Every uploaded texture should have a pixel-by-pixel comparison with existing textures. Given the optimistic assumption that the vast majority of textures uploaded are varied and different, the "first pass" algo can be just a general "rough scan-thru" of the pixel contents. In the rare case of an exact duplicate, perhaps provide the second-hand-uploader with the name of the person who first uploaded the texture.

On a tangent issue, full-mod builds often have their creators nullified, when the next owner links his own prim as the root prim. The system should also be modified so that creator does not change after transfer.

In this case, the thief will have a copy of the texture on their hard drive. Now short of searching everyone's hard drive for images, which is a massive invasion of privacy, unfeasible, and possibly illegal, there is not much that can be done about this.

Deleting the objects from inventory would be rather ineffective, as it can simply be reuploaded..

Option 3 is crackable, too. not to mention that this would make it impossible to trade images around and download them from SL.

And ina. Really. What. Do you have any idea how many textures are in SL. A pixel by pixel comparison is an intensive thing to do or a single image. Comparing an image with each of the millions of textures in SL, would result in exponentially increasing delays on every upload. I'm not sure how long, but probably several hours/days.

I share your concern for this cause, but I'm not seeing what can really be done about this. The only real option is legal action.

recap: pixel-by-pixel isn't necessary for vast majority of cases due to dissimilarity in textures.

A "first pass" scan could randomly select 20 pixels in comparison with pixels of existing data. If different, then keep; otherwise, "second pass" it; etc.

About the skins you see here. It would be very simple for LL to remove these rips without searching everyones inventory.

• • • Simply grab one of these ripped skins, get the UUIDs of the 3 textures used and delete these textures from the asset server ***

When someone tries to wear the skin they will just see "missing image" textures. We already saw this happen when LLs garbage collection was marking assets for deletion by accident.

I'm willing to bet all the rips you see here are probably only 1 or 2 different texture sets. It wont stop anyone re-uploading textures but its a GREAT start

There is one solution that MIGHT help in the specific instance of clothing, skins, etc, although I can already see problems. Right now, the reason it's so easy to copy clothing items including skins is that the base texture used to create the item is sent to each client. Your client merges all clothing layers used on your avatar and sends the result back to the server for distribution to everyone near you. This is called "Baking". Since those individual clothing textures are sent to your computer, it's possible to intercept them and reupload them to make a full-perms version of the clothing item.

The baking system was implemented back when processing power was a little more expensive, and LL had a little less to work with. It was decided that efficiency required the computationally expensive process of baking to be done on the client side rather than on the server. I have heard mention by Lindens in town halls that perhaps it's feasible to do baking on the server side by a few special servers dedicated to the task. One advantage this would have would be that the actual clothing textures would never need to be sent all the way out to users' computers; just the baked texture. This means that there's less to steal.

It'd probably still be possible to steal skins if this method were in place, because the baked texture created by the server would probably very closely resemble the source image for the skin in question. Other items like clothing wouldn't be as easy to reproduce, especially if they had transparency, because the transparent portions would be merged into the rest of the person's outfit, including underlayers and skin.

So it's not a perfect solution, and I'm dubious as to whether the benefits outweigh the need fo rmore processing power at LL and development work. However, this is the only technical solution that is even remotely feasible and useful for mitigating the theft of clothing textures. Any other solution like those described above is pointless, especially given the fact that the client is open-source.

Yes, people can still reupload the textures, but it WILL stop the massive spread of stolen items though full permission shops and resell. It will be a good step.

If this stealing will go on, it may ruin a big part of secondlifes business. If people can get the highest quality skins for free, who would still buy the originals? It also kills business for any skin business, because who would still pay for any normal skin if they can get the highest quality skins for free?

So many items are beeing stolen nowadays, it's just a matter of time till all popular skins, clothings, texture based furniture, tatoos, houses will be stolen and turn into freebie.

• Off course Linden labs can do more than they do now. Its crazy if people have to remove their item after a DMCA and can put it back 10 minutes later because they still have in in their inventory. 95% of people selling stolen items are NOT the rippers themselves, so they could not reupload them, since they do not have the original textures. Most of them are (full perm) resellers or newbies in malls. Can you still find a mall in secondlife where the skins on top of the page arent sold for 5-25$? This wide spreading is a huge problem, not just the ripping alone.

• Getting the UUIDs of the textures used and deleted these textures from the asset server, would delete al of the illegal copies at once, so a shop owner would not have to file hundreds of DMCAs against all people reseling their skins and start hundreds of law suits against all of those people (most resellers do not even knowing they are selling stolen items). It's impossible to sue all resellers too. The ripper may be the one that caused the problem, but the resellers that are spreading items for bottom prices that hurt the original creators most and should be stopped too. Also, it would save the lindens a lot of time, not having to go through hundreds DMCAs for copies of the same rip.

• In many cases it may be impossible to track down the original ripper, this person could create/have a basic membership which does not have any info about who they are in real life. Who are you going to sue then?

Given that, along with a simple UUID asset deletion of the stolen texture, going after the creator of the texture will lead straight to the person who stole it. The creator of textures, clothing etc..basically anything non-prim, cannot be faked. Of course it is to be assumed that the one who stole it simply used an alt account. Going after the people who sell the thing or buy it is bad..as Fluf said, many false positives. Bad bad bad.

Removal of the uuid-grabber in the client is senseless..it can simply be reapplied via patch, and you cannot redistribute a texture via its mere uuid anyways. 3rd party programs cannot be blocked out due to the same process...apply patch, and it's circumvented.

The only solution on the LL side would indeed be a better way to report stolen goods...the main problem here is...it's hard not to make that abusable. A new texture store opens, mischievous person comes along, steals all textures, uploads and claims to be the real creator. Depending on how much of a smooth talker the thief is, things might not go well for the original creator. Never underestimate the cruelty of the corrupted to get what they want. The only way to reduce that possibility is to have LL check the creation date. I am however not sure if that gets stored internally for textures. I really hope it is.

Given the fact that abuse reports already suffer a huge delay and are usually considered useless already if a single person complaints, the question remains if this new process would be done in an effective manner in the first place. Also fake or revenge-driven complaints come to mind that just would stress and overload the team handling those.

Meh. This is just hard to handle, all in all.

1. Ripping textures is trivial. I won't explain how for obvious reasons, just telling you that it's very easy and Linden Labs has no control over this. No amount of technical magic Linden Labs can do will stop this, short of letting the GPU burn cycles (and even than it probably wouldn't be to hard for the rippers to adjust).

2. Folllowing from the above, blocking at upload is the only way to ensure copyright compliance. Any technical solution must therefore be able to make comparisons, know about rights for original texture and the newly uploaded texture, and somehow magically know that the uploaded texture is in fact created (imagine a texture taken from images.google.com) by the uploader and the original uploader has any rights to claim copyright at all. In short; a technical solution would either be too lax, overly strict or just straight from 2000 years into the future.

3. Determining copyright is hard for many textures. Skins are specific to the Second Life game engine, and as such somewhat more easy (assuming they aren't mangled beyond recognition), but other types of textures can be much harder to assess.

4. Therefore, the only way to effectively and fairly deal with these issues, is by human processes. Luckily, there's one in place already; the DMCA! Which brings us to...

5. For some odd reason, LL seems to ignore pretty much all DMCA notices from in-game companies. Why they do this is beyond me as they are taking a huge legal and financial risk by not following DMCA notices. LL claims DMCA notices are the only way to handle copyright disputes yet ignores most, whilst many would be very easy to validate and even blindly following DMCA notices is legally completely save for LL. Quite frankly I'm just waiting for somebody to sue LL over an ignored DMCA notice. If the notice was valid, LL would be in deep shit, but that's a different matter.

6. Deleting (or more likely, replacing) textures can be a massive problem for the social structure of SL. Imagine a basic texture which is ripped and then sold, then bought by an unsuspecting builder and used in some object which is then sold to another person. That person would suddenly have a crippled object which she paid for, and for which she did no wrong. Obviously there's a guilty party somewhere, but it could be buried deep between layers of perfectly honest and unsuspecting vendors and builders. Imagine the impact it would have on the SL world if textures would be deleted. Obviously LL has incentive to NOT do anything about DMCA complaints for textures.

Make your own conclusions.

Personally, I think this is something LL needs to sort out for itself. Does it want to increase the scale of economy or does it want to milk the current economy. Currently they seem to prefer the status quo.

It's not just the ripper that should be stopped, but even more the reselling of items.

Rippers are already beeing deleted. This topic is about stopping the spread of stolen items which is killing business, about stopping the reselling of items from people who rely on teir creations for a real life job from becoming freebie, destroying their business. Its about stopping the massive violation of DMCAs which linden labs does virtually nothing about.

Having every popular item for free may sounds nice to newcomers but will destroy skin business in secondlife on the longer term. Who still wants to create a skin knowing it's only a matter of time till it will be stolen?

Linden Labs halfhearted way of 'reporting DMCAs but leaving the stolen items inworld' is doing nothing to stop items from beeing sold.

The spreading should be stopped and that's what this topic is about. Let's stay on topic.

Durilka Voom is selling stolen X2 skins at Royier (105, 106, 95) listing her as the CREATOR meaning she is the ripper too. She has her payment info on her file, so Secondlife knows who she is

I have reported it to the X2 creator, and hope my message arrived

now we finally can see what SL really does with rippers. This ripper deserves a permanent ban!

Linden Labs has two options.

1. Act fast and hard upon DMCA complaints. Immediately scan for and remove/mangle all copies of infringing textures and upsetting innocent buyers who'll loose money and whose only recourse would be with the person they bought the stolen texture from. Block the account of the thief and rebursing customers and/or copyright owner with the account's funds if the thief does not file a DCMA counter-complaint within the allotted time. Though most likely the account won't hold sufficient funds.

2. Not act and end up seeing all the best content providers and builders leave SL. Even if they won't leave SL immediately, they'll leave as soon as an alternative comes along and at the very least will probably stop making new content, possibly risk the negative media attention that SL is effectively a copyright thief's paradise, thus discouraging new content providers to start and eventually marginalizing the skin texture market and losing money.

It's a long term vs. short term scenario. If SL wants to keep profitting from the skin texture creators, it needs to act as described in 1 (which is normal in real-life) and start handling DMCA complaints as DMCA regulations require them to do.

Option A: A creator watermarks his/her textures upon upload or in-game (optional). If this texture were hacked, and the hacker tried to re-upload the texture into his/her SL, the feature would be able to read and recognize that this texture was already uploaded and watermarked, and either crash the game or fail the upload. Creators could have lists of approved up-loaders (in case they would like to share their watermarked textures with another resident or alternate account.) Any resident would also be able to re-upload their own textures at any point.

If option A is too complicated, option B would be: LL creates a system where any chosen uploaded texture could be marked, never to be uploaded again by anyone. It would prevent anyone from hacking an in-game texture, but unlike Ina's idea still allow users to upload similar/same images, (say two users found a free one online) and take far less time to recognize. The option to protect your texture from being re-uploaded would be optional. Uploading a watermark-free texture would still be possible for those wishing to give them out on full perms for people to modify and use.)

Again, I have no clue about how any of this could work. It's an idea.

LL's total lack of concern over the needs of the content creators in SL dooms it. In the end, I see a world owned by a few, created by Electric Sheep, populated with adverstising for IBM et al and enjoyed only by those who's sole purpose for coming into it is to create havoc.

The best way to be safe in SL is to not sell your creations. If you choose to start a business here and you become popular I guess you have to except that this is going to happen , you really have no other choice.If you decide to fight for what is yours as Lost and I have,you may not like the consequences.We have been stalked and harrassed mercilessly wich has not been limited to just our Second Life but has followed us to our pesonal email . It is quite impossible to run a business under these conditions.We have not given up, but all of this has certainly taken away any joy we once felt and has definately hampered our creative energies.We pay thousands of dollars each month for accounts we can barely log in on .

Be aware that when you do file DMCA's with certain exchanges for SL that if a counter claim is filed your personal information is sent to the person you filed against .This is fine if they are a normal rational person ,unfortunately we really do not know the people in wich we are dealing with nor what they are capable of .Personally I do not want my home phone number and address given to anyone in Second Life or any one on the net for that matter unless Im the one giving it to them.Sure, you get their personal information in return, but what happens when you have 10 counter claims and 10 diff people have your personal information how are you to know who happens to be the one with the screw loose .

1) Person finds a copied texture
2) Person enters the copy's UUID and the Original's UUID in a form
3) They are compared, and if identical, the one with the later creation date (assuming this is known, this won't work fairly otherwise) is deleted from the asset server.
4) If the textures are very similar within a certain tolerance, they are flagged for Linden-human examination, prioritised on how similar.

Another idea would be to, while not examining every texture at upload time, have a process running on each simulator that compares textures randomly in CPU idle time whenever the simulator is under low load.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/02/14/opengl-copying-and-stealing/

" One example is the concept of first use. Linden Lab is currently making changes to
make it easier to determine who originally created an asset and its creation
date. While much of this data currently
exists, it isn't displayed in the UI. By
exposing this data, it will be much easier for residents in a conflict to be
able to clearly determine which texture or object was created first,
simplifying conflict resolution for all parties involved."

Almost 2 years ago linden lab was working on this, and thinking about other options for this problem (read full post). I would like to know if there has been progress in this?

Ultimately, nothing can really stop it. But that will at least cause inconvenience, and reduce the spread.

I'd personally like to see that dante skin asset lasered in any case. I'm sick of seeing it on each and every gangster wannabe, businessman, beach bum, and thousands of other guys all over, all looking identical, and not even realising it.

ugh.

When the texture is stolen, the original creator can prove its his texture his own creation to the lindens, which the ripper cant since they dont have the original photos and in between versions of creating the texture to prove they made it. So when a store sells items which are stolen they cannot prove the created it and LL knows these are illegal copies. Then SL can delete all illegaly copied textures since they all will have a different UUID from the original one, the ones with the rippers UUID will be deleted. That would be a good and working system.

I would not mind if i would have to pay for the cost of adding myself in the database, or for the costs of the extra work for the linden to delete the UUID, because if the skin remains to be spread I will lose even more money. Having people tpay, and only allowing people with payment info in would be a good idea, so only serious people will apply and when they do LL knows who they are in real life.

The way of sueing people by this system compared to tthe DMCA now is:
1) far more effective, since all copies can be deleted at once
2) This way it doesnt costs us our privacy like sueing by DMCA where every single reseller can counterfile and get our RL indentity
3) its easier for the lindens since they dont have to do hundreds of DMCAs over the same item

Its basically the same idea the lindens came up with and I think its a pretty good idea!

Any Linden?

The texture upload process damages the resolution of textures. Therefore watermarks will be damaged and Stenography may not be feasible given the nature of it's process that introduces noise.

Therefore a texture registry sounds good. Textures would have to be submitted outside SL and the associated reference uploaded texture UUId attached to the record.

In this way a dispute can be handed off to a legal concern outside of LL's property and the entire discovery process can be shortened.

There are technical issues. A mask would have to be made and only certain areas within the mask area be XOR'd, a process that done properly, is nearly instantaneous. Otherwise a smear or 2 in the non used portions of the image area will be sufficient to fool the bitwise comparison. This sort of technology is 10 years old so by today's standards XOR comparisons of images will not be much of a load on anything.

