Gigs

Right, because U2 has put in a lot of effort to establish branding. And they would defend that brand if anyone tried to pretend to be them. They don't need pretend permissions to trick people into thinking their CDs can't be copied.

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"It is the paramount duty of governments and of politicians to secure the wellbeing of the community under the case in the present, and not to run risks overmuch for the future" - JM Keynes

Colette Meiji

But that level of fame and popularity just isn't possible within Second Life.

Macphisto Angelus

Just a quick note..

U2 fuckin' rocks.


Carry on.

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If life is just a joke, why aren't we laughing?

Gigs

I gotta get back to work on evil communist hippie related things. See you later.

Colette Meiji

It just seems backwards to think that a problem that is bad now, WITH permissions ..

Will get better by removing them.

Its assuming a whole bunch of things about SL will improve which haven't improved throughout its history.

Such as the efficiency and competence of Linden Labs, and the overall integrity of the Residents.

Gigs

Peeking back in!

I'm not saying they should do a rolling restart tomorrow and all the permissions no longer work. This won't be an overnight change no matter how things happen. Linden Lab has acknowledged in the past that the permissions are mostly broken, that they won't get into an arms race, and that better tools for expressing copyright licenses and tracking down infringement are coming. So I'm not taking a radical position here, I'm just asking Linden Lab to do what they said they would do over a year ago.

CaleVinson

Going to attempt to pick up on some of the points raised in the 80 or so pages since I was last here.

1) Importance of scripts in SL.

Everything that follows below is dependent on the premise that scripts are an important part of SL, both directly and indirectly, and in terms of commerce and what makes SL "SL".

The reason that I single out scripts/scripted objects, is that scripts do not reside on the client machine, they run *on the server*.

2) Consumer rights.

Gigs, you mentioned the issue of consumer versus creator rights, citing examples such as fair use and so on. Now, your knowledge in this area is much greater than mine, but served applications on the web right now, seem to work with little in the way of consumer rights you mentioned.

I write an app to do something - produce your personalised hororscope for the day, stock analysis, it doesn't matter. People can subscribe to my app for a fee. To use the app, they log on to a particular website, click a button, and see some text/numbers/whatever.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but in this scenario I'm under no obligation to provide subscribers with the code (executable or source) of my app. Nor am I required to move my app to different websites that a subscriber may prefer to access my app from.

It seems to me that, currently, SL scripts look much more like served web apps than they do like textures, sounds, or numbers (Adam's "34"). When you buy a scripted object in SL, what you are getting is the right to have a script run on an LL server, and send results out to the SL world.

I would not expect my ISP to release my server-side PHP scripts to another ISP without my permission, why should LL be able to release my server-side LSL scripts to another grid without my permission?

3) The Fifth (Alternative) Option.

Gigs gave a list of four (or was it five? - I'm not going back to check now. ) options in the "fight" to protect IP. But again, most of his examples were relevant to client-side stuff (eg., music) only.

Yes, no amount of copy-protection has stopped pirated versions of traditional games appearing. But I've yet to see a pirated version of the server for a major MMO. I've seen people write their own server emulators, but haven't seen a pirated one - has anyone else?

Unless the answer to that last question is "yes", we have an example of how to defeat piracy, by keeping the code on the company servers. As LSL scripts are now.

4) Do we want small-fish or not?

Instituting legal proceedings is for people with large business interests in LL (Stroker, etc). If DMCA requires me to give out my RL identity, I won't use it. Now, I'm a content minnow, but I always thought that was one of SL's greatest strengths - it gave minnows a go.

5) Consumer Honesty.

Joshua mentioned studies that "demonstrated file sharing to be no detriment to the recording industry at all." I'd be interested to chase that up if you have a link Joshua. Software may be different: the BSA suggests that 35% of installed software is pirated.
BSA - 2007 Global Piracy Study
From here we get into the tangled world of vested interests and biased reporting.

Do we have *any* factual numbers on the extent of SL content theft currently?

Cocoanut Koala

I would agree that the permissions checkbox system should be more robust. We could use a box that says, "transfer but no resell," for instance. Don't know why they haven't implemented that.

I wouldn't balk at a free-form text field. But - I think that would be a tad intimidating (and thus remove a whole lot of fun from shopping). One could always sell their item in such a way that this legalese popped up automatically when they opened a box with the item in it.

I disagree, and totally. My experience and impression is that the permissions as they stand today (coupled with LL's stance on the use of copybot) are around a .998 on the 1.0 scale, with perhaps .002 incidence of people hacking those permissions.

The number of people reselling textures is doubtless higher, but that rather proves my point, doesn't it? The textures get pirated on a far higher scale precisely because the box ISN'T checked off, the same as with full-perm freebies.

The fact is, that box prevents wholesale copying and selling of an item. To overlook that is, I think, a mistake.

(And texture sellers who complain bitterly about this - as I said long ago - could do what people who sell door systems and poseballs and the like do, which is to sell a transferable version for a higher price than the individual version. And/or they could keep a registry of merchants who need transferable textures, and sell the transfer version only to those people.)

