M&M Target of Copybot Attack, Threats

M&M Creations informed SL Newspaper that they were the target of A Copybot attack that ripped off many of their content creations, and then someone threatening to distribute copies of the pirated goods around. “Isn’t this outrageous,” 10 Goosson commented, “This is bizarre, but so open. We traced the thief, and his account was deleted. Then we were approached by a new av who says he is a friend of the thief. So openly?!” Porting reporters to the scene, a sandbox in the sky in the Mythos sim, 10 told, “the more things will rez, the more you recognize our main-stores complete content.” And indeed as shapes and colors formed, familiar goods appeared, “Behind you Bixyl, 2 other plateaus, all rezzed permanent ready to be taken, stolen ... This is still a bit shocking, the way the Hamarack Krovac and Swiss Ryada did this.”

10 handed over a notecard of the conversation she had with Hamarack Krovac, “im gonna give your scultie to every peopla.” “I'll report this, small effort.” “its too late. its on my computer ... LOL, i got your shop in my invent, come see ... adresse renew, its easy. i can come every time, second life cant banned  me. ...  FREE SCULTIE COME HERE, ALL IN THE BOX FOR ) LINDEN, 0 linden*, alll its free.” At times, the griefer claimed he was trying to “help,” but his threats and boasts spoke otherwise.

The incidents confused the Goossons and others. Marcthur Goosson remarked, “the craziest thing is that the copybotter told me he copybotted.” A woman responded, “He TOLD you?  Do include that in your AR , and near the time he said that to you.” “I know, I am struggling with word scanner pictures...  just to relief myself, this matter pisses me off. I am standing in a sandbox with half my shop copybotted. I talk to live chat and they tell me to send DMCA. I have to work my a** out with documents, pictures, notecards, faxes and PDF etc etc. And I am still standing in that sandbox with all proof in front of me.(it is an exact replica of my shop) Where is LL ??? They are hidden behind the papers, crawling in a stupid system. ... Sorry to drop this out of the blue.”

10 claimed the items had been in the sandbox for some time, “We're so sick of these little children! And LL is not showing up while we're standing here, no we need papers, forms, proof, (how much do you want to have) digital signatures ... It's still standing here, for hours!!! ... We both filed abuse-reports but it is bizarre. LL asks us to make such a long wait while all things are here, proof enough even the names and notecards, and still LL responds this bureaucratic paperwork-way, I can't imagine!! For a virtual world that moves this fast, being so so so bureaucratic, is this normal??? Can we as hard creative workers expect this?? Even the event tree, what a cynical thing to see. Pathetic if you ask me.”

10 went on, “I just want to express what happened to us and show all in-world some stupids are playing against LL-Terms Of Service and OURS, and nothing has been done. Marcthur (has been) standing here for hours!! Tell the proof is still here ... I've no idea how many 'friends' this idiot has.”

More people dropped in, and the discussion went on. One visitor after looking the scene over commented, “... Makes me wonder what the hell was the point ... We know: 1)He did this without any monetary benefit, 2)Informed the creator he copied. So this is probably a troll.” 10 told a little more about the incident, saying they had found the first guy at M&M Creations a few days ago, “Swiss Ryada, we approached him friendly, but he just went through with rezzing before using his copybot right under our noses!! So after several requests, we banned him. And now, a few days later this Hamarack is 'back' for helping his friend Swiss.”

Eventually, Marcthur announced, “I talked to the landowner, he banned the guy and waits for my signal to wipe this.” When someone asked why they didn’t go ahead and get rid of it, “I want LL over here, better proof is not be found. ... So we residents have to solve our own business and all LL does is read reports. I cannot file a DMCA in a few minutes. It is good newspapers are here.” Someone commented, “I remember back in 2004 and 5 when Lindens (were) in-game with us, and you could look one up and they (would) just fly right over and issues like this were addressed right away. It’s sad really. ... This makes me feel very uneasy as a designer where Second Life is headed.”

Eventually, everyone left the scene. Hours later when the sandbox was checked again, the copy of the stolen goods was gone. Question is, is this the end of M&M’s problems?