An interesting side note is whether or not LL is legally an internet service provider given the system is closed. If LL is not legally an ISP then LL is not protected by DMCA Safe Harbor provisions and may be liable for content theft. Therefore it is in LL's best interest to take the high ethical ground on this matter and staff the resources necessary to maintain a registry of offenders using the metadata they have from connections and transactions and ensure no reconnection to SL is possible. This also means LL may have to totally exclude Nigeria, Iran, and Brazil, to name the most prominent few, from SL by means of IP range banning as the practice of "internet cafe" use to avoid identities is common and apparently acceptable by those governments. (Most identity theft comes from Nigeria according to the information available on the web). Yes there is IP spoofing but only the most serious professional criminals will go this route for a few pennies out of sl. content theft in sl has the emerging precedence of the criminals not exactly being that smart and in general are fairly arrogant and ignorant about the reality of law. When I was a game host service provider i eliminated 99% of all my security problems by banning certain countries following the model used by godaddy to reduce the workload. When a country has manifested itself as one that does not deal with internet related crime that country no longer gets any content.

I know some people will argue against a proactive approach but thats life on the internet. Latest word is a lot of Nigerian ID theft operations are moving to Iran because Iran is now assumed to be safe harbor for anyone attacking the west.

I won't be expecting LL to take any action. Rosedale paid lip service to the issue long ago and ultimately worked in the direction of trying to acquire safe harbor exclusion from liability instead of dealing with a serious problem thrusting it upon the designers. Should LL elect to not grow some ethics and begin dealing with this and other growing content theft issues then it is certain that the "metaverse" run by LL will never be a viable platform for anything except amateur criminal activities.

good luck with it. you will need it.

• Modern digital image watermarks do survive resolution changes and JPEG (and other) mangling. On the other hand, currently all digital image watermarking method published have already been hacked.

• XOR based dupe checks require all compared pixels to be perfectly identical. Even if you check only the non-transparent pixels, it'd still be trivial to sufficiently change the image to fool any decent XOR-based dupe check. Besides, XOR would offer no benefit above simply comparing pixels for this purpose. Even fuzzy-based checks would be trivial to circumvent without damaging the esthetics of the texture.

• ISP protection allows the ISP to remove content when prompted by DMCA without liability. Not having this protection would only make LL less likely to remove DMCA-reported content than now. Though it's hard to see how much less likely they could be.

IMHO, LL should just listen to DMCA reports, verify manually whether the textures do indeed seem to be copies, then just remove them. Really, how difficult could that be?

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1919

lets target this post at coming up with ways to get rid of the textures from outside! These will have a different UUID, so I tstill think it would be possible to just erase their UUIDs. But I guess LL doesn't wants hundreds of mad customers who payed for a skin to wear in some illegal shop getting their skin erased, so why not go for a more friendly approach. Let people have what they bought, but disable them from reselling it. Selling ripped textures is illegal right? (after a DMCA) . So why not set all objects which contain textures which are known to be illegal to no transfer?
Then people could still keep what they have, no mad customers, but it will stop the resell of any further illegal objects.
Maybe this can be done in the new object search: add an extra feature in it so it scans the objects into boxes too. Then when an object i found with an illegal UUID

1) an email can be sent to the original creator so he knows which resellers sell his stuff so he can sue them with a DMCA. (give him the coordinates of where the objects were found)

2) Send an email to the reseller (owner of the things for sale, is in most cases not the ripper) so he knows his objects are illegal rips and he can be DMCAed if he keeps selling them.

3) or even better: set the illegal objects to no transfer and send an email to the owner of the shop telling him why his object is set to no transfer. This way customers who bought it can still use their skin, but they cant resell it anymore (which they arent allowed to anyway since its a rip)

The DMCA actually requires that the hosting provider remove the content without regard to whether they think its infringing or not. So it's really not up to LL to decide if they think it's a copy or not, they get the DMCA, they take it down, end of story.

Yet according to reports by people who did send in DMCA complaints, LL doesn't remove reported content, so what's going wrong here?

http://secondlife.com/corporate/dmca.php

Most people who were ripped off are long term secondlife users. Its very unlikely these people, who know how to build complex items, and know how to use jira, would masively fail to fill in something which is relatively simple compared to that.

In relation to this and the whole open source client (aka Project: Copy Bot);

Linden Lab can either have a totally transparent open-source geek-project, or a business driven creative community. Not both. If nothing is done to protect property, then SL's creative economy will die out sooner than later. Why buy when you can steal? People have subjective morals... I've heard the lamest excuses for theft.

Wake up please.

CopyBot's been dead and been dead for a long while. It only worked for about 3 weeks somewhere in the 1.16/1.17 series.
LL shortly released an update, which at that time released a new UDP protocol map EVERY release.

TestClient, which has been shipped with the libsecondlife SVN since the CopyBot days, has had the same prim export and import function that people maligned CopyBot for.
However, many commits hit the SVN which have broken the exporter or importer at various times while the inventory code was being reworked.
I am unsure if it's currently working, but there are specific revision numbers which have worked since 1.18 and still continue to do so.
I personally use this export and import for my own objects, and write & save my scripts on my PC as well, using LSLEditor ( http://www.lsleditor.org )

The number one requested feature for Second Life since 2003 that I've heard is "Let me download my items to my harddrive so LL doesn't lose them / I don't lose them". LibSL comes through, and they're the bad guy, just because of a poor decision naming it, and a couple off-color comments in IRC from Baba. Sheesh.

The @#$%ing annoying copybot killers that attempt to IM anyone with !quit are COMPLETELY flawed, because even the 'good' copybot direct from libsl DID NOT RESPOND TO OBJECTS IMing !quit, only AGENTS.
The 'bad' hacked copybot had completely removed the !quit command thus were completely immune.
Copybot Killers are a waste of time and effort, and DO NOT WORK. End of story.

Now, about this TOS arguement.

If my memory isn't mistaken, doesn't the TOS grant LL a license to use and display any and all uploaded textures to ANYONE at any time?

Under the following in the TOS:
----------
3.2 You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to Content you create in Second Life, to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. However, you must make certain representations and warranties, and provide certain license rights, forbearances and indemnification, to Linden Lab and to other users of Second Life.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, you understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the service, you automatically grant (and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant) to Linden Lab: (a) a royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service, and (ii) use and reproduce (and to authorize third parties to use and reproduce) any of your Content in any or all media for marketing and/or promotional purposes in connection with the Service, provided that in the event that your Content appears publicly in material under the control of Linden Lab, and you provide written notice to Linden Lab of your desire to discontinue the distribution of such Content in such material (with sufficient specificity to allow Linden Lab, in its sole discretion, to identify the relevant Content and materials), Linden Lab will make commercially reasonable efforts to cease its distribution of such Content following the receipt of such notice, although Linden Lab cannot provide any assurances regarding materials produced or distributed prior to the receipt of such notice; (b) the perpetual and irrevocable right to delete any or all of your Content from Linden Lab's servers and from the Service, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and for any reason or no reason, without any liability of any kind to you or any other party; and (c) a royalty-free, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing and/or
providing support services in connection with the Service.

3.4 Linden Lab licenses its textures and environmental content to you for your use in creating content in-world.

During any period in which your Account is active and in good standing, Linden Lab gives you permission to create still and/or moving media, for use only within the virtual world environment of the Service ("in-world"), which use or include the "textures" and/or "environmental content" that are both (a) created or owned by Linden Lab and (b) displayed by Linden Lab in-world.

----------

If I'm not mistaken, with such a reciprocal license, does that not imply that we too may display and / or use any texture uploaded to the service?
Considering that we as users are not actually transferring or displaying the textures, the LL servers are transferring the textures to us thus invoking their "royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up,
perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license" (I.E. Full-Perms) to "use, reproduce and distribute your Content within the Service as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service" (I.E. upload) clause?

Yes, SL can display those textures to anyone... as long as they do so according to your permissions.
If people are using your texture on some other object or clothing layer, they are no longer doing so as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service.
So no, this license explicitely stops people from copying textures and using them other than as the original author gave permissions for. This term also states Linden Labs has no license to display stolen textures, as they only claim a license for textures used in ways for which the author gave permission.
The only exceptions provided in the terms are for promotional and debugging/testing reasons. Neither of which is at stake here.
As I read it, this term only exists for reasonable technical and promotional reasons, not to allow anybody to do whatever they want with your copyrighted content. In fact it explicitely opposes this in the words I quoted.

Ahha! But the author gave those permissions BY UPLOADING.

As I read the legal jargon, "as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service" is specifically referring to uploading an asset, as indicated more specifically by the preceding wording, "you understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the service, you automatically grant (and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant)"

"royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license" to LL is basically giving LL full rights to use and display your assets to anyone for any reason.

To me, this says "When you upload your stuff, we (LL) can do whatever we want with it."

"you must make certain representations and warranties, and provide certain license rights, forbearances and indemnification, to Linden Lab and to OTHER USERS of Second Life." (emphasis mine)

translates to "You agree to let other people see and use these uploads"

Now, it is true that you retain the COPYRIGHT, but in uploading your copyrighted material to the SL asset cluster, you're granting LL full legal perms on your stuff EXCEPT that LL cannot claim copyright or trademark protection over it themselves, EG, call it their own/claim they made it/claim they were the source of it.

Basically, it means that anything you upload to the service loosely becomes the 'property' of LL, but with your name attached/attributed to it.

Besides. The majority of images I've seen on SL have been either from GPL texture packs (Without the GPL license, strangely enough), picked off google images for which the SL'author' cannot claim to be their own, or generally received from an external source, edited, and uploaded into SL.

The only content I've seen that is a direct result of someone putting pixels to assets without a base image, has been original paintings, scanned or CG sketches/drawings, or very simplistic clip-art/text (But... Amusingly enough, using copyrighted fonts with license terms that prohibit their use in such a way... Like the Microsoft font family, just about anything from dafont, blambot fonts, practically any font other than the Bitstream Vera family.) such as arrows.

Most of the skins I've seen are based in some way from copyrighted sources such as http://www.3d.sk/ and UV mapped onto the mesh using the linden-provided skin template.
I understand that the UV mapping can be painstaking, but that still does not mean that by putting in those hours of work, you completely own the content you have provided.
A lot of skin artists CLAIM to draw EVERY PIXEL of their respective skins, but we all know this is mostly untrue. There are a few exceptions, however – but you must somehow prove that you created the works uploaded, and since most of it is CG work in photoshop (often pirated! hah!) with a mouse or a tablet with 'hundreds' of layers, it's impossible to prove to any jury that knows the technical background of how this is all created that you are the sole creator and copyright holder of the content.

I'm one of the few people that know about procedural texture generation, I use a Licensed, Paid For Copy of DT2.5 for generating most of my textures. Any content I create with it is my own, copyrighted by myself, with plenty of hidden watermarks and tiny pixel signatures for good measure, mainly because I want to track how my textures are used, and identify them. In the documentation distributed with my works, I mention the software used to create them, and cite any sources I used as direct (pixel cut&paste) or indirect ("Ooh, that's a cool rune, I should draw something similar!") references. Credit given where credit is due. Personally, I'm not too concerned with others using them, I'm just stoked that someone else found them nice enough to use them. Practically, all I ask is that you don't dump and reupload my textures with a different creator. Feel free to use the UUIDs or request the inventory texture assets from me.

I fully read and make sure I understand the terms of service and license agreement for anything I use. How many of you can honestly say the same?

I would love to know Liana Linden's take on this.

If it revered to the act of uploading a texture, I wouldn't have expected language in the form of "interactions on the Service", since uploading can be described in a much more limited way (which is much more typical of legal jargon). I interpret the TOS as written, not as some more limited way than written, AFAIK this is how legal documents should be read. If it were to be interpretted as "uploading", then they would have probably written it down as such, as it offers them a far greater license then the one I interpret them to have.

Copyright also stretches far wider than simply not being able to claim something as your work. I'm sure none of those pirates/crackers claim their "publications" as their own, but it sure is copyright infringement. By default copyright law gives absolutely no rights to anybody but the author unless a explicit license is provided. In the TOS I do not see a license granting LL the rights to use our uploaded intellectual property beyond the purposes of displaying in-game "as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service" (which I interpret as the in-game permissions system due to a lack of more descriptive language) and promotional/debugging.

As for the 3d.sk stuff; perhaps those skin makers have actually paid for that site and the photo's on there and are thus legally allowed (licensed) to use those photo's.

Perhaps some of the Linden's can make clear whether they meant that TOS term as meaning "everything uploaded" or "according to the in-game permission system".

p.s. The SL TOS has already been declared invalid in court in the past, so whether any of this really matters from a legal standpoint is also a good question to ask.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2909

Quote:
Copyright also stretches far wider than simply not being able to claim something as your work. I'm sure none of those pirates/crackers claim their "publications" as their own, but it sure is copyright infringement. By default copyright law gives absolutely no rights to anybody but the author unless a explicit license is provided. In the TOS I do not see a license granting LL the rights to use our uploaded intellectual property beyond the purposes of displaying in-game "as permitted by you through your interactions on the Service" (which I interpret as the in-game permissions system due to a lack of more descriptive language) and promotional/debugging.

Seems to me the explicit license is granted by the TOS. What more do they need to do with your content than display it to and & all users?

Quote:
As for the 3d.sk stuff; perhaps those skin makers have actually paid for that site and the photo's on there and are thus legally allowed (licensed) to use those photo's.

Ah ah, not quite, from the wording in the SL TOS – "(and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant)"
Just because the content on 3d.sk is royalty free after it's 'purchase' (rental), does not mean you own the copyright on it... Actually, it's considered a "derivative work" according to US copyright law, and the 3d.sk uploaders still retain the full copyright, which means the person uploading it to SL does not have the right to make use of it according to the TOS.

Besides, even though LL is in the USA, more specifically, in california, they may be bound by US copyright law and the DMCA, but the users are not.

Recently, Textures R Us shut down because someone realized that outside of LL, their TOS means nothing. So, said someone downloaded all ~40,000 textures (which I am absolutely sure the licenses of the texture sources that TRU used were not being adhered to) and placed them on a DVD-R and started selling them over eBay.

LL cannot do a thing about this, since it's completely outside of their domain. I mean, sure, if they figured out the meatspace identity of this individual, they could ban their SL account, MAC address, and perhaps their IP address... But MAC addresses can be changed on just about any network controller, IP addresses can be released and another issued via DHCP from their ISP, and they can always generate another SL account.

What, pray tell, would be the legal recourse of someone from say, sweden, performing the same action of selling this content on DVD-R or making it available for download from a webserver hosted in sweden?

Considering Sweden's copyright laws are vastly different than the USA's (Which for example, allows The Pirate Bay to continue operations, but that doesn't really count since they're only hosting metadata, not the actual data itself, and it just so happens due to a legal precedent in the USA that hyperlinks are considered a form of free speech and the site linking cannot be held responsible for the site linked TO's content.) and for all intents and purposes, it would be legal to do there.

SL is international. Someone from every country on the globe has likely logged on to SL at some point, I'm even willing to bet someone in North Korea has logged in at least once, most likely to scout it for government censorship. Heck, the great firewall of china has a word censor for things like "Falun Gong" - a banned movement - and "Dalai Lama"!
If you ever wanna mess with someone from china in SL, just say either and watch their connection get RST/FIN dropped faster than a thai prostitute!

Trying to stop someone from doing what they wish, short of grid attacks (thanks to the grey goo fence), is just incredibly naive to attempt, especially on SL.
You can troll, flame, orbit, crush, ban, cornfield or anything on SL, and there is NOTHING that can be done about it. They'll just come back.
It's just polygons and packets. I'm not saying we shouldn't try, but are we really so petty and wasteful with our time that we need to 'make an effort' that will never be fruitful?
Why spin your wheels with your front end against a wall? All that's happening is honest folks time is being wasted for nothing, just for the sake of slowing down an inevitable flood with a children's plastic beach spade. This is the 21st century, the age of the internet. Get with the times. INNOVATE.

What do you expect from a toy economy made of database transactions and pixels?
Have you ever looked at the products coming out of china?
http://www.pmptoday.com/2007/12/16/dv-mp4-boasts-alienware-logo/
This stuff happens in the real world too. All of us in SL are not alone.
Realize that you're standing on the shoulders of giants, Every good idea is stolen, and imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, because it means that SOMEONE TOOK NOTICE.

Stop wasting your time complaining and build more stuff for people to steal. At least you'll get more sales out of it before it gets popular and stolen. Rinse and repeat.

To sum it up, IMHO, You Are Wrong. I'm Sorry.

No offensve, but from this perspective locking a car or even your house is usless. Why do we even have a police or a law? people can always find ways to do the bad stuff they want it real hard. THe idea is to at least stop the ones that are not that dedicated or skilled

If we just made all objects full permision, there wouldnt be more things 'illegally' copied? if we just put note there saying ' well..you CAN copy it , but it's not legal to do so'

I dont think so

The entire web works on that premise. You can click "view source" in your browser and copy all the HTML code that made this page. You can go post it on your site if you want. No browser prevents you from saving the HTML from a web site, and yet, people do make money on the web. Why is that?

Correct. A car can always be broken into with any blunt object. The only thing stopping most people is the noise, and if a crook is smart, you can bash in a window without much noise.
Your average lock on a house is a simple pin and tumbler, which is EXTREMELY easy to break into. Simply file a blank key's pits all the way down, called "all nines" by locksmiths due to the machines used to make keys having settings from 1 to 9 for each pit. Now, insert this key into the lock almost all the way – leave it one notch out. Now put pressure on the key in the direction you would turn it to unlock it, then tap the back of the key while keeping turning pressure on it with a screwdriver handle, shoe, or any object with a bit of weight. The lock should pop open within seconds. It's called "bumping" a lock. Search it on google or youtube and you'll see how easy it is to bypass ANY deadbolt or keyed door latch.

Putting a lock on your car or house is declaring intent. It is saying, under the letter of the law, that whatever is behind the lock is protected and private property.

Just like putting a fence up will not stop people from jumping over it, it simply declares intent that you do not wish for the public to pass.

Quote:
Why do we even have a police or a law?

Because the simple act of locking something declares an intent to protect it, and therefore the law protects against that via theft laws, trespassing laws, or even the Castle law in some states in the US, which is the law that allows you to shoot someone trespassing on your property and having it declared self protection versus manslaughter or murder.
By locking something, you are granted legal protection IF someone infringes.

The permissions system in SL is a perfect example of a system designed to DECLARE INTENT, it is not an actual impassable barrier, nor was it designed to be, or ever will be, considering the dismal state of DRM.

Quote:
People can always find ways to do the bad stuff they want it real bad. The idea is to at least stop the ones that are not that dedicated or skilled.

True. There is nothing stopping me from jumping over your fence, breaking into your car, or busting the front door of your house open. However, in doing so, I would become a criminal and therefore prosecutable by the law, which is by design...

Freedom is something many people have fought and died for.

Currently in America, there's a whole slew of cases about games like Manhunt 2 and how they are not suitable for minors. People like Hillary Clinton are trying to pin the responsibility on the place of business providing the point of sale, EG the store the game was bought from.

It's ACTUALLY the job of PARENTS to prevent their children from getting a hold of these games, not the stores that sell them.

The stores should be free to sell to anyone who drops the $50 on the counter.
If that person is a parent, it is their decision to give the game to the child or not.

We are free to make choices, to have data available, to choose either the right or the wrong path. You shouldn't try to take away people's freedoms with silly technical hoops to force people to jump through – Especally when some of the users ARE legitimate. It's people like you that are forcing linden labs to disney-ize SL. Oh, this texture is offensive, oh those furrys are copulating in public view on a private island, oh this person made a plane crashing into a building just like 9/11, oh this person has an avatar that looks like a child, HELP HELP LINDEN LABS MAKE ALL THE BAD THINGS GO AWAY!

It's not Linden Lab's job to make all the bad things go away, it's their job to make the world work right, regardless of who's doing what.

I happen to use the Ctrl-Shift-Alt-T UUID display constantly, because I'm a scripter. When I write code to display a UUID on a specific face, I have to make sure I chose the right face, because it's not always obvious. The face numbers change for each object type. Since I work with a builder closely, I don't have all of his textures, and a lot of the time I'm forced to grab his UUIDs when I break a texture while I'm working. Fortunately for me, VWR-1919 isn't going to affect me as I have the skills to add the UUID display back into the viewer and compile it myself – it's as easy as backing out the changeset where that change was made. Three clicks and it's back to 'normal'. But that still doesn't change the fact that you're infringing on what other people like me use in a legitimate fashion.

Just because you can embed a virus in a jpeg file doesn't mean we should ban jpeg viewers or jpeg files. Just because some idiot wrote a macro for word that replaces every instance of the word 'sir' or 'madam' with '<explicative deleted>-head' doesn't mean we should ban word macros or word itself.

The world is changing... You can either embrace change and change with the world or ignore the world changing and complain about it until you're left behind.

And thats exactly where it goes wrong with LL. We aren't granted legal protection. Shops like Skinsoul/soul/whatever the name has changed to now have been filed a DMCA and are still selling a stolen skin. Asking for legal protection to be done as promised, is our right, since LL promised us we could DMCA people and have the content removed, so why don't they do that when we DMCA?

[QUOTE]
[ It's people like you that are forcing linden labs to disney-ize SL. ]
[ It's not Linden Lab's job to make all the bad things go away, it's their job to make the world work right, regardless of who's doing what. ]

It IS linden labs job to make the DMCAs work since thats what they promised us. If you really have a legal right to use the UUIDs of the textures you are using, then where is the problem? Why are you mad that for those who don't have the legal right to do it is made harder?
Compare this to getting mad at your friend for making a lock and forgetting to give you a key.. you can't blame people for wanting locks at their house and prefer better security over simple security. A normal person may have enough for a simple lock, since there is not much to steal, but the world invented far more advanced security systems for the rich people, since they are far more likely to become the victim of theft. Now you may feel "infringed" that your simple method of lockpicking doesn't works in a house when its protected with a bigger security system, but what do you have to do in that house in the first place? If the friend wants you in he can give you a key. Its not your content at risk of beeing stolen. If some other peope do need better protection than simple locks then why do you oppose so much against it?

Comparing asking for legal help with disneyfication doesn't make much sense, we are not asking for removing "offensive" content but content which Linden Labs promised that would be protected. Linden labs never promised us that there won't be any child avatars, furries copulating or 911 planes, actually LL made us promise we are over 18 when we entered so we knew what we were into.
LL do promised us DMCAs would protect us and make us able to stop a shop from selling our items when we DMCA them. And they don't.

I make money from google adsense, so i know how the web works
I also know the web is very different from second life and that's it's a FACT that alot of things on the web not really work too well. Just because people make money from the web, does not mean they do not suffer from the flawns of the web which makes it so simple to copy anything anywhere. A fact is that thousands of musicians loose more than 50% of their cd-income because of the free mp3's everywhere on the web. Why go to a store, search and buy a cd while you can download a song in 5 mins. I never said the copying will TOTALLY destroy second life, and neither will it cost people their full income..but it is a fact people will loose a PART of their income because this happends.

Just because it's simple to steal something in a webbrowsers, means we should make it as easy here in second life?

In real life it's easy to kil someone. Should we make it easy here too?

Kamilion Schnook -

I know it may not be handy if you cant get a UUID of a texture you do not have full permission...but just because your builder buddy oesnt send you the right textures full permission means our stuff should be displayed like that?

QUOTE: "We are free to make choices, to have data available, to choose either the right or the wrong path"

QUOTE: "You shouldn't try to take away people's freedoms"

If you do not have my texture full permission, it implies that I as the creator did not give you permission to copy/resell/modify my object/texture. I dont think most creators that dont sell their work full permission, would like other people to mess with their textures. The whole idea of the permission system in second life is to make it impossible to do something with the objects the creator did not want others to do with it (like copying items that are 'no copy'). After all, there are no handy shortcut to make no-copy items copyable and to make no-transfer items transferable. Unfortunately there is no box for 'give people my texture UID". If there was such an option, i dont think most content creators would select it.

If you do think it should be there so you can " choose the right or wrong path" , why not add a shortcut to modify ' no mod' objects or to resell ' no transfer' items, so you can choose for yourself to if you want to do that?

That's just not the way SL works or should work

In secondlife i could rip some items, put up some classieids right away, and instantly get a fair amount of traffic and make money.

He started the group "Robber from hell". I have had issues with almost every person in that group. A lot of them are his alts.

Do you really know this guy? (Funk Schnook)
Do you believe in text or in photo ? http://jira.secondlife.com/secure/attachment/14128/FNKYSTOLEN+copy.jpg
What an irony? 4 moth ago Funk taught me how to steal, now he is accusing me of stealing.
===============================================================
— [ lost thereian ] —
i see it in http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/08/our-heros-are-d.html#comment-81042531
nice text check out..

about SOUL skins...

@ lost thereian

YOU may not have the attitude I describe. But lots of other people do, particularly large companies with lawyers on hand. I grow weary of companies and VRbullies abusing the DCMA at every turn. I expect someone to slap a lawsuit on someone else for humming a song on a bus soon, thus distributing music to others without compensation for the copyright holders.

As I said before, I've no love for people who copy stuff, even by hand. But considering the Apple/Microsoft case where "Look and Feel" was considered to be insufficient to prove copying, you'll need something more substantial than "his shoes look just like mine" to make a serious issue out of it.

Personally I would like to see a SL Copyright Court created to handle inworld IP issues like this one. Settle the matter inworld and keep the RL courts out of SL. It'll take a Linden with Linden powers to examine the textures and the created on dates. Whoever created item X first wins and if the item IS copied, banning is possible. Simple, cheap, easy and fast.

This picture you see is just another case of Ox talking to another creator trying to show off the "tricks" he knows, as a scare tactic. In this case he was showing me how he can apply any texture to a prim by finding its UUID and applying it with a script. Too bad the moron demonstrated it with a texture in his own inventory.

Ox, there are other creators who will be reading this who you have talked to you as well. A few cases of you pretending you are trying to help, then selling their items behind their backs. I've already talked to a few of them. Would you like them all to comment?

http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/08/our-heros-are-d.html#comment-81042531

"YOU may not have the attitude I describe. But lots of other people do..."

[quote]
"This guy Ox Fall (aka Stivie Jewell) who posted some pics here, has some nerve. He has been trying to sell skins out of his inventory for a while (along with some small mall spots around sl). He has also talked to many creators threatening to pass their skins around full perm, unless they did some sort of deal with him etc. "

To Funk: Do you have any prove he did? Did any of the creator he treathened have proof he did this? If true, this would be a good case to file a real life lawsuit against him. Blackmailing is a criminal activity.
Did any of the creators file an abuse report over this? Did LL reply to it?

To Ox & Funk: maybe its better to discuss the copybot conversation issue in another tread. Please don't post any pictures here acusing someone without prove. Two avatars on a platform are no prove, without a picture of the actual conversation.

The stolen skin shop 'Soul' is still at #1 in the top payed classifieds (it has been for months), and Linden Labs didn't do anything about it. Why do they allow such a thing.. and why do they keep ignoring this thread?

involved avies (in object creator and/or owners)
Thyago Lohner , tutumaluco Ferraris , Spike Nykvist ,LuizHernandez Slade, Stivie Jewell , Cyanide Leviathan,Asper Ferraris,Bonnie Arado,Williannn Oh, Rubnet Olivier,AlexZiNhOo Maximus,leonardoemaggi Larsson,Damien Fate,Lolo Luo,Flavio Hirons,Toor Hirons, and more...

Rubnet Olivier today is the # 1 in Rips, Stolen, Owner the one Full SIM ( BRASIL HELP BRASIL, more the 100 Skins from FNKY, Naughty,The Abyss, GL,Made Man, RaC, and all Shoes Boots, from EMO'S store, NEKO'S Store...,

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Donohue/222/121/33

The Abyss, FNKY, RAC Naugthy and moreeeee

Bonnie Arado

Don't get me wrong, I understand. But you might want to refrain from the patently ridiculous.

Example: a RAC skin is .... 4000 L$ ! Even if the creator sold 3 skin, i think he have LARGELY win more than what he have spend to upload the texture!

Who is the thief then ?? Why people that haven't have any paiement info in use for many different reason can't have nice stuff too ?
Personnally i don't have payement info because:
i'm unemployed and alone with 2 kids.
i pay 25% VAT on each lindens i could buy.

So please, if you don't want to be stoole, then... made low prices on stuff, and then people would have no more reason to want to do it .. and maybe buy more.

Think about it.

Thanks

If you are not able to do this, then are you arguing that people who do have that talent and skill and do spend the time and money in it should not rewarded for making skin?

It's really simple; if the price is too high, people won't buy it and the seller makes no profit. In most economies prices would drop to a level where supply and demand are in balance. For RAC, the price of L$ 4000 is apparently the right balance for if (s)he would make more money by lowering prices, the prices would surely be lower. People selling stuff on SL aren't dumb when it comes to business, or else they'd already be out of business.

Nobody is forcing you to buy an expensive skin. You can get skins of lesser quality for lower prices and there are even really crappy skins fof free. If you want, you can even remain in the blank skin you started out with.

If it was an essential of life, like food or shelter, you might have a point, but NOTHING in SL is essential.

You want to buy expensive stuff in SL? Start making and selling your own creations and earn some money.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO rationalisation for people taking what is not theirs to take.

Agree!!! i dont wanna see skins for $4000 too..ihate it, U$ 25.00 in one skin? (o.-)

Lowering prices on skins won't stop skin theft either and in fact many times skins that are stolen are sold for more than the original.

You mention the creator will get much more money back after uploading the texture but the creator needs to pay for tier (up to $295 per month), purchasing the land, paying for classified ads (up to 200,000Ls), Photoshop and other 3d programs, etc.

This recent wave of skin theft just is mind boggling. Why is LL waiting for these people "Rubnet Oliver" and whoever else it is to ban them? Anyone that reads anything in SL knows that this has happened in the past two months and nothing has been done. What proof do they need? How painful is it going to be to ban them?

The only suggestion I have to make here is would it be possible for all the Skin makers to get together and take out something like a class law suit, and at the same time run a media campaign to try to stop this theft? Logistically it would be hard to do, but would it be feasible?

Only one way to find out. I'm not a skin maker so I am not a member of the "ripped off skin makers" class.
good luck with it. you will need it and a good law firm.

we need a more robust metadata capability that allows for data mining to research and prosecute theft in sl. and i mean prosecute. not go take down some boards. prosecute criminally if possible. and this metadata capability would require a lot of research, design, and work to implement. very costly to do things right. makes for an incredibly better and more extensible OOP product though.

sl is no viable commerce platform until this problem is solved so Phillip can stop describing it as such.

The problem now is that after what happened yesterday, the individual named in this posting on Jira has now started releasing the skins free with full perms (Ox and Nemes will be ecstatic to hear that). Even if hell were to freeze over and Linden Lab booted the guy, he will simply return, only now his objective is not going to be to make money, it will be to steal as much as he can to release free with full perms. Odds are many others will follow suit. Like pre-school playground kids, they are either going to get their way, or destroy the whole place so no-one can have fun.

That being said, while there are a number of reasons that one might be able to take Linden Lab to court, they have their lawyers as well, and they probably pay them quite well. When you are as two-faced as LL, you need good protection. I think a preferable method of attack is the real world media. There are a lot of media people, journalists, editors, etc., who are always looking for a story that will let them tear down a successful company or individual. A well written article in the New York Times, the L.A. Times, or a segment on any of the major Television networks about how real life companies and real life people are in danger of losing real money if they join/support Second Life, might just get Linden Lab off their lazy behinds to do something about this chaos.

No matter what Linden Lab says, do not forget that they are in this for the money only. I think it's been shown that they will do anything to make sure they get money, even if it means ignoring criminal activity.

They/He is making one alt after another and the only way to track is by going to the marwood location and checking the about land, which is owned by the MaNya group, and checking their member list of officers shown and cross referencing

Problem:

1) Theft - Right now we are experiencing the exact same issue that Song Artists and Labels have gone through since napster and other p2p software surfaced. You have a product that costs your time/money/love to produce. When a person just copies that without your permission, or worse yet, copies and trys to sell a knockoff, it hurts your bottom line. This can lower the value of your product(s) or worse yet your good reputation.

2) Law - DMCA actually protects the creator against theft of copyright making it illegal. However, you must take steps to prevent theft. The law is mostly unenforced and requires the creator to protect the content in some way making it illegal.

3) Practical Use - It's up to us to do something even if SL doesnt.

Solution:

DRM (digital rights management) specifically was created to protect images (the basic form of a skin) and music/video from being stolen digitally. The technology is getting more mature every year, however, it has weaknesses. However, it does do some basic things to protect a creator.

1) Tracking - you can encode an image so that even if a person choosing to steal a skin copys one patch of the entire image you can read the signature of the creator. Tracking requires discovering a skin and reading the image to determine the origin. Right now SL is not doing anything to track skins. A very basic tool for creators is to use the Digimarc plug-in in Photoshop to mark the image with your copyright. Enabling this hidden wartermark allows you to read/write a copyright registered to you. It also gives you the undeniable ability to prove that someone has stolen your work and gives you a LEGAL way to pursue a criminal theft.

2) Resolution - if creators used a tool like Digimarc, not only would you have a way to resolve a 1:1 theft of your object, but you would be able to more easily get SL involved in resolving the rampant theft issues. If this became documented by the active creator groups and you could establish a monetary loss from the thefts, one could easliy involve the FEDS.

3) Other options - If SL fails to answer requests for resolution, we could take this into our own hands. One way would be to create an object registration tool that has a script embedded in the objects capable of verifying an SL username ownership of a skin being used. If this type of tool was engaged the entire community could benefit. It would still require a DRM of sorts like the Digimarc watermarking on images for it to work.

Hope these thoughts help.

netguy

The problems are.

1) Nothing in Second Life 'wears out' or expires. Therefore, something created years ago is just as useful as something created yesterday. As an example, no matter how many times an user dresses their avatar in a favorite outfit it will always appear as nice as the day it is bought.

2) The cost of production in Second Life is zero. Once an item is created it can be duplicated 100, 1,000 or a million times without any additional cost.

3) There is no charge for inventory storage. A user can 'warehouse' a virtually unlimited number of items in their inventory as long as they desire for no cost. Also, this virtually unlimited inventory can be tranferred endlessly between accounts and transported anywhere within the Second Life grid without economic disincentives.

I have no idea of how many quality items the average user considers 'enough' but for this comment assume 20,000. Now imagine 1 out of 1,000 users creates a single original high quality full permission item per year and and releases it as a free gift to all. Also consider the ever increasing number of Second Life users. It's fairly obvious that within a relatively short time frame there will be enough free items to satisify the needs of most users. Though there may be a limit to how many items can be packed in a prim or within nested prims it's conceivable that eventually 'everything you need for SL' could be given to new users as they rez into the world with only a few item transfers. How much shopping would a new user do when they had just been given 50,000 free items?

When this point occurs the only thing of cost within Second Life will be land. And would Linden Labs consider THAT a problem? :^)

(No, I'm not for texture theft. Just wanted to point out that the price deflation will continue even if all texture theft could be magically stopped tomorrow)

I first agree with Funk, any Linden I guess can inspect the textures of freebie skins, see the magic code and delete them from the database. It would be an AMAZING start.

As a skinmaker I am frightened to death. I just wait to see one of mine around, and thanks god I am not commercial. So in a way it's better to keep low tone? The point is copying and stealing textures is simply WRONG. The point is there is a lot of work behind any makeup and skin tone. The point is
A SKIN is NOT a right, but a LUXURY. To enjoy your sl experience. As Said before, costs too much? Don't buy it.(and RaC sells 6-8 skins for 4k )

Anyway...
A campaign would be nice, also spreading the word, making a group maybe open on invite only to skin creators to communicate rippers and resellers. Help each other, and make their life more miserable as they ruin our nerves.
Or maybe something more smarter...well, joining the forces in a non open way or accessible to them as in this forum.

I HOPE Linden Labs will do something at least to make it more complex for them to resell and rip, something would be better than nothing. But till then I think we have to work it out alone.

Keeps blue still

[11:31] Zakira Qunhua: (Saved Sun Feb 03 10:44:11 2008) Hi, Crystall Mathy I know her bcoz she stole my creation and resell them

and please check all ip from Crystall Mathy and go to land.. all is copys!! iIligal copys

We are a serious company, we have real headquartered in Brazil, we have more than 10 years of activity duly recorded in the Brazilian government. To confirm our real existence in the 1st Life, visit our web site: http://www.studiografics.com.br.

We these lies as a crime of defamation and will trigger the American justice through the DMCA and ways to correct this, if these reports lies not stop.

Bonnie Arado is not Rubnet Olivier, Bonnie Arado is not of our team (even if the Brazilian running in the back office SL), the Skins Soul is part of the network organized by the Brazilian trade Studiografics company, which has already invested more than USD50, 000 in metaverse Second Life, including the Linde Lab has all the evidence of our existence real.

We demand respect and we denounce all that we treat in this way by RACISM DISCRIMINATION, including seeking justice through the 1st life a solution to the LIES THREATS STOPPING IMMEDIATELY!

Without more.

Liberato Lindman
(Jean Liberato)
Projects Manager - Studiografics

CEO STUDIOGRAFICS
Olivier rubnet
Www.studiografics.com.br

The method you use to "create" your skins is wrong. Wrong, immoral, and illegal. You DO NOT use already made skins from Second Life and peice them together like a jigsaw puzzle to sell. You DO NOT pull the skin textures from the client and sell them as your own. If you wish to create photorealistic skins to sell a good site to start with would be 3d.sk.
These are real people you took from. Real people who did the work to create these skins on their own. They did not take another skin from SL and copy/paste parts of the body they like. You guys seem pretty capable of doing your own skins. I don't understand the need to take from other people who sell in SL.

You will certainly not have my respect until you remove any skin that has remnants of Naughty's skins from your store, as well as other people you have stolen from. It's sick and wrong. These practices need to be stopped.

I would suggest taking a good look at the skins your team have created and do the necessary steps to make this wrong a right.

Thanks to those who responded in my defense

Sorry, bad english, I use google translator.

CEO STUDIOGRAFICS
Olivier rubnet
Www.studiografics.com.br

this http://www.studiografics.com.br/ don't have 10 years of activity duly recorded in the Brazilian government., (IT IS BULLSHIT) if you check the in Google fort his don't have more the 3 Links!!! http://www.studiografics.com.br/ don't have any contact or connection with Brazilian Government!!

inside of Site Sell Linden like Bank, STOLEN New Users From Brazil , have hight TAX.. http://www.studiografics.com.br/blb.php
and
Liberato Lindman (aka) rubnet olivier ,Rub Oh , agenteblb avro
(Jean Liberato) same user .
LLB if you wanna check IP and all Logs!! MacAdress you can do it if you wanna,... VOTE FOR BLOCK IP

Today the Big real Problem is ILHA HELP BRASIL Liberato Lindman (aka) rubnet olivier .
this guy Pay 30k or 50 k per Skin Rip from yours Store! i have Prove the all here!! and him have to prove to the PSD because him like pay skin only if have TGA Files... if you don't have him don't pay!!

CEO STUDIOGRAFICS
Olivier rubnet
Www.studiografics.com.br

Face, my wife is not this girl who vc show. Who to want enters in mine profile and sees who is. I am the same here, in the SL and my LIFE! You he is a COWARD, WITHOUT SHAME, that worked in the SL with name Stivie Jewell, is hunting Brazilian pq is a Brazilian who deferred payment in U.S.A., asshole for not being American. It is receiving how much from the cowards of the Naugthy, RaC, FNKY (tb of Brazilians, that by the way not falm9speaking) in Portuguese to dissimulate to be foreign), of the Made Man and others that are despaired with growth d aSoul Skins? face, we have public address, telephones, we are honest!!!!!!! Vc's is being dull and cowards in promoting such attack against our company and other Brazilians. Being that vc are OX FALL, or Bonnie still Ploughed, is all ALT its. I never bought avatr, never I bought skins to resell, I had yes FULL PERMS therefore I was a moment where FULL PERMS was taken the serious one, thus that moleques as vc começarama to vender the things the banana price I created first MEGA FREEBIE of the world, before proper Venice Freebies, in the Help Brazil, opu either, everything what perms was full turned freebie, and never gave or vendí things that chegarama me that I recognized I eat of famous store, as for example skin DANTE, THAT IS GIVEN to HJ INSIDE Of the ISLANDS Of the KAIZEN!!!!!!!!!! TOTAL FREEBIE. E vcs comes to speak to me that I am bad character????? I show my face, I am man I seriously have 3 children and honest work and with the SL. It shows who is you and its others avatares ALT its frustrated!!!!!!! I tneho shame in the face, thing that vc and its corja does not have! It enters in my Profile and it will see who I am of truth!!!!!! Brazilians, do not fall in the wave of this FAKE, moderators of the community, find that it would have to banish this citizen daqui. and all the FAKES of it in the ORKUT. it is a shame for Brazil. until more. Liberato

so .. Now Linden Lab see for underground how is the real Liberato...

Not true; you are, very obviously, a liar...your shop has nothing but rips of skins by Naughty; the shading and details are identical; the odds of two graphic artists applying a photo source to the SL avatar UV maps in an identical fashion, and creating identical shading and highlight, are nil. Not to mention the fact that the creation date of your vendors is in most cases at least a year after the same skins were first offered by Naughty (well before you were even IN SL, from your rez date). When you say you can produce PSDs, you are lying. This is a fact which is obvious to anyone who has a vague understanding of how such things work. That you have the arrogance to spend thousands of American dollars on advertising to promote a business built on the theft of someone else's work is, really, disgusting (as are your outright lies here).

YES I'm REAL PEOPLE (and Rubnet is other person and real to), not use ALT, I am not FAKE, Brazil am a reference for the SL and what you are doing is absurd.

My contribution to the theme of the metaverse LL, SL and other virtual worlds, in newspapers, magazines, blogs, web portals, universities and so on. I am a professional consultant who discloses the ideals of the SL in Brazil and as I do not know they can not go out there saying that I do Rubnet ALT, or that we are all Robers as are speaking.

What are robers in Brazil nobody is saying anything against, but put all this to Wicch Hunt and treat people honest and serious as those that copy dishonest things, then you become the ethical and moral limits.

We have evidence in 1st life, PSD files (filters, brushes, layers, etc. - not just as TGA said) that prove our creation, so we cleaned and quiet, we are not like these guys who copy. We are serious and we must address public, but registration in the Brazilian government.

Stop to include in this case, because we are such victims as all the other owners of shops in skin. Copy our products as well.

Have a nice day.

Liberato Lindman
(RL: Jean Liberato - 33 years old - maried - 3 children - consultant on digital media)

you are selling 1 naughty & 1 X2 Skin
you probably haven't stolen it yourself but as a skin developer you should know the source of the full perm copies that you have purchased for L$ 500
Not only that you know that - you also don't have demos for these particular skins!

Nobody was claiming that the vast majority of your skins are stolen but the 2 listed above are. I also would refrain to act as a designing big shot, i happen to know your skin designer extremely well and I know how they are developed. That's all I am saying here out of respect to her.

This is not about alts, this is not about you giving your real name, this is about business ethics and you being in the know selling stolen skins which you have purchased for L$ 500 and selling them for L$ 1400.

I even go that far and say you don't even know how to steal a texture because otherwise you had demos for the copy skins.

Reselling a stolen product is still illegal. Remove them and show that you are the man you want us to believe you are.

...brings just a sad laugh over my face. i have no mercy for people like you

Ì am sorry for the owners of the originals and I am VERY sorry that they don`t get supported from the Authorities.

Dig Dollinger
Owner of SLASH!

For the one 3rd party feature you need to copy a particular file into the SL folder, 1 line of code could make a reference check and disable the whole client.
The one copy tool that was created by LL itself could simply be deleted and if someone has found a work around there are still ways to trace it.

Designers should group and share informations and ban these people from your land

Why won't LL do anything against known thieves? Maybe money talks......8 x $295 USD tiers per month might be a good reason, who knows?

Anyway getting back to the SOUL Skins that i viewed a day or two ago after all the hoohah......the real point that nags me a lot is
their signature style or lack of it!! . Let me explain.......every major Skins creator has a unique style for their skin creations. You can just tell what is a Naughty Design skin..or X2, or RAC or Minnu Skin or Celesrial.....you know that from the type of shading they use, the make-ups, the overall feel of the face & body, it's very distinctive.

The problem i have with SOUL skins.....it has so many variations, there isn't any consistency. One style of skin is completely different from the next one. The style variations are significant ........there is no signature!
Draw your own conclusions!

Based on what i have seen and unless SOUL are using a number of different artists, this cannot be the work of any
one single person no matter how talented they are. If there are mutliple artists, why are all the creations in one name only?

This is very sad, how many dmcas need to be filed against one individual or group before someone is banned? Are the soul skin people allowed to stay cause they spend so much money? Its truly sick. Ive personally witness stolen skins int heir shop, X2, Naughty, celestial cities and more.

I know for a fact that several people filed claims against them and the lindens have removed content but theres more items in their shop that are stolen.

If they had come out and said im sorry I did not realize that the stuff in their shop was stolen. And then removed the stolen items I would have forgiven and said it was a mistake. but instead they are sitting here saying they did nothing wrong.

Now a lot of the other Brazilian skin rippers have directly said if soul is allowed to sell these skins then why am I not? I have nothing wrong with anyone from Brazil, what I do have a problem with is someone making a huge presence of themselves and encourage many other individuals from there country to think selling stolen skins is ok. That I have to say is truly horrible. Soul skins has done so much to make designers mistrust Brazilians in second life. They are promoting a entire country as a den of crooks and that has to stop.

I know some Brazilians in the game and they are very nice people, so please do not show any anger towards them. But do get angry if their community leaders are promoting theft, its horrible. Its not the Brazilians that are being crooks, its soul skin and all the people they inspire that are.

Rob Linden or any other LInden reading these post, please we beg you for more protection, just a few simple things.
Ban accounts that get repeated DMCA claims, three strikes and they are out.
Remove the uuid of the stolen textures from t he database. It wont stop them from reuploading the textures but it will remove all the stolen items sold from the system and make it a bit harder for them to return.

Thank you
PopFuzz Bamboo

It's really amusing to see the conspiracy theory though, I LOL'd.

Your topic, which has no actionable items or code patches, has no place on a BUG REPORTER.

This is an issue with PEOPLE, not with code, therefore it does not belong here.