Well, I'm suggesting that replacing it would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Pretty dang senseless, actually, and with no compelling reason to do so.

The permissions system may not be a license, but in court, it would be extremely compelling evidence of intent. And as I said earlier, it isn't necessary to create a copyright (or a license) in order to establish ownership. So the checkbox itself is not meaningless, or non-enforceable.

If one wants to create a license or post copyright warnings all over the place (or even on or in the item), one can. But again - there is zero reason to remove the physical (and psychological) impediments to copying simply because that impediment isn't a written license.

Let me put it this way: Give the average content creator a choice of which he would rather have: a license, a checkbox, or a combination of license and checkbox?

Do you think many would choose license alone?

I don't see that a license is necessary, in terms of my own things, at all. Most people get that the "no copy" checkbox means you are not supposed to copy it. Other people who want a license have them.

And as far as I'm concerned, you *are* buying something in legal terms - you are buying the pixels and the code that make up the house, with the caveat that it can't be given away or sold.

It then becomes yours. At base, everything belongs to LL anyhow. For those who want to put an extended license, they can (and do).

Well, as pointed out above, Gigs did propose that.

But what we are really talking about here is not just that happening (it won't happen, at least not within any foreseeable future, as LL isn't totally suicidal), but the notion of creating other worlds/grids that eschew any physical, coded impediment to copying in favor of printed licenses only.

And again, I have to ask - why throw the baby out with the bathwater?

---

I agree hugely that most people are honest. I couldn't agree with that more.

But - honesty is a relative thing. When you look at human behavior, something that is done by most people is no longer considered "dishonest" at all by most people. Thus people who consider themselves highly honest will do it, and you end up with a situation where most people are doing it - even THOUGH most people are honest.

(Prohibition is one example; overlooking cash income on tax returns is a better one. Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the known universe who actually declares little bits of cash income on my taxes.)

It's easy to imagine that if there was not a "non-copy" checkbox in SL, people would soon stop paying. And if there were no non-transfer box either, it would probably take amazingly little time for everything to be totally free in the wild.

***

I really think it is important to take whatever technological steps are available to help prevent copying on any grid where sales of items is desired. That's why LL put in the checkboxes in the first place.

Unless, of course, as Cale mentioned above, one intends to have a world comprised mainly of big entities like Coke, Nissan, and Disney, who have a legal staff and the capacity to run around slapping lawsuits on people.

And you know what? If Coke, Nissan, and Disney had a "no-copy" button (however imperfect) available to them in the real world, I doubt they would say, "No, let's not bother with that. It would be better to keep sending the lawyers out all the time."

Again - if the permissions system is about as strong as protection can get (though it could be made more "granulated" and robust), then why not use it?

Well, I understood that the pieces would not come back in the same position in which they originally were? Is that not the case?

Which I think people do. However, there is a cut-your-losses point, and that would be - when too much theft is happening. Without checkboxes, my guess is that everyone would probably arrive at that point soon.

Again, these are things people who are at all business-savvy already do. I've spent three years now, pushing my brand, labeling it and giving it personality, and marketing it (as much as I can afford) and giving great customer service. I have a freebie program, and I periodically upgrade my products.

In other words, we already know all this, but we still want the checkbox!

***

This has been a long response, not because I want to argue with you, but because I know that I will not bother to build and sell in any world that doesn't take every step it can to protect goods.

Just as, in real life, I would not sell merchandise in a mall that refuses to lock its doors at night - when it COULD - on the basis that theft will happen anyway and we should rely on licenses and the courts instead.

I would pick the mall that is more sensible. As long as the theft was minimized, and as long as the mall owners took reasonable steps to prevent theft (locks, lights, security), I would keep leasing there.

LL knows this. When that girl got her whole island shop copybotted, LL was right there, investigating and banning the perp. You don't see them removing the checkboxes and telling people to see their lawyers.

And I really doubt they will allow our things to go without permissions to approved grids. To do so would mean loss of their own customers, as merchants would then refuse to sell anything in SL, knowing that it would go elsewhere where everyone would have it.

Now, if you want to make a world with no permissions system, you can. And good luck to ya. It's a new paradigm, at least. But - I don't think it will be a world where regular people would make things to sell much.

coco

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Gigs

About scripts on the server, in an open grid scenario, the bytecode will be exposed to anyone who runs a grid. Since anyone can run a grid, this is pretty much everyone. So the compiled images fall into the same class as client-DRM (eventually) in an open grid scenario. Sure you can use this to "lock" your scripted item to a grid. But you won't. The market won't let you. If you want to be able to compete, you will allow your item to be exported.

About small fish, like I said there have been low-cost strategies to protect the copyright of even people without much resources. It's not impossible or even that difficult. Public ridicule goes a long way.

Citing the BSA for piracy numbers is not exactly a winning strategy, as you pointed out, it's all very biased and pulled from thin air.

Tasrill Sieyes

Gig I've looked at your agreements but I don't see why one should get rid off the permissions system. Update it for more clear language sure. Make it clear it isn't perfect and is a lissions that has applicable local laws to it is a good step. But why do away with it?

I'm no fan of DