to only those with payment info on file.

This can be done with a few lines of code.

It also starts giving much needed protection to content creators.

Those with no payment info, can still build etc and use in-world textures. But at least from that day on, any uploaded assets will have valid payment info associated.

This will not work as long as there is no global method of verifying and identifying people. This has been shown by the spectacular failure of Age Verification for a vast number outside the US. Unlike the US, many countries have Data Protection laws, where such personal data is not accessible. They do not plaster personal info all over the web like in the US. Thus many of us have failed Age Verification because being outside the US, a US company like Aristotle cannot access such things as driver license and passport number databases, as they are government databases, and certainly not accessible to a foreign commercial company.

You need to think outside the box of the USA, and realise not everybody does things the same as the US, and since far more users live outside the US than in, US-centric solutions should not be used.

I myself am a NPIOF, but am still a creator and been running a business in SL for over a year. It is a PayPal Europe (not Linden) restriction on verifying accounts that stops me being a Premium and having Payment Info On File. In most countries outside the US and UK, credit card usage and ownership is much lower, because their economies are not based on consumer credit spending. And yet cc is the sole method for verifying that PP Europe uses in a lot of countries, whether they have your bank account details or not (and they have mine, still insufficient, maybe for legal reasons if they do not have an office in France, I don't know). As an example, PP Europe accepts the debit card of just one of the 27 EU countries, the UK (PP Europe was headquartered in UK before Luxembourg) and from no other. Aside from possibly being anti competitive, LL should not choose solely Europhobic service providers. I'm hoping the new extra international payment methods will aid in this, but it is not a total solution nor global.

It's not wanting to be anonymous, or even rip people off, it's simply that within the very narrow limits LL and PP has, an awful lot of people simply cannot verify with either Linden Lab, PayPal or Aristotle. And I've tried every which way I can tell you lol. 5 pieces of both French and British ID have failed, there is no other I can use. In France, outside of a cc (unlikely to get one if I apply as I am unemployed RL atm) the only way is to provide official documentation that you are a registered RL business in France, and getting that status is not trivial. Similar rules apply in other countries, even those that are so-called "full service countries" in the PP list.

Non-Premiums outnumber Premiums about 5 to 1 in any case, so you cannot assume that 80% of all users are criminals. I can tell you, many Premiums are more criminal than NPIOFs eg illegal casinos, land scammers, bank and stock exchange owners etc lol.

Verification can be implemented in various ways, and it could be a combination of those.

The goal here is for accountability in identifying / finding a thief. The added benefit is the ability to properly ban an out-and-out trouble-maker (by the ability of ID'ing them when they try create another account).

No-one is assuming that all non-premiums are criminals. I'm a non-premium. But the point is once someone knows they can be traced, they will think seriously about theft.

For many, the thrill of theft purely because they cannot currently be traced, makes the problem worse than it should be.

I guess this is another reason new startups are a big threat to SL. SL has a majority of anonymous users, many of who will oppose attempts to identify them, while a startup would have it as a rule from day one : identify yourself or don't play / play with restrictions ... you'll be surprised how many users will find a way to identify themselves in that case.

1) The suggestion is not to stop building for unidentified users, just stop uploading (as copied content gets uploaded). So anyone will still be able to build (premium or free user), and use the zillions of free textures available in-world etc, or buy better ones.

2) As for having a basic account, that should not be an issue ... I have one too. So no-one is suggesting only premium account holders can upload, the suggestion is to prevent unidentified users uploading. That does not mean you need to be a premium user:
a) You can get PIOF (payment info on file) without being a premium user.
b) It is also suggested that LL implement alternative means for users to ID themselves ... which would make it possible for even those who for some obscure reason don't want PIOF to register.
Should someone not want to do either (a) or (b), then I don't see why they should be allowed the freedom of destroying honest peoples businesses (and I'm not saying all do).

These measures will still give everyone the freedom to make their choice and still be able to create, regardless.

3) As for the statement you were upset about, I never made it, but "value" does not necessarily mean financial. If you build something to admire, give to your friends etc, it still has value. As soon as you put effort into creating something it has value.

What a boring SL it would be should theft continue as it is .... every sim would look the same as the next, and everyone would have the same toys ... boredville. No-one would be interested in investing in property either ... what for? ... Nothings unique. I'm surprised people don't get that.

IAm Zabelin, please let me address your objections to my previous post.

1) the ability to upload textures is a basic requirement for many people who are building in SL. if i cannot find the texture i need inworld i create one and upload it. if uploading textures would be disabled for unidentified account holders it would hinder thousands of residents to continue being creative in the way they have always been used to.

2) i understood the suggestion but like me there are many others who don't want to get PIOF. IDing is tied up with giving payment info via credit card which i couldn't do since i don't even have one. what does giving and verifying information about myself have to do with payment information and a credit card number? although i believe in the right of privacy i would give information about myself if there were other methods implemented and only if it is the only way to prevent my account from getting stripped of some very basic functions and abilities.

3) the statement i was upset about were not made by you IAm Zabelin, it was the original poster of this issue who made it very clear that being creative only makes sense for him when it is tied up with financial profit (see his reply to Gordon Wendt in the 5th post). a statement that doesn't surprise me anymore after i saw the 495 L$ 11prim shower with freebie poses/anims and the public domain MLP which btw gives a script error when you want to demo it.