By Bixyl Shuftan

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WHAT’S A BOT? A BENEFIT OR A MENACE?

Is that a good, appropriate question to ask, nowadays or a worn out record. Let’s find out.

A bot is an avatar which is controlled by a machine, rather than by a human, simple really. So why worry about that? If a human can do a thing is Second Life, what does

it matter that the process can be automated?

On the positive side, it means that all regular or widespread communications can be done at a single stroke of a key and left to be run by a bot. So what’s the fuss?

It is the purpose to which a bot is put that is contentious. The notorious copybot is a case in point. It is possible to steal a design, change permissions, sell the design/product in huge quantities without the original creator benefiting from his or her work. Worse than that, a copybot automates this process. It can be placed in or around a designer’s premises without being identified and steal, steal, steal.

All activities in Second Life are based on the open source Linden Scripting Language (LSL) (open source means that it is available for anyone to use in any way that they can devise) this brings many benefits to Second Life residents’ lives. We can build houses, vehicles, clothes, we can write scripts to power our cars, planes and boats, to greet people, send them messages, invite them to parties etc.

Open Source means an open world.

However, it also makes virtual criminal activity possible, too. Like a knife, its use depends on the motives of the user. A knife can save a life (in surgery) or take a life (in a robbery). A bot can enhance our second lives by opening up communication channels, for instance, or it can bring misery, if used to steal our hard-earned designs of anything that can be built in Second Life.

There had been calls to revoke the open-source rights to residents. When the furore had cooled down, it was realised that this was just a knee-jerk reaction. Pandora’s box is open and it’s too late to close it.

Do we want to put our freedom back in the box? Just look at the figures when you log on to Second Life: 50,000 or more people logged-on at any one time. So many of those people are creating, contributing to their home-from-home.

Beautiful houses, “wild” animals, pets, cars, planes, even our own virtual bodies have been made possible by this open source policy. Linden Lab started everything but it’s the residents who have continued it to heights we see today.

And that’s the problem. With freedom comes the abuse of freedom. So, why should we NOT revoke open source lsl. Because we will also revoke our creativity.

We must protect our freedom over and above our commercial and financial gains, because those gains would not exist without “freedom” or ”open source”. Freedom is not the culprit here, it is the abuse of that freedom and those residents who abuse it to their own, selfish, ends that are the culprits.

With freedom comes responsibility, so let’s take that responsibility as a community and hunt down those who abuse our rights and remove THEM.

Kim Trefusis

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CopyBot rears its ugly head at Styles of Edo

This morning I awoke to an email from Edo Tone of Styles of Edo he was very upset and showed me photographs, taken by Maggie Mahoney of Runway magazine. The pictures showed copies of his 'famous' tailcoat worn by M(ark) Linden at his first public appearance at the SL5B opening on sale at OMG! Inc.
When I arrived at Sununu, next to our head office, home of OMG! Inc and saw the suits on offer, I could see for myself it was his tailcoat, it is unique. But I was also disturbed by the similarities of others on the wall and buying the white tux shown found it too was from Edo. Edo came and confirmed it but more disturbing he also pointed out designs that were from another designer Simone Stern.
I brought Simone in and, although blurred and photoshopped a good deal, she confirmed some were her textures, pointing out highlights and shading that were unique to her designs.
Next I tried to contact Kaddan Yue CEO of OMG! Inc. but it was the middle of the night for her so I asked Intlibber Brautigan to remove them from the sim which he did as soon as I appraised him of the situation. I admit I was impressed with the speed he grasped the facts and dealt with them.
When Kaddan came online she immediately confirmed that she had bought the textures some time previously and they had been sent to her by email. She was totally unaware they were copied/stolen and shocked when shown the pictures. She took immediate action and removed all designs made from textures sent by kraus Folland. I know Kaddan and the work they are trying to do with OMG! is commendable, these designs were bought at the beginning of the project. Kaddan told me that now they are using only inworld designers and no longer buying textures because of the copybots.
I have rarely seen anyone so upset and I can't blame her. It was a horrible position to have innocently bought stolen textures and used them.
I arranged a meeting with Kaddan and Edo where Kaddan apologised personally to him for the mistake which Edo accepted with an offer of friendship to Kaddan.
Later Kaddan released this statement;
"OMG Inc is a co-operative company meaning we collect designs to sell from many designers as well as creating our own.
We have bought designs from many places like XStreet and designers inworld.
When I was informed that some of the designs we were selling were copies I took immediate action and removed them from all of our stores.
I will also delete all copies of the textures I bought from kraus Folland.
These textures were delivered to me by Email and I have destroyed the originals stored on my PC.
I wish to apologise publicly to those that have had their textures copied.
I would never deliberately resell someone Else's work without their express permission in writing and had I known that these were copies I would never have bought them.
Texture theft is a big concern in Secondlife and because of it we are now working only with designers inworld in the hopes of preventing this from happening again.
All I can do is apologise to Edo Tone of 'Styles of Edo' and also we think Simone Stern of 'Simone' and accept full responsibility for reselling their designs."