If you want to stop the people from infringing, get some legislation passed. Until then, you'll have to make do with the communications channels that Linden Labs has made available at http://secondlife.com/corporate/dmca.php

And to be honest? I've been on the internet a long time.
I've been on IRC for over 15 years.

I've always had mistrust for the Brazilians, French, and Russians as groups in general, online.
Why?
I've met too many individuals belonging to those groups that act as if they own everything they lay eyes on.
This is not to say every member of those groups are acting in this fashion, but it is a large percentage of the group that is making themselves visible and high-profile with these actions. No different than the Bush family making americans as a group look bad. (I'm not terribly concerned with the rest of your opinion on my outlook, so don't bother starting a flamewar, you'll just look foolish.)

Any other IRC oldbies will probably remember the Brazilian invasion of EFNet ~10 years ago, where every fourth person joining the channel could only manage to say two words: "am brazil".

Thankfully, the bar has been raised since then. But not by much.
Hail Eris, Praise "Bob".

Could some of you guys check the free skins being sold (yes totally free) at freebies island.

I could have sworn I've seen the male skins they got for free in a store (maybe Naughty), similar with female skins.

IN GENERAL

STUFFS RIPS = LINDEN LAB $$$$$$$$$
LLB RECEIVE FOR ALL , FOR STOLEN FOR TIER FOR ALL IT IS LIKE CHURCH ,

As I am creating skins and tattoos of my own, of course I support that something needs to be done about this issue. ND skins are a kind of benchmark for me now that I am deliving into skin creation myself, as they are some of the best SL has to offer - and now my wife and I buy all our skins from Naughty (even though we have some of them as full perms versions). I hope that this kind of attitude will be adopted by other people who do business in SL, though I won't hold my breath while I am waiting for it - or waiting for a fix.

I'm wondering what could be done to "get around" this theft problem, and I have a small idea that might give hope to Lost Thereian and other skin creators. If you can't stop these idiots from ripping off your work, then expand by flooding the market with "official" ND affiliate vendors, where the said affiliate would earn a commission for each skin sold. Of course this idea has a few problems (pricing and competition etc), but it might be a good start to also promote buying ND, and X2 skins etc from official affiliates only.

Hell, I'd sign up to an affiliate scheme like that to help sell the kind of top quality work expected from ND, and you could put whatever promotional anti skin theft message you want on the vendors too. With the right kind of marketing, you could totally blanket SL in your skins in a very short amount of time - and give the thieves less chance to actually sell your ripped work. It'd raise awareness about this issue too.

Lost, if you fancy doing this... send me a PM.. I'll be the first to sign up. I learned from my mistaken purchase of your ripped off skins - "If you want something doing right, then do it yourself." I think that could be applied to this situation until LL finally manages to pull their fingers out.

Bye for now...
Wiggy

stupids dii giano and ox fall is the boss of robbers from hell
i lost my account because they
now he say thnaks LL for banned flaivo hirons bonie arado and more
he is the robber i never more play second life because this problems
i know other problems by ox fall (stivie jewell)
sorry for my poor english i dont know this language very well

funk and mallory sorry for copy your stores sorry
i dont go play more and dont go talk more here but i need say the real

ox fall , dii giano , lya oh
played all is from stivie jewell
he open stores and robbers textures and dont have nothing ?
in past he is my friend and partner
but i see the comment by him thanks LL for banned bonie .. flavio

i learn a lesson dont is good robbers and broken people never more i go copy and never more believe in robbers how stivie

sorry all please

now all know the real all have to whait the decision of LL
thanks

all have the true now
i dont happy for cause problem
they need banned the IP of ox

and i need tell sorry again
funk and mallory
sorry for copy your things u work very hard for this
sorry
i very very bad for happend this i dont knew = /
i lost my account because few L$ and broken and cause problem for all
sorry my friends sorry

but now all have the true the LL have to banned ox fall
well he go tell for all ANDERSON is crazy
but this is the real i creat this account today only for speak here
i dont go stop
he have to banned and lost all acounts
and sorry for the poor english

and i need tell sorry again
funk and mallory
sorry for copy your things u work very hard for this
sorry
i very very bad for happend this i dont knew = /
i lost my account because few L$ and broken and cause problem for all
sorry my friends sorry

but now all have the true the LL have to banned ox fall
well he go tell for all ANDERSON is crazy
but this is the real i creat this account today only for speak here
i dont go stop
he have to banned and lost all acounts

My suggestion, start a thread on one of the third party forums to name the names of everyone who steals textures, create a wiki, create a whole damn personal rant page I don't really care just take it off the JIRA because it doesn't belong here. Also, as I said above, people will try to justify this staying open because of the votes, just because 730 votes were cast doesn't mean it should be open it just means that people agree that texture theft is wrong (as I do, however I didn't vote on this).

1. A DMCA is filed.
2. A notice should be sent to the offender giving them some time to counter (7 days sounds reasonable)
3. If there is no counter the assets should be "frozen" some way (moved to another DB)
4. If there is no counter within 3 months the frozen assets could be permanently deleted.

No one from LL has come here to explain why assets can not be deleted. Is there a technical limitation? If so then this JIRA entry is a feature request to have this limitation changed/fixed.

There were several suggestions made in the description on ways to deal with texture theft. Until a Linden states unequivocally that NONE of these suggestions is at all do-able then this issue is NOT resolved.

The issues discussed here have been issues that have been around for at least 3 years. They were issues in the old feature request/voting system, and they have been several JIRA issues. Until there is some resolution that satisfies content creators as much as it can on any computer based program, this issue will keep being raised. There needs to be some clear attempt at doing this.

Having this issue open here is a place of reference to send people who would like to be informed on the issues of texture theft. More so because it has become quite widely known as an issue inworld.
Closing it will only result in burying it away from attention. Suggesting that this be taken to some third party forum will serve the same purpose of burying it. It will also just mean new JIRA issues are opened.

Also i'm very pleased to see the stolen skins in skinsoul are removed and replaced by other skins ( i hope those are not stolen - lol).

People should sue Rubnet the way Stroker serpentine and many more creators sued their thief. That thief had to pay back all he earned, and now officially has to announce any alt he makes by law. Seeing how much Rubnet earns in SL, it would mean the real creators would get a lot of money back and we would finally get rid of that stolen item shop.

@ Ric
Full perm items are bad for economy too, but most real full perm items are low quality crappy things. Residents which are longer in SL want to look better and have better items than the newbies, and will still pay for better items.
(when I entered SL there already were tons of freebies.. there will always be)

The stolen high quality items are a much bigger problem, since they are much harder to compete with.

My proposition would be to create some sort of 'content police' ... with full permission to put a ban over a store or region that resells stolen goods. Maybe even a database where new items are being registred.

I don't think we should punish clients for buying stolen goods. I'm sure most don't even know the content is stolen and act in good faith. But we should be able to stop the resellers of stolen goods.

I don't think Linden can solve all this for us, but like in RL, we should be permitted to organize ourselves and take
appropriate action.

Maybe we should all add a 'sales' department in our stores as well, so that less fortunate citizens get acces to our products in a legal way 2 ...

LINK THIS, OUR RESPONSE OFFICIAL WITH DESKTOP PICTURES OF OUR SKINS WITH 2 MADE BY OUR ARTISTS.

WE ALREADY HAVE THE PHONE AND AN ADDRESS OF TERRORISTS / RACIST (live in California - USA), REACH FOR THE REST OF TERRORISTS / RACISTS AND BLACKMAIL MAKERS WILL NOT HARD TO SEEK.

STOPPING TO THESE ATTACKS RACISTS AND READ OUR RESPONSE (WITH SNAPSHOTS OF 2 OUR SKINS IN PSD OPEN FILE) HERE:

http://mundolinden.blogspot.com/

NO MORE.

Liberato Lindman
www.studiografics.com.br
"BRASILIANS HONESTS, WHIT VERY PRIDE!"

When using photo sources material to create a skin, its takes many steps, and a lot of time.
You should show how the photos were converted to fit the template, (which takes many steps to get it to fit right) how the shadows and darkness were enchanced in the several parts (photo material does need quite some editing, darkness and light, stretching, before it looks realistic on a skin), extra parts drawn to them and blended into eachother (several back and front photos were blended into one to make up for one complete skin, the borders of those dont fit automatically and every creator has to make a choice how he does this), how the facial features of dante have been exchanced to look handsome (they are not exactly the same as the source material, darkness light, 3d effects added) etc.
These are just a few of the steps between the source material and the finished product, which a good skin takes to create, and which you don't have shown.

Stop making a fool of yourself, Libereto, and stop making brazilians ridiculous.

First of all you need to speak more politely, your accusitions or racsim/terrorsim is simply too childish and what's with talking in caps? This is not going to help you at all.

Next, your evidence that you made these skins:

http://bp0.blogger.com/_hHiItj2__YA/R6oIDY_fGuI/AAAAAAAABsc/NQ8296ZzqRY/s1600-h/SKIN+IMAGEM+FERNANDO+PSD.jpg
http://bp0.blogger.com/_hHiItj2__YA/R6oISY_fGvI/AAAAAAAABsk/y92w9cuMu94/s1600-h/SKIN+IMAGEM+NATHALY+PSD.jpg

Maybe you are new to photoshop/skinning, but this shows absolutely no way that you are the orgininal artists of these skins. What you shown is exactly what you can get with GLintercept.

First of all the lack of revisioned work, I do not see gradual work on the skins being done, instead we are shown finished body and frontal/face skins with makeup varitions (just select and change color?).

Next the resolution of the upper/lower/face body skins that you claim are your original work. I looked at your upper/lower body images. They seem like 256x256 at the most. Explain to me how and why such a great artist like you would be making skins in these resolutions? I for one being a newbie would never make an original skin that had such low information. I would not even think of a resolution below 2048x2048 as original base.

From the low resolutions, I have a feeling that you ripped these skins right off GLintercept (which can only go up to 512x512 if I'm not mistaken). Rather than solidifying your case, these images shown on Mundu Linden (is this a rl linden working for you??) site make your case further worse and at least for me closed out any doubt that you did not steal.

You stole those skins and it's evident in the evidence you gave. Not only are you not an artist, you lack basic talent to forge something in photoshop and convince people that a work was by you.

liberato lindman, explain to me why your excellent skin artist let artifacts and other blemishes in your skins?

Explain why you can't even get color tones accurately, and how cloning tool is not working for you.

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/3770/stolenskinsjpgaz2.jpg

http://bp0.blogger.com/_hHiItj2__YA/R6oIDY_fGuI/AAAAAAAABsc/NQ8296ZzqRY/s1600-h/SKIN+IMAGEM+FERNANDO+PSD.jpg

But still there there can come in someone now that can create a shop and claim he has made this item, while it has been sold in naughty island for YEARS now

Is there not some easier way to just show when a certain texture has been uploaded? I do not get this. This is such a simple way of just making clear who has uploaded content the first time

Mr Liberto, dont !!!please don't show me stupid printScr,, Everybody here know if you stolen textures from UUID you need apply in Corel, Adobre psp, Fireworks anyways,,, for make the alpha..
your skins is 100% copy from Naughty .. all shoes from you store is from people fakes, only one guy Tuba make shoes, all is copy's mod from stores..
if you wanna prove you job , why you don't make Brand New skins? Why you need it? show me, make brand new skin, complete deferents of you see in SL ..

i know. Linden like you Tier, you pay a lot for Linden like L$211.000 week and more your Tiers..
LLB like it a lot!!!

you are complete stupid noob, and ban all in your store for dont see the skins, you list is big more the 200
Oneil roberts
Oneil@kimco.com
www.kimco.com/
17872 Cowan Avenue
Irvine, California 92614
(949) 752-6996

That's funny. The only thing 'official' about your response is the fact that those textures of your female skins are direct rips of all the Alina textures I sell at Naughty-makeup and all-and your screen shots prove it. Where are the hundreds of layers required when creating a skin? What about the photo references? Oh yeah, you don't have those.. because you didn't make them. I do not see any changes other than what Worm posted about the obvious artifacts and loss of details when ripping these textures from the client. Alina actually took dozens of PSDs, hundreds of layers, and several revamps starting in 1024 resolution, before she evolved into what she is today.

You can see the original release of the Alina makeups Soul took on our blog posted here (nudity censored). Note that this wasn't even the first release of those skins:
http://naughtydesigns.squarespace.com/naughty-designs-new-items/2006/9/20/alina-skins-added-makeup-options.html

Notice the date: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 gasps

http://bp0.blogger.com/_hHiItj2__YA/R6oISY_fGvI/AAAAAAAABsk/y92w9cuMu94/s1600-h/SKIN+IMAGEM+NATHALY+PSD.jpg

This is the skin that has been for sale in naughty island since 2005 or2006.

Also is it quite obvious the 'proove' of liberato lindman is not real since the screenprint clearly shows all of those, except one, are 'TGA' files, and not PSD files. TGA files do not include layers and show clearly these are not the original pictures creation. This clearly shows this is false proove..and these people try to nail others by saying they created work that is not really theirs. I would like it if action was taking to these kinds of people

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Imolarto/18/97/45

The designers being ripped here included RAC skins, Naughty Designs (of course) and fuck knows how many other designers.

EDIT: Upon further view, they have taken down the Naughty Designs and RAC skins, seems like some X2 skins still remain.

As their sign states, "Everything in here is to resell".

It's about time Creators and loyal customers fought back and not put up with this shit any longer!

Alternatively, LL could invite me to be grid police to handle these types of things, they need somebody to do it. Seeing as I live in Seattle, have no job, am over 18 and have a lot of SL experience and there IS an office right here in town. nudge nudge

Content creators would be invited to join this group/organisation and pay a nominal monthly fee (say 500L ) to cover running costs and time. This organisation would need a number of administrators handling claims, texture & photoshop experts, a inworld lawyer for advice on relevant laws and several in-world investigators that can locate these warehouses. I guess Second Life Business Bureau tried to be that......but they had no effective powers... it could only really work if LL passed on some of their GOD powers to a 3rd party they endorse.

Nerolus would make a good in-world investigator

....and before readers pick holes with the above suggestion.......having something is a lot better than having nothing at all or the ineffective system that we have now! At least with the mere presence of an organistation thats spends 24/7 of it's time looking for stolen textures & creations sends a message to would-be thieves. I would bet that incidences of theft would fall like a stone for that reason alone.
Just imagine the impact if LL blogged that they have appointed a 3rd Party Agency or group to police content theft in world.

To my mind that leaves taking a Class Action as the only real way to force the issue. All it takes is for 2 USA based content creators (preferably a long way from LL location) to file this. Many lawyers will do it for NO upfront fee. And I am sure we could certainly organise enough funds to cover cost if needs be anyway.
Once the suit has been filed, then they can call for other creators to join the action, giving creators world wide a chance to take action also.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Rendezvous/203/7/29

involved avies (in object creator and/or owners)
Bicudo Daviau,Leo Gervasi,,Kevin1 Bailey, tutumaluco Ferraris , Spike Nykvist ,LuizHernandez Slade,Gutao Rosca,Cyanide Leviathan, leOo Streeter , Cyanide Leviathan,Asper Ferraris,AlexMarcello Rossini,Williannn Oh, Rubnet Olivier,AlexZiNhOo Maximus,leonardoemaggi Larsson,Damien Fate,Lolo Luo, and more...

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Rendezvous/203/7/29

Abrico Praia

http://bp2.blogger.com/_iN7isHDD3tk/R67RUOua0nI/AAAAAAAABi4/6slqmkorgu0/s1600-h/skin%2Bimagem%2Bnathaly%2Bpsd+2.jpg

http://bp2.blogger.com/_iN7isHDD3tk/R67SOOua0oI/AAAAAAAABjA/BntBitqmVg0/s1600-h/skin%2Bimagem%2Bfernando%2Bpsd+2.jpg

I'm really not sure posting landmarks and names HERE is the best way to handle it. We have seen first hand some of these thieves walk right into this jira and post away. We really need a closed group that designers can use. Something that would work 100% twords the cause. Posting the landmarks and locations here right out in the open is somewhat unsetteling, knowing that anyone in the field of skin/texture thievery can go to these places, buy more cheap, do f*ck knows what with them and then we have another huge store on our hands selling all kinds of stolen goods. We could actually be creating another rubnet Oliver by doing this here in the open. I went to the Rendezvous sim and reported what I saw. I even had a little chat with leOo Streeter. He was Brazilian and spoke NO English at all so it took some time to communicate with him, he was using a translator to do so. He was very scared when I informed him that his skins were in fact stolen from The Abyss. He was VERY apologetic and even took down his vendors. He said he bought them off a man, he couldn't remember his name though (sigh). More resellers out there tricking newbies into buying and selling these skins.

I wish that there were some kind of system. A website maybe. Where people could register their stores/sims into this system. You could then communicate with the other members on this private forum. Adding names and locations, having discussions, etc. The website would allow public registration but your account would only become active after one of the trusted members reviewed your shop and checked to make sure you are a legit designer. It would be a great way for designers to communicate and share the names and locations of the thieves without worrying about actually adding fuel to the fire (like we COULD very well be doing here). This would great for having concrete lists, archives and discussions. An inworld group would go along well with this website. I would love to create something like this, but I lack the webspace and money to fund it.

Abrico Praia , Rendezvous (199, 33, 22)
owner Kevin1 Bailey

http://www.there.com/
http://www.activeworlds.com/
http://www.entropiauniverse.com/
http://www.imvu.com/
http://www.redlightcenter.com/

Yet content creators haven't skipped over.

Dubya City - 142, 108, 24 - YLE Fashion - Owner: yle77 sewell

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dubya%20City/143/109/24

You won't trust your eyes... from skins to cars and a lot more - Full Perms !!!

WHEN IS THIS INSANITY COMING TO AN END???
LL SHOULD REACT FAST BEFORE THE ECONOMY WILL SUFFER!

ACT NOW OR SEE SL DIE!

Rodrigo Ramir is Run in same store of Bonnie Arado
http://bp1.blogger.com/_iN7isHDD3tk/R7FqyOua0pI/AAAAAAAABjI/yCeCZgi6jko/s1600-h/robsa.png

http://bp1.blogger.com/_iN7isHDD3tk/R7FqyOua0pI/AAAAAAAABjI/yCeCZgi6jko/s1600-h/robsa.png

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kios/237/8/24

For Mr Rob Linden

can you Please let me know why i cant use the Tools? in Left side?
why you say stop files, or screenshot? it is iliagal ..

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In http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1446 Lex mentions Linden Labs did remove all copies of copyright violating items at least once, so well, if thats true,they are techincally able to do. So why don't they do so for our items? Do they need to be sued to make them to do so?

"Rips, more in Abrico Praia Brazilian Land.. Abrico Praia , Rendezvous (199, 33, 22) "
Naughty Skins, Hairs more the 7 hairs from Naughty and Skins , RaC skins, Too!!

That whole Mall is full of stolen skins, must be half a dozen vendors selling them.
Add Jorge Tammas to the list of vendors who sells stolen skins. I saw a Naughty Designs, Nominee, X2 and Celesrial skins. There were more, but i could not put a name to them.

(117,42,21)

The Mall owners are equally to blame, they're fully aware of whats going on, in this case a Martha Gausman.
Is this a Brasilian disease or something, i know there are scammers from all nations especially when it comes to Land dealings,
but when it comes to theft of skin textures, the Brasilians seem to reign supreme!

Did you see this?
if you make any prim full permit and any guy use same prim and put script for stolen UUId LIKE THIS..

http://bp2.blogger.com/_LdHWMaXEORk/R7Lkkz5PHWI/AAAAAAAAAAQ/4trlgR1TNas/s1600-h/glasses.bmp

This stopped being a legitimate issue when 9/10 posts are solely naming names and no legitimate discussion is being done on the actual topic of the issue, I'm not sure about California law and I'm not a lawyer but with 811 votes if each vote counts for 1 person then get a class action going against LL, sue the pants off them for contributory infringement and violating the DMCA.

And I realize I will be berated by people who think that something with 800+ votes should be uncloseable but it isn't, 811 people reflects a panicky mob of content creators. I am not trying to assert control over anyone but as per https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Issue_tracker the Lindens like having people help out because quite frankly it means less work for them to do. The fact the Linden hasn't closed it doesn't mean that it's a show of support for the issue, I won't guess their motives but you'll notice that not a single Linden has commented on the issue other than Rob when he (after I sent him an email asking him to take a look at this issues numerous naming names violations) removed all the attachments.

Furthermore the "misfiled" status is incorrect as there have been technical solutions suggested, which have not yet been invalidated or implemented by Linden Labs. Misfiled" should be used for issues that have no place in JIRA. JIRA is meant for technical issues. This issue still has potential technical solutions. As such, this issue should be in JIRA.

Tell me something? Do you feel comfortable trying to sell products that take about 10 mins to
create for such exrtortionate prices?

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Whitesand%20lands/132/132/302
RaC and others

Nomine are NOT thieves. Munchflower has been around since '04, Nomine is a respected place. Search her name in this jira. She has been a victim, not a thief.

This is getting way out of hand.

BTW, resolving an issue is not closing it or judging whether it is resolved to the OP's satisfaction, you are asking the OP whether it is resolved or not. If you look issue posting guidelines, resolved is:

"This is an implicit assignment back to the reporter of the issue. It is not closed yet, but rather in a state of limbo that depends on the resolution. It's up to the Reporter to decide whether to reopen an issue, or close it."

The workflow is here: http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/docs/v3.12.1/default_workflow.html

I not say this issue should just be kept open because a huge amount of people have voted for it, but because this is a huge problem to all content creators (the people that made second life the way it is today) and it is not solved. However, the amount of people that voted for this issue does show how many people are worried about this increasing problem.

Of course a complicated problem like this will never be solved for 100%, but i am sure there are ways to decrease this issue that is growing explosively. If we don't even try stand up for what we believe in, and look for ways to do something about it, where will it end? If the amount of thieves is duplicated by 10 because there is no action taken against them, it will only become harder and harder to stop it.

In "real life" people dont give up up protecting their belongings either, just because there will always be people that will be able steal...

unless it came from a white photoshop page, i think that persons just a nut and wouldnt do business with them.

everything in SL is public domain, so it is my right, to go to your parcel (if marked public) i can walk in... select a texture, and take it without any consent.

This is possible & legal, i have personally discussed the matter with lindens through IMs and bug reports. So now that we all NOW know these are the cards that are dealt, you are best served by making smart business decisions based on the circumstance. (dont sell art?)

I have some truely original games i've made, and i risk the potential that someone takes the idea, rips the textures and shapes and rescripts the games to specs. They could profit as much, even patent the work, copyright it and sell to a Vegas casino. This is what i risk as a content developer. However, if i actually CARE about real world value of a product i make, i would not release it at ALL in world, and would use secure all legal documents and then provide that information along with a strong disclaimer with every copy of the game.

i dont know if that helped anyone, but read the TOS and be warned, ppl can RIP ya.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
End Quote.

This individual claims Zara Linden has fully endorsed and promotes the theft of content in Secondlife.

I would love to see Zara Linden step up and openly state that it is Linden Labs position that all content in Secondlife is free to be stolen.

Better yet I would love to see Phillip Rosedale step up and either admit that LL has been lying to customers for quite some time and does indeed support, promote, and endorse content theft.

Or take the alternative stance of removing from LL anyone with the opinion that all content in Secondlife can be stolen with the nod of approval of Linden Research.

Also this person is yet another script kiddie claiming to be marketing a device that can take anything in sl and convert it to full permissions.

Secondlife cannot withstand the massive assault underway by people trying to tear it down.

Linden labs must step in and begin permanent bans for anyone that creates any device designed to circumvent any feature of Secondlife.

http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p=1830388&postcount=36

Therefore I have created SVC-1581 to resolve this problem while providing enhanced IP Rights management that supports open source licensing when desired: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1581

For heavens sake - there are almost 1000 votes on this entry!!! How many do you need to deal with it? !!!

This is RIDICULOUS SERVICE to your content creators ... you are basically kicking them in the soft spot ! (

And irresponsible ... you helped and allowed this monster to be created , now put the effort in to deal with it!

Damn-it this will be the downfall of SL .... apart from the existing alternative games, I know of a new one being built on the FARCRY engine which is targetting SL right between the eyes, that has 100% built in protection for its content creators.

Same as eBay has now become known as greed-bay and has initiated its own death, this was SL's chosen downfall.

BECOME RESPONSIBLE !!!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Thisbe/205/97/22

This topic is turning more and more into a "spam-your-shop" topic than something useful.

Linden Labs knows perfectly well which illegal shops are paying their bills, no need to make that information public.

http://www.slpto.com/

And to everyone reading this: email me at Thunderclap+yes@gmail.com if you want a place to post names for ripped textures. I have a website and am willing to host a page with names and comparison links.

As for a solution, we need to change the system. and we need to do it now.

Now about these Soul Skin people who run their 200k classified ad with the 3rd alt now and wanting us to believe that they are honest and stuff.

It is funny what people where trying to point out to proof they are liars when the most obvious was just there right in front of your eyes.
The old Soul Skins been created by a skin creator you can buy on SLX. They also sold Naughty and X2 without a demo. Now the newest generation of "their skins" are digitally altered skins, out of respect for the original creator who confirmed all this i won't mention the brand even when it is pretty obvious.

However it is the original texture, altered plus lower quality layers on top of it! Their own screenshots proof it
http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=soullayersyc1.jpg

This image just proofs what we all thought - all layers are merged - even the demo logo is merged on the top layer.
It is content theft and now since the owner has their address she can get rid off them.

These people are lying in all our faces and fabricate evidence and even worse they are ruining a business. With all due respect they didn't bring Naughty and X2 on the full perm market but still what they are doing is building a skin on a stolen texture and come one over here real strong!

This is what Soul is trying to pull when they show proof?

Blocked out Copyright informations
1 PSD File with less than 10 layers
Upper Body = TGA
Lower Body = TGA
All scrolled in a way where the creators copyright info is blocked, i saw the originals i know how they look,

This whole proof thingie is a major slap in the face to any REAL creator and not these thiefs who have that less clue of skin design that they can't even see why we caught them!!!

Anyone have a look at the original "evidence" they sent
http://bp0.blogger.com/_hHiItj2__YA/R6oISY_fGvI/AAAAAAAABsk/y92w9cuMu94/s1600-h/SKIN+IMAGEM+NATHALY+PSD.jpg

and now bring into your photo shop and zoom on the red lipstick make up, you can even see how poorly they change the lipstick color, no blurring out underneath the nose, just poor skills and totally visible to anyone with a clue!

http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/b/2053240391764844696

And please Dear Rubnet, you and your gazillion of alts stop calling a thief an artist it is offensive.

Now since you've been made show us the single layers and shaders and don't block out the text on top right and on bottom left at the body parts!

Where did you get THAT information from??
lol

Honestly how rumours start and end,

I have never found a CD on ebay and we certainly didnt close the store.

Actually DMCA is of use, if it is being properly implemented. The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, a portion of the DMCA, specifies that expeditious removal of access to material in breach is a necessary response to a takedown notice to benefit from safeharbour status. Obviously if the material in breach is still accessible to a "business in a box" owner, even one not named in the DMCA takedown notice, then the notice has not been properly acted upon. To remove access to the material in breach in the case of a ripped texture, for example, Linden Labs should presumably be disabling access to the material through the UUID.

An obvious parallel would be notice issued to the hosting ISP of a website containing stolen MP3 files. Simply removing the front page of the website containing a download link to the stored MP3 file would of course be insufficient if it could still be accessed via the URL of the file itself – obviously one would not have to issue a DMCA takedown notice to every ISP hosting any search engine or website containing a direct link to the MP3 file.

I've got a nice collection of stolen skins of which all still work and none have a removed UUID. I ask every supernewbie who wears an expensive brand skin but no other items, to give me a copy of the skin so I can see it is stolen.

So far I've got:
Dante - tanned and beard - UUID not removed
Alina - 2 versions, UUID not removed
X2 male - UUID not removed
X2 female 2 versions - UUID not removed
FNKY skin - UUID not removed
Envision skin - UUID not removed

All full perms, and all still working. So what does this say about Linden Labs DMCA? They do not remove it.

And more news on the stolen skins front: secondlifes most well known self proven skin thief is back with a new store on the frontpage of the classifieds. He renamed his store to "ATENAS store", but they still are affiliated with the "help brazil" group an the well known "rubnet olivier" is still the owner. Just so you know, this is the same store as the one previously called "SOUL"

No more names and stolen items shops here please, - I think we all know how bad the problem is now, the specific names dropped are just the tip of the iceberg to the amount of theiving thats going on in-world.

I know that some designers dont even report it, hearing that theyre just sent to the DMCA, and that they do nothing.
Lost of Naughty didnt for gods sake, many dont, for whatever reason, so however many reports youve had Lindens, you can at least double that in reality.

Please please act now, its getting very late in the day.

For those concerned about the innocents who unknowingly bought stolen goods, in RL these goods are confiscated by the police anyway- thats life, and teaches you to be more careful next time. So the copied textures, if this turns out to be feasible, SHOULD be deleted from every where including "innocent" shoppers directories, they supported a theifs work- knowingly or otherwise, accept it and take the consecuences. Thats RL law.

And stop whining about how Linden Labs cant do anything- they havent said that, quite the contrary (2 years ago lol) and were all screaming for them to follow up, say ANYTHING on this topic infact, they dont need people speaking for them, they need to speak themselves.

Keep in mind this issue here is a meta-issue... By definition nothing will come of anything that is posted here. You must show your support for the specific proposals for anything to even be considered.

On a related note, Rubnet Olivier was renting the "Avatar Store Zeux" region from me. I am evicting him based on the credible allegations posted here. He will be moving out before the 1st of April.

I reported D-Skin's creator. however LastCall is....

http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=42076666

Do you remembers the date that the account of Gata Hoyer , Patrick1's wife was deleted by robberies?

Try to look if I or my wife is banned from CAKE/FNKY

The only problem was to be neighboring of Stivie Jewell ( also Ox Fall / Report Criss )

My wife Gata Hoyer was one of the first residents to vote here

And now llb Jonson show your real face .... or he is Stivie or he is Liberato/Rubnet gang.

But what about a simpler option that can work : ONLY allow residents with payment info on file to upload textures (prob sound and animations too).

That way anyone can still enjoy SL with a free account/no payment info, and can still build etc using free or purchased inworld textures (might be a small boom for the texture sellers too). But in order to upload a texture to be an asset, payment info is needed.

While this may not not stop theft, I believe it will make great steps towards resolving it.

Please all vote for SVC-676 so we can try get this under control.

What concerns me is that he seems to be a well known ripper, but has not been removed from SL. I have even been threatened by what seemed to be him posing as a Linden(Patch Linden in this case), telling me to pay his friend or face banishment from SL.

It should be made more difficult to create mass alt accounts like this, or at least have a limit on alts all together. Maybe a requirement to specify to LL which is your main account and which are the alts, like how a open space or void sim must be anchored to a normal sim. I honestly don't see what someone needs 5 to 55 alts for.

The limit on AVs with no Payment on file I think is a bad move. I've bought land with L$ made entirely through camping and by working jobs in SL, before having my payment verified through other means. I'm sure i can't be the only person in SL who does this. Even if it is most likely a tiny amount of people, they should be penalized when trying to upload textures and such.

Personally, I think is impossible to truly prevent theft like this, but the suggestion to link the UUIDs of textures to the original creator's account or IP would help a lot. Also when opening the Texture tab of an object that was is not the owner's own creation, a sort of watermark or symbol should be placed when viewing it, full perms or not.

the main reason why a texture may be stolen is if a user wants to edit their avatar to fix a alignment or color shade problem and the seller maintains a as is policy and offers no help then users will find ways to get around the no modify and other problems like that and if they go through a lot of frustration fixing the problem then they release the textures and objects out of spite

it is the same reason why some people download games when the developers add extremely invasive DRM

also if a object looks like one you made that doesn't mean they stole it

the wheels on a ford car is round and the wheels on a toyota are also round, does that mean toyota stole the wheels from ford?

for example, these devices are designed to look like the ipod shuffle http://tinyurl.com/5srz8c

this company simply reverse engineered the ipod shuffle then made their own version which sold for around 2-3 dollars instead of 69 dollars

and guess what, it is 100% legal

if you make products and charge a lot for them, then make sure that the customers are happy with it and for god sakes, stop false advertising

I have spending l$2000 for a item that is mod copy and no transfer only to find out that only some parts are modifiable making editing it useless because you cant edit the whole thing, it is like getting a black car and only being able to paint the doors blue, might as well leave the whole thing black

if sellers could just learn that then there will be less problems

If you do go ahead and steal IP from a creator who is not too lame to do anything about it ... be prepared to pay a lot ... oh and if you don't have a lot ... never mind - you can pay your stupidity off over a few years - prolonging your agony.

And since Sep 2007, its even easier for smaller cases under 10 000 USD to be settled - as the TOS were changed to allow for "binding, non-appearance-based arbitration" - so they can even be settled in SL.

I know content-creators who build really good stuff and make good money ... but so far they make more from nailing criminals.

Other than facing legal action, an IP thief will very likely get a ban from SL ... thats normally a machine-level ban applicable to all accounts - so not solved by just creating a new alt account.

As for blaming sellers / creators for bad products - thats nonsense. Make sure what you are buying, else leave it, and either make your own, or buy elsewhere.

If the seller falsely advertised and you have proof - well then thats a different case - then you can take legal action against them, and should do it - just as they should nail your arse if you steal their IP.

But 95% of the time buyers get bored with their new toy faster than the hole in their pocket refills with cash, so they try find ways to get their money back ... looking for reasons - like "I never knew it was noCopy or noTrans etc" ... well sorry, but unless it said this item is Copy, its not. As a buyer, the responsibility is on you to ask questions and check everything before you buy, not for the creator to deliver whatever you dreamed of (after buying).

If some buyers would just be honest there would be no problems.

Also per my JIRA SVC-2568 - the worst of the thefts are by people who have never bought anything at all. I know a lot of people who have ripped and modded textures, however the vast majority of these people don't release the items for redistribution as they are trying to obtain a unique look, and giving their unique look to others isn't in their interest. In fact most content makers turn a blind eye to customers who do this, as long as they don't redistribute the items in question.

Make no mistake: texture theft is mostly about people who just want to make money on the work of other people, and that's it.

theres also one thing

probably at least 90% of the content thought to be stoles are just remakes

I herd about 2 creators arguing over a dragon avatar being stolen

the person complaining never bothered to zoom the camera into the avatar to see the insides and see that even though it look almost the same, it was made differently

most of the users on second life are users of free accounts

most users who have free accounts rely on services like hippie pay for money
which means making 4000 linden for a avatar would take months of work and even then theres barely 4000 linden worth of offers in hippie pay because the idiot making it did it when the linden value was closer to the value of the American dollar and they never updated their payment system even though 1 us dollars buys almost 3 times as many linden as it did a few years ago

with like 90% of the users being free account holders,

there will always be a push for someone to remake expensive items and sell them for a cheaper price to users who have less money, i have seen a few avatars for really cheap that look almost exactly like others that cost 7-8 times more and those users are extremely successful

and this is completely legal

have you ever herd of generic drugs?

for people of lower income, instead of spending $500 on medication, you can get the same medicine for around $1-2 and in some cases for much less than a dollar, this was talked bout on many documentaries

companies take expensive medication, reverse engineer them then make a generic one for much less money and still make a profit from the overwhelming amount of people buying the product

for example, a dental implant from a major US company can cost $1800-3000
but a generic one made from a similar compound thats just as strong will be $15-20 and those companies are making huge profits because most dentist order the generic implants and sell them for the price of the American made ones and the dentist makes a huge profit and the generic company also makes a huge profit, (the dentist just has to make sure the implants don't contain lead or mercury )

if a items looks close to yours that doesn't mean it was stolen, it just means that someone made their own item that does the same task as your product but for a cheaper price to target the users of the free accounts

and it is not and never will be stealing

intel, amd, power pc, ibm, samsung, via all have processors that were based off of the original intel design for the way code was executed

since many programs are not chip aware, if a program is created and is designed to use sse3
even though 1 company made it, other companies were able to reverse engineer it and also make processors that support sse3 , they didn't steal it, they just made a similar ship that is designed to do the same task

amd used to be the best choice for processors because they were faster than intel cpus and were also cheaper because not only did they make something designed to do the same task, they were able to improve on it also, then intel dumped billions into the core 2 and is now currently in the lead in terms of cpu speed

if you want to prevent stealing then place a internal watermark this is often done adding a tiny line of text or pattern that cant be auto created using any program, or your signature then change the texture alignment to hide it then when you believe someone stole your texture and re uploaded it, just just look for that mark in their texture

and be sure not to confuse stealing with reverse engineering

The only people who are really profitting from any lawsuits are lawyers

I agree in some aspects: I doubt that parametric prims enjoy copyright. (which means a lot of content, sure) ... but textures do enjoy copyright.

It is impossible to remake a texture to be exactly the same as another one. Most of the thefts as I said, are actually using the exact content of what is stolen, with very superficial changes if any. The worst of the thieves even use the sellers own ads in their ripper stores, some you can even see parts of the logos of the original store. They don't even try to hide it.

Try to think of it this way, do you really want to see the small creator die in SL? Small creators aren't multinational companies, they're just a hard working individual. They can't afford to compete with a ripper mall which is a huge Walmart of stuff that no one person can make on their own. They can't afford to hire a huge amount of lawyers to sue them.

Do you really want them to be forced to work for companies, where they can have a big group of lawyers defend them - at the cost of giving up everything they made to that company? Because that is the only way they can compete with thieves who conglomerate all their content in one big Walmart-style mall.

If we don't get a handle on the fleecing of small users, you are forcing them to just get jobs and let a corporation own all their stuff and sue. I'm not sure I will like an SL like that, anymore.

many companies have been trying to play the DMCA card on many torrent sites

even on legal sites hosted in the US but they were able to charge someone under the DMCA because they were in another country

the only thing the DMCA can do is shut down the site but they cant touch the user if he or she is in another country where what he is doing is 100% legal

laws from 1 country can not effect other countries for a reason because it will start wars
f I owned a country and I made a law that said that everything wireless is illegal and no wireless signals are allowed here or a penalty of 1 million dollars will be find per second you infringe on this law. I can then sue the US and every other country because their radio signals are violating my airspace

it is just not allowed

thats why you see companies like the riaa and mpaa go after legit sites because some users are using it to host illegal content, those users are in other countries where American law holds no water so they go after the site instead.

and I am sure that linden labs will not shut down second life because a few people cant stand to see someone else make a similar item for a lower price

no one wants to see a creator die out in SL because then then we will loose out on avatars, how would you feel if most creators dies out and everyone in sl started to look the same due to lack of content?

no one wants that but many people don't want to spend a arm and a leg also

the cause of the reverse engineering is supply and demand

theres a high demand for a item but due to price most of the people cant afford it, so other people will step in and make their own item that is cheaper and affordable

thats why generic drugs were created in the first place

also if you look at hak5.org, I can recreate their texture exactly in maya 3d and photoshop with no problem if I wanted to

the only textures that cant really be recreated are ones that are not computer generated.

I can remake many cg textures but when it comes to non cd ones like paintings, there nearly impossible to make, I tried on worth1000.com and it didn't come out right

in worth 1000 most photoshop contests require you to be able to recreate parts of images for example if you want people doing custom poses or if you want to recreate body parts that were not there before due to the image being cut off.

creating city textures are simple but making textures such as skin or fur or other natural animal things it is nearly impossible to remake it exact

while no recreation will ever be 100% exact due to some sudo randomness being added into many 3d and image editors to make things look more natural, it can look exactly the same at a glance but if you look very closely and hard you will see that it is different

if you see a store that copied items from another person even their ad, in a way remaking their store but keeping the revenue for them self then thats major stealing and you just need to right click on the store objects and report it and you have proof to backup your argument that everything in the store is stolen

SL will never require users to prove them self for every report because that will cause problems

suppose you get angry at someone, you can then make up a report that that person stole a texture from you, then sl will put his or her account on the line and require them to prove them self,

they can do this constantly and make the person 100% miserable on SL

thats why lots of proof is needed before a report is taken seriously

if it were the way the texture creators wanted then you will have people taking each other to court because they don't like their voice or they don't like how there taller or shorter then they are , and will just make up stuff to get them into court

There is no RIAA in SL for content creators, not yet. Is this what you want to have happen? Do you WANT a RIAA in SL?? If the demise of the small content creator occurs and the only way they can afford to go after any sort of theft is by forming their own "mafias" like the RIAA to go after the mafia-style theft that goes on for a bit too long in SL, that's what will happen, sure. They will have no choice.

I am talking about the actual theft > I'm not talking about the right to tinker. I'm talking about people who simply steal and resell items they see in SL. It's all about money to these people. It's never been about anything else. They steal stuff that's never been for sale, they resell stuff that's freebies. They resell EVERYTHING because its all about MONEY to them. Make no mistake! These are the people where everything is all about money.

And again, all the SL servers owned by Linden Lab are in the US, so US laws apply. You buy land in SL, its on a US server on a US owned online service. You're right about the web at large, utterly wrong about how the LL grid works.

the LL grid is wholly owned and operated by an American company, with servers hosting sims located only in California, Arizona, and Texas. Last I heard, all those states are in the USA. Their billing might be in the UK but the core of the service is on US soil, and its US Federal laws that apply there.

> There is no RIAA in SL for content creators, not yet. Is this what you want to have happen? Do you WANT
> a RIAA in SL?? If the demise of the small content creator occurs and the only way they can afford to go
> after any sort of theft is by forming their own "mafias" like the RIAA to go after the mafia-style theft that
> goes on for a bit too long in SL, that's what will happen, sure. They will have no choice.

It's not like the RIAA does anything for the small musicians, anyway. In fact, it doesn't even bother to check with the artists any more - just the corporate executives of the record labels. The RIAA/MPAA style solution doesn't work.

Honestly - there IS no real solution to stopping texture theft or the theft of other items in SL. Even scripting is easily cloned, in most cases. The only tricky stuff is script communication with external servers.

It works because sites do their best to not allow it to continue. It doesn't prevent it, though.

My main issue is that easy exploits that allow people to simply resell their own work against them need to be closed. Cloning yourself into another person in SL is an exploit that shouldn't be allowed to happen. Accounts which engage in egregious theft should be banned. I'm not talking about making a product that's similar > that's perfectly allowable. I'm talking about the rip and resell folks who engage in all sorts of other activities that attack legitimate users of the service - not just content creators. Now such things as spoofing the SL website are on the rise, too. It's a concerted attack against the small user, and that's gotta stop.

that based on every pixel in the image a hash is created, so even if the hashes match then the item is stolen

so when a user reports it, sl will compare if they were the first person to upload it then compare the hashes to see if it is stolen

for me I have no problem with generics

but I hate when people steal especially when they steal something then sell it at the same price just for the purpose of stealing from the original creator

companies like the riaa and mpaa are criminals

they use loopholes in order to extort money from people

when theres theft going on and they cant prove who exactly is doing it then they send settlement letters to a large group of people telling the users to either pay $10000 in a settlement to make the riaa leave them alone, or they prove them self in court

if they pay the settlement they loose like $10000, if they go to court, you have to have a lawyer and it will take time and money, and theres little chance of being able to counter sue for legal fees

so either way the riaa is making a lot of money

if sl were to make a company like that then it will ruin SL

there needs to be something that sellers can do to their textures like find a way to fingerprint them

or increase the market range

unlike real world product, there is no supply and demand in SL, theres only demand, supply in unlimited

it is like subtracting 5 from infinity it will still be infinity because infinity is unlimited

instead of charging a arm and a leg for an item, why not charge less and have more customers,

you will make more money that way, and people will be less likely to steal it

the most pirated software are overpriced things, the more expensive it it the more it is pirated

a few years amd use to be pwning intel by selling processors that offered the same speed for a lower price and amd 64 3000+ was faster than a 3GHz intel P4 and was around half the price

amd made more money and had more customers

a million people spending l$800 for an item is a lot better than 500 people spending l$4000 for your item

since theres no production cost

for example nvidia cant sell a geforce 8800 for $1 as it cost about $25 to make the card

but it the cards were just digital, they can sell them for $1 if they wanted to

a software item never goes out of stock and theres no factory needed with workers and assembly lines to make your product, it is digital

thats the whole point of digital

thats why broadcast tv and satellite was created

with direct tv, if doesn't matter if there 5 people watching animal planet or 500000000000000000 trillion people watching animal planet, it doesn't cost much to serve all of them because it is just being sent out over the air and who ever picks it up can tune in

in sl linden labs handles all of the bandwidth cost, when you sell a item, all linden labs is doing is sending the buyer a secret hash that allows that user to access the item from the asset server

when you put a item for sale, it is costing you $0 to produce the item , so your able to set any price from l$1 to l$ infinity and make a profit if there enough customers

SL has over 50 million users which means up to 50 million potential customers,

just like PC game system requirements, price determines your market place.

theres no way all 50 million users will be even interested in buying what you have no matter what

if you set a price where only the top 1% of the people are able to afford it then your selling then you will only have a few potential customers and probably only 0.0000001% of them will be interested in your product,
which = poor sales

look at the makers of the ps game crysis, they are crying and moaning over poor sales when not even the fastest pc on the market today can hold a smooth lag free framerate through out the game, (tomshardware,com spent $5000 on a gaming pc to see if they could get it running smoothly through out, maxed out and while it did run smooth for much of the game, there were many times when the game would slow down especially when turning and looking into the distance

even though thete hundreds of millions of computers , due to the insane requirements, only less than 0.001% of pcs were actually able to run it maxed out and smoothly and even less than that were interested in the game

but look at other games like WOW or some other the sims, (not the best gameplay but they have millions of users and there constantly selling because their market place is with in range of a much larger audience so there much more potential customers which means there bound to be much more people interested in it so they get more sales

another pc game thats very new Sins of a Solar Empire

new game, most of the computers out there are able to run it, and it sold better than almost every other pc game this year even though the company was not very large and mostly had word of mouth advertising it sold better because they had a larger market place

in the real world thing about the event called black friday

when all stores have extremely low prices.
the target market becomes so large that that there too many people to even fit inside of the store and police have to be called in some cases to keep the crowd of shoppers under control

for some items the store may loose money on because they will sell them lower than factory direct prices
but in sl theres no factory production cost, so you can keep a black friday sale on all the time and make lots of money

the problem is that some sellers feel that it is not respectful to their hard work to sell it as such a low price even though they may end up with more money because of it

and if you see how piracy is, people don't steal cheap things (only happens on extremely rare cases)

It works for the corporations, but not the small musicians, which pretty much is my point. It actually does work for the corporations, they go after pirates who actually do pirating > that is, reselling the albums in the original sense of the term > very successfully.

They don't dent the free trade in music, but there is a good argument to be made that free trade in music amongst fans actually improves profitability for the big majors on popular acts. Fans do buy all kinds of things which are marketed at them. Where it can hurt badly are the small musicians who are mostly unknown or have a small following.

Texture theft in SL is similar in that it hurts the small creators. It's why you see a few big texture selling places and not very many small texture sellers now. Selling at the big places means you give up half the price of the textures to the store. A friend of mine who recently left one of those places has seen a massive falloff in sales due to no longer having the high exposure.

Artists who sell in their own shops and make their own textures to sell on their items are hurt far more heavily, though all are hurt. It's that they don't have high sales to start with, so they can't compete easily against Wal-Mart sized shops.

Mark my words this is the trend in SL now, going "corporate style". SL is becoming very hostile to the small content creator, who usually doesn't make a big profit from their work to start with. I worry for things like the land market, because its the little guy who uses a small store to help defray the cost of their land. This situation does have a pretty large knockoff effect, and it's not a good one I think.

are you in SL ??

yes, they do sell cheap things, often very expensively. I've seen small content creators where they had lower prices than the thieves.

In fact with scripts, its even worse. You have people selling scripts you can get for FREE in the SL forums for hundreds to even thousands on SLX. That happened to my scripter neighbor, who gave away her skirt sitter for free and the next day it was on SLX for hundreds of linden as a no mod script.

They take advantage of people's lack of knowledge of how to search this information out themselves. I've seen my own freebie textures sold in texture packs on SLX that I gave away FOR FREE. And can still be gotten for FREE down at the freebie carts in Caledon Victoria City.

sorry, wrong.

they should make standardized shopping where linden labs controls the vender device then users of a certain age (who had a account for a while and is a unique user) can vote venders

like if a vender is scamming someone then users can vote the vender down and with enough linden labs will step in and remove the vender and if the buyers want, they can opt in for a refund and linden labs will just delete the item from their inventory (since linden labs already has full control of our inventories )

Hypatia, that is a very BAD argument. It's illegal. It's unethical. Musicians and the companies they have chosen to be affiliated with have the right to decide how to promote their work. Those who want their music distributed that way have every right to provide that permission, but those who do not should also have their rights protected. As a composer, I've had people "help" distribute my work – some of which is published by one of the largest corporations in the music business. Their voluntary "assistance" is disgusting.

You may find it disgusting but it often works to the opposite effect. Your objection doesn't diminish my point. You're not the corporation. I certainly realise its often not to your advantage but its often to the advantage of those who are selling your music.

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2005/12/13/study_online_music_sharing_can_spur_sales/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/03/internet.intellectualproperty

as I said before "They take advantage of people's lack of knowledge of how to search this information out themselves." They're starting to catch onto that point, by making themselves more accessible. DRM is highly unpopular, and as I said in my example of the 3d poser communities with their associated online stores - you don't really need DRM to control actual piracy. We controlled it at the level of the sites. Free exchange would happen of course, but most people want to support the content creators, most people do actually buy the stuff, and need to be able to use it for what they're doing with their programs, which makes DRM pretty much impossible.

Piracy is really the act of stealing and reselling your work at a profit. Privateering. But we've watered the term down so much that an innocent group of people listening to music with their friends can be accused of piracy. That's pretty insane, and why there's such a backlash against the RIAA.

File sharing on the net isn't comparable to what's happening in SL, because its actually the reseller pirates (who are not exactly the same as file sharers - who share for free, not profits), who are using large stores to resell items in SL. For far too long, a blind eye was turned to the activity, until recently. (when the big brouhaha happened recently over a certain island being shut down and all items from a pair of individuals deleted inworld, causing a great deal of content grief, much of which to content which should not have been affected - due to legiimate scripts having the creator name of the person whose items were deleted)

The major way out of it here, is to make your things more findable than the thieves, plus closing the obvious exploits that allow the thieves to do duplication so easily (I'm not even talking ripping here > I'm talking the fact that armed with a UUID, you can use any texture in SL you want, perms don't matter) and that's going to take a concerted effort. Much of which is going to go well beyond just content theft. It means improving the way SL functions overall.

One major way they try to make their things more findable is through the group chats and notices. We STILL CANNOT ADMINISTER LARGE GROUPS PROPERLY. We can't properly deal with spammers in SL. This has GOT to change.

However, for skins and clothing replacing the asset with a "pirated removal" image should be MANDATORY. Yes, rippers can re-upload from an alt and resell again, but their client base will be significantly diminished if... let's call them "repeat customers" have to worry about how quickly some skin they're buying off the back of a truck (to reuse a metaphor) is going to turn to dust. (As for those who aren't aware the goods are pirated, ignorance is no excuse) The kinds of people who knowingly shop at places that run off of piracy above all are lazy; if they have to re-buy their skin or clothes every few months they'll either buy the real thing or give up entirely.

Also, I like the idea of having some embedded identifier that allows people to see who made a skin or piece of clothing that someone is wearing. From a counter-piracy standpoint it's a good idea, but even from a sheer convenience standpoint it's a good idea; there have been a few times I've seen someone wearing some elaborate skin or wonderfully detailed piece of clothing, but have been unable to ask where it came from. (Due to language barriers, them not responding, etc. etc.)

instant broken content - all your content, too.

there are few good answers.

Second Life content is 95% client created and most of that has a texture on it and they need to be able to protect it.

All these ideas on how to go about are relevant and credible in thier own ways, some may be more practicle then others. But it is not up to the residents to find the best solution, because they cant and dont have access to it anyway!

As far as the amount of effort or policing of the second life software and/or effect on the community and economy, it took alot of effort but they jumped all over it when the issues came up with the legalities of gambling, why drag thier feet for so long on the issues and legalities of theft?

Linden Labs has has watched for a long time while we build the content in Second Life, they need to take action to preserve it even if it means putting some brute force into it before everything with a texture is devalued and the best of the creative residents in SL give up and throw in the towel or forced to go under due to the lack of Linden Labs securing what they lead us to beleive is secure with "permissions"

That is not a bug or a fix, its the backbone of preserving original creations, which without it there would be much less content in Second Life.

...and fewer paying residents

~ ATanya ~

Out of curiosity are you just commenting here to keep this issue "alive" (every change sends an email to those who have decrited to the jira list after all) because it seems that this is apparently a dead issue other than people commenting once in a blue moon to say what everyone else has said. I'm not saying that this should be closed since it is a meta issue and a very useful one for many major issues but commenting here to say what 100 people before you have said is a pointless waste of time.

One wonders what the massive barrier must be preventing LL from getting this resolved ... or at least putting in some technology to assist to bring it under control. There is just ZERO effort. When enough noise is made, then some 'talks' are held. Once the talks are done with, its back to another year of nothing.

They have been sitting about doing nothing about this for so long, and all the time the copying technology is improving.

The latest method of theft is not a texture grabber, not a copybot tool, but a process which intercepts the data-stream direct from the asset LL servers, I guess we can thank open-source for that. That data-steam is then 'injected' back into the asset server under a new owners name.

So no longer do creators and businesses have to only worry about texture and prim/sculptie theft, they now steal the ENTIRE OBJECT - including all scripts - ie. Fully working. Already, hundreds of high-value items have been stolen this way.

Even worse : the creator name is NOT replaced using this technique ... so its not a way to ID the stolen goods - so it looks just like a legitimately bough item, and works like it too.

So the thousands of creators who have been relaxed about content theft "as it didn't really apply to them" (their assets being more in the scripts) ... can start joining the crowds now. Your items with precious scripts are also now being stolen.

It's totally out of control.

Maybe its a small hope that some Linden is secretly monitoring these pages from time to time and will come across these comments are start something up ... rather than just 'ponder' about it in their minds and assume that 1000 people 'pondering' will spark a Linden to sense that.

What are you doing about it?

"The latest method of theft is not a texture grabber, not a copybot tool, but a process which intercepts the data-stream direct from the asset LL servers, I guess we can thank open-source for that. That data-steam is then 'injected' back into the asset server under a new owners name. So no longer do creators and businesses have to only worry about texture and prim/sculptie theft, they now steal the ENTIRE OBJECT - including all scripts - ie. Fully working. Already, hundreds of high-value items have been stolen this way."

If so that is a server side exploit and should be posted to the SEC project or emailed to security@lindenlab.com

If so then Linden Lab needs to immediately close Secondlife until further notice, Buy Oracle, Hire Oracle experts, Restructure the table names and columns, And build a service layer between the client and the database so that none of the database architecture is known to the Open Source community.

If Secondlife is subject to SQL Injection then nothing is secure at all. Attackers can change the avatar keys in vendors and intercept payments, change all permissions on anything, Basically do anything desired with the Asset database including erasing it slowly over time.

I do hope this is not the case. If it is then it is clearly a gaping liability for Linden Lab since any professional in the database business knows of this issue. In fact there was once a case of over half a million websites defaced because they ran on MySQL and were subjected to SQL Injection.

Oracle takes a lot of steps and measure to keep the databases secure and DBAs typically expend 1/4 of their time in application of security patches and other tasks related to a constant state of vigilence. Linden Lab requires such a competent database staff so if they don't already have this level of competency on staff in sufficient numbers then they need to stop everything and get this done.

Please LL please tell us you have the right database architecture, database software, and middleware to halt SQL Injection in it's tracks and that you log all such attempts and file the requisite USSS and FBI forms for internet related penetration attempts against data systems for each and every occurrence.

Yes we have been monitoring expensive stolen SL items using this technology, 100% functional with original SL creator.

LL is aware as a ticket was raised a few days ago and its assigned to the Goverance team. We did highlight the potential risk of this technology - which is why the ticket was raised - thinking that LL would want to jump on this fast to get it under control, but other than the ticket being assigned there is no other feedback or response.

DMCA's on over 10 cases of stolen content using this technology were raised, no reply yet either. We will try the security route you mentioned to see if they consider it serious enough.

Ann, apart from the immense task, changing MySQL to Oracle can only leave SL worse-off. MySQL is a world class db, theres reasons some of the biggest online db's run on MySQL. Do not blame the method of use (implementation and architecture) on the software. There is nothing Oracle can do for SL MySQL can't. However regardless of the db, many things aren't done for a reason - like getting the content to the clients faster, and some maybe just not done at all, but its not the db's fault. SL pretty are pioneers in what they are doing and so had to adapt as they evolved.

Also don't confuse SQL injection with packet injection. Packet injection is constructing packets of data with all the correct headers in memory, and intercepting and modifying the network data stream to send them to the server, not necessarily running SQL. It works the same regardless of what db is on the backend, its a network exploit.

( VWR-4970 is the option to limit the use of a texture to the uploader (creator) of the texture only - of course OPTIONAL)

Welcome to the reality of automated copying. If a Linden wants to know how to monitor and ban these people feel free to IM me.

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Details here : http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=273349&page=1&pp=15

The really sad part is it sounds as if LL has know about this for some time but just not closed it and tons of content has been copied / stolen !

One wonders if they will have the decency to recover the stolen content and remove it from the thieves inventories. Or at least remove it when DMCA's are raised.

Since textures are generally .JPG files, and .JPG files have headers, we could change some bits in the header (the kind that graphic editors never try to understand and just recopy when saving).

In those bits, stamp some PGP-signature autogenerated from the texture creator's name and the texture's actual colors (not two signatures alike).

When some texture thief just automatically downloads some textures with a hack program and re-uploads them as his creations, the signature of the true creator remains... even if the texture was edited. So during the upload (before the texture is assigned a signature) the thieving could be detected! Then the texture is uploaded with the original creator's signature.

This allows Linden Labs to autodetect amateurs who are not equipped with header-changing programs, which is most of thieves these days (many people who just want the texture without paying, not necessarily to resell it; and face it most thieves are not peculiarly smart).

Still the texture owner could have given the texture to a friend in email, after downloading it from linden labs, so the owner needs to file a complain.

...Still the owner could query the server to come up with the names of people who have the texture, and figure out who got it without buying from transaction logs.

---The "bait" idea

As for thieves who fooled the permission system to get textures, some "bait" textures could be seeded that can never be bought or traded in any way; simple possession of that texture without having the correct creator's signature on it is 100% proof of texture stealing.

One wait to seed the "bait" texture is to automatically give textures a flag on the server, for textures that have never-ever been with transfer permission. Possession of such a texture without having the proper creator ID is 100% proof of the permission system being fooled with, and massive possession of such (so not from an accident in typing a texture ID or from the lousy permission bugs or whatever) should draw Linden Labs attention without the need for someone to discover the thief and file a complain - especially if the avatar is selling.

'As for thieves who fooled the permission system to get textures, some "bait" textures could be seeded that can never be bought or traded in any way; simple possession of that texture without having the correct creator's signature on it is 100% proof of texture stealing.

One wait to seed the "bait" texture is to automatically give textures a flag on the server, for textures that have never-ever been with transfer permission. Possession of such a texture without having the proper creator ID is 100% proof of the permission system being fooled with, and massive possession of such (so not from an accident in typing a texture ID or from the lousy permission bugs or whatever) should draw Linden Labs attention without the need for someone to discover the thief and file a complain - especially if the avatar is selling.'

1. If the textures are not on an item that can be bought, traded, and does not raise any interest, why should people steal it?

2. Let's say the texture is on an interesting object. You do realize that the first thing that will happen if this gets put in effect is organized griefing groups stealing textures left and right, and dropping them into freebie boxes/giving them to newbies en masse? This will instantly render that method useless, cause lots of confusion and wrong accusations, and to them, lulz. Not a good idea.

The bait you want is to catch LL ... to get them to care about theft. At the moment they just release random statements to calm the masses, but they don't care. SL content is built up (and most of the good content already well circulated in copies), and at the rate new people are joining it doesn't matter the good artists are just giving up ... had these complaints surfaced years ago maybe a different story, not now.

The basic message is, if you create good content : be aware up front that it will be copied and distributed so that you are not disappointed when it is. Try put some effort in to distinguish your product from the copied ones - like excellent scripts and scripted utilities (although with packet injection that can get copied too), And forget about high prices, SL is not for high-priced items - big business is dead in SL ... unless you are into the IP-theft business.

Second,
technology, as has been mentioned, does not solve the problem long term, even I can see a way around every single "solution" proposed here and I'm no demon coder. Its amazing how few content creators understand the basics of client server architecture and the basic principal of computing.. if I can see it I can copy it".

Third,
Linden Labs lawyers are most likely telling them to NOT touch anything or introduce any additional filters over and above those available. The risk is that by implementing "protections" they lose their common carrier status and become liable for monitoring all content on the system, something (as said above) they cant do effectively enough to satisfy a judge.

Fourth,
content creators are responsible for the protection of their material, common carriers are given specific legal exemptions from liability under the DMCA. The reason that linden labs doesnt do anything "over and above" is because, again, they can lose their common carrier status.

Finally,
What I would suggest here is a pooling of minds to find out what DMCA events cause the best results, share your specifics, share the templates your using to get resolution, share information on suspect items, come together and exchange information.

Isn't it odd that the solution to the problem is the sharing of even more information..

remember information always wants to be free and will find any crack in your defenses to become so.