If you have an issue or comment to make about my products (or indeed anyone else's) then make it to me directly or in an appropriate forum. Your comment is childish, inaccurate and a bit pathetic. Worst of all it has NOTHING to do with this issue.

My earlier comment was not meant to imply that financial gain was the only reason for making things in Second Life but if you took it that way it's your problem. At the end of the day It's an opinion, nothing more, take it or leave it - at least it was relevant to the subject matter discussed here.

Now go and grow up. I think we can all see why you wouldn't want to verify your account...

Often JIRA's like these which are extremely important are purposely overlooked by LL in the hope the owner will get frustrated / lose hope, and eventually just give-up.

That doesn't mean we should give up - every once in a while there is success, and without trying there never will be.

IP Protection is extremely important, and LL is beginning to realize that. Unfortunately for them they may have taken a little too long and it is going to have a massive impact on their business - there are startup competitors launching in the not too distant future which most of the hard-core content creators will grab at which will lead to a massive intellectual drain from SL ... and users to enjoy that content will follow. But thats their business and they made that choice.

As for any users who disagree with this, we welcome your feedback - thats exactly what its designed for, and I'll be happy to use it to discuss the issues.

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@Theoretical Chemistry : Your (2) opinion agrees with what is suggested.

No-one is suggesting PIOF is the only way to ID users, and LL will have to put an alternative in place BEFORE they implement anything like this. We know that and agree.

Therefore users that have either PIOF or will ID themselves by a yet undefined method, can have the responsibility of taking ownership for what they upload and not destroy other peoples businesses.

BTW it is not necessary to upload to build well, I know many really good creators in SL, and some of them hardly ever upload ... its cheaper to buy textures in SL mostly. But yes, most creators will want to upload, which is good ... they would also be responsible enough as you have said you would be - to ID themselves.

To leave it open for anonymous users to copy at will is pathetically crippled, short-sighted, and out of context with the fundamentals of SL. If a user is not willing to even ID themselves (not necessarily have PIOF), why should they have the ability to create a free account today and destroy 100 businesses tomorrow?

Couple of points i've learned and which might make this item a bit redundant - warning, i'm no lawyer so these are 'subject to confirmation'.

Linden's stance (or lack of it) on IP theft is based on legal advice not on their actual views. They are currently sheltering within the legal loophole introduced for ISP's - this exempts ISP's from full responsibility for the content carried on their networks. If Linden actively start editing or changing content they could be found to be in breach of that status and to be assuming legal responsibility for all content. This is possibly why, when they get a DMCA notice about stolen content, they only take down the vendors in one reported location rather than block the item's UUID inworld, removing it completely. They cannot afford to appear to take widespread responsibility for content, they'd then be wide open to litigation from all sorts of aggrieved parties and it would probably kill SL pretty quickly. Apparently it may be highly debatable that Linden deserve ISP status, but nonetheless they've assumed it for themselves.

There is a lot of talk about SL as if it's some sort of new virtual democracy or nation unto itself - this is incredibly naïve, SL is a commercial platform run by a private company. Our rights within SL are basically limited to those of any other consumer - we have a right to expect a decent level of service for our money etc but rights to upload, download or create content are not automatic - they're granted by Linden as long as it makes commercial sense for them to do so and they'll be revoked if/when it makes similar economic sense. Likewise altho' Linden will currently uphold everyone's copyright on original content they're not obliged to - remember the current T&C's still allow Linden to take and use anyone's content for anything they want.

It may already be too late for SL - as you said the competitors are launching with better content-protection in place or build-tools limited to approved content creators. As long as Linden pretend to be an ISP they can't do the same thing, they've tied their own hands. Either way any changes made in SL will be made for commercial reasons and not because of jira posts, that much is obvious. Maybe the new CEO has the courage to be unpopular enough to make some big changes but somehow I doubt it - the last one didn't.

@IAm, textures are not just about builders they are also about clothes designers. Maybe it is impossible to rip a clothes texture, but if it is possible this is much more serious than ripping a building texture. Once someone has my clothes texture they just go to Edit Appearance and create the exact same article of clothing.

IAm wrote
BTW it is not necessary to upload to build well, I know many really good creators in SL, and some of them hardly ever upload ... its cheaper to buy textures in SL mostly. But yes, most creators will want to upload, which is good ... they would also be responsible enough as you have said you would be - to ID themselves.

I would say that free accounts should rather have limits, this is best done as an inventory limit and login limits during peak times (the latter is already discussed by LL). They should not have the ability to possess unlimited inventory. A cap per day and a total cap would be good. Make the cap so that it doesn't stop the casual user, but it does stop someone who floods their inventory in a short space of time - often a sign of theft.

I hesitate strongly to limit build and rez without offering many paths to lift limits for legitimate foreign users. Many many users in SL cannot give payment info due to where in the world they reside, and no other reason. Many of them are rent paying landowners on private sims > you don't notice them perhaps but I do out in private sims. They are there, and they are many. And many many of them are not making money via selling content. I know some who make money by managing sims, managing blogs, and many other business ventures which involve rendering services inworld and nothing to do with content creation. Also remember that many corps have npiof avatars simply because they are corporate accounts with specific roles to perform in the organisation.

So, yeah I find this onerous. Somehow we need to be able to link npiof accounts to paid accounts if in fact they are an alt of a paid account or a corporate account as mentioned above.