My question now is WHY IS COPYBOT ALLOWED IN SL?
This situation was awful for all involved, Edo and Simone had their textures ripped and altered, Kaddan and the OMG! team were, in all innocence, selling stolen goods (which in real life is no defence) but here we can see the ones to blame are those that continue to use the CopyBot and decide to profit from other peoples hard work!
I guess some will always try to profit from others hard work - just make sure you know the source of any textures you buy! So we can minimise the profit these people can make from copying.

Dana Vanmoer

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Content theft continues

Some may mistakenly believe that content theft, texture theft, copybots, primjacking or whatever else you want to call it, is either being dealt with or just isn't your problem.

I believe this is EVERYONEs problem after all if you can't build/make something new without the risk of it soon appearing all over SL, with someone else profiting, then what is the point of creating?

Maybe you are just looking for great content at the lowest possible price?

Aren't we all, but please remember if the original content creators stop bringing in anything new where are we then?

At a recent discussion held at Hawthorne and hosted by FlipperPA Peregrine for content creators Frank Taney, avatar name Extinct Darwin, answered questions on content creators rights in Secondlife.

The discussion was well attended and I don't intend to copy the full transcript, it can be found HERE.

Frank started by explaining the four different intellectual property types and how they relate to Secondlife he went on the explain what a DMCA (Digital Copyright Millennium Act) was and how it worked to protect copyright.

One of the things that struck me was the level of frustration over Linden Labs lack of action and also how difficult it can be to prove that an object/texture has been stolen, even once a DMCA has been proven, it is still up to the original creator to track down all copies and report on where the infringement is occurring rather than LL removing the article from the inventory as it should:

'Nyte Caligari: I was told by my own IP lawyer that LL isn't exactly following the DMCA by not removing the texture or whatever from the offenders inventory. How valid is that statement?'

'Extinct Darwin: I can only speak from my personal experience . . . .

Which is that they have not gone into inventory. I don't think that is living up to the requirements of the DMCA.'

After several question relating to bring a class action against LL Frank had this to say:

Extinct Darwin: Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (governing federal lawsuits) sets forth a number of requirements a putative class action must meet before it is certified as a class action by a court

generally, to be viable class actions, the issues to each plaintiff class member must be common, and involve common legal and factual issues . . .

the common issues must predominate over the individual issues, in other words,

to fully go through all of the requirements as the pertain to this situation would take a while indeed.

More and more ways of copying are pouring into SL and the only thing we as purchasers can do is be very careful who we buy from! But as copying methods get better it is harder and harder for the mere consumer to know which are the originals

It appears most of the Lindens do not even know its a problem and those that do simply point to the DMCA and Abuse Report system obviously with no knowledge that these are temporary fixes at best, yet one more sign that 'The Lindens' no longer have any clue what is happening in Secondlife - stop looking at numbers and get in world! Use an alt if you have to, talk to your residents and creators see for yourselves what really is going on.
I can fully understand the designers' and content creators' frustration over this issue I just wish just for once the Lindens would stop worrying about user numbers and start worrying about the users themselves!

Dana *ends rant*

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BREAKING NEWS: Copybot is Back!

Back in November 2006, Second Life was in uproar for a whole week. And I mean complete mass panic. Businesses were leaving SL, protests were there, it made Real Life news, it was announced that it would be the end of Second Life. Fact was that Libsecondlife created a tool, a piece of software outside the standard viewer, that was designed for backup purposes with all good intentions. It duplicated any object in SL and made it full permissions.

Of course it was only a matter of time before people started using this to their own advantage. When that happened and was discovered, all hell broke loose. The CopyBot, as it was called, was dealt with in a swift and secure manner by Linden Lab, and the civil unrest came to an end.

Nowadays, people tend to think that if they create content in SL, that it is safe from copyright infringement. But rumours and accusations have been starting to fly around again, about expensive skins (up to L$ 5000 a piece) being copied and resold for a lot less by thieves. We reported on this just over a month ago.

Yesterday, I received a freebie skin saying "I'd rather go naked than wear stolen skin", created by Laynie Link. Ms. Link is a clothing shop owner and I bet she has a passion for protecting her content. But not only that, she must have a good reason for it. Ms. Link was unavailable for comments, but this made me research the issue again.

I talked to a scripter, and he claimed that he was able to do it within 10 minutes. And you know what? I'm not a scripter, but after I fllowed a false lead and ended up on a dead-end street, I followed another lead and managed to do it myself within 10 minutes !!!

So, for me it is confirmed, it is true. CopyBot II is here !!!

Now, what can this thing do? It can copy any texture in Second Life. When I tested it, I had access to any texture that my virtual eyes could see, starting with the moon and ban line pictures in Second Life, but also including complete skins, eyes, clothing, the sand that I was standing on ... EVERYTHING!

The fact is that it's not too hard to build things in SL. The true art lies in texturizing it properly. And with the arrival of Scuplties in May 2007, this has been taken to a whole different level. Well, this thing can also copy complete sculpties.

Imagine that you have created a true work of art. You're a sculptie artist and have created something that you have been working on for many many hours. Imagine that you're Light Waves (or Starax, as he's commonly known), and that you have created the best art there is in SL and that you're selling it for up to L$ 25,000. And then imagine that someone just copied your blood, sweat and tears and is selling it inworld for only a fraction of that price.

Would you leave SL over it? Well, I bet you would, if you know that just about anyone can do this, and that Linden Lab is unable or unwilling to do anything about it. And I bet that you would feel the same if you were a skin creator like Naughty Designs, X2 or RaC, or if you were a successful clothing designer like Blaze Columbia or Nicky Ree. This thing could put you out of business. Or imagine that you are a RL photographer and are selling your art in a gallery, and that anyone would be able to grab your photos without having to pay for them. What would be the point of having a gallery anymore.

Linden Lab has been made aware of this in several ways, amongst others on the JIRA, the SL bug reporting system for residents. The number of votes on this particular issue has sky-rocketed and will continue to do so, up to the moment where Linden Lab will take action.

LL has dealt with the original CopyBot in a quick and decisive manner. They haven't done so with this one. Knowing what I know about this issue, it is now not as simple as with the CopyBot. Just for the record, if you are wondering if this is actually a legal way to copy textures ... it's not. There is a very specific USA law that applies to these cases, and LL has claimed that it is in compliance with those laws. Well, it seems that they are not.

Now, I have solid proof that it works, that Linden Lab has been aware of this security breach from early 2006 and that they have not taken any action against it. And they probably will not, unless this issue causes widespread panic and anger amongst residents, as it did with the original CopyBot. And it seems that now the time has come for that panic.

The protest skin is available for free from SL Exchange, so please all wear it, and go to the JIRA article to vote for the topic. Not only is it the right thing to do morally, taking action now will also protect your content.

For the record, I have deleted any stolen content that I retrieved in this way. I will also not provide proof here, because it might lead to revealing this security breach. Just know that anyone with a few basic computer skills has access to this.

SL Newspaper will continue to follow this story. Please look forward to more news about this as the story develops.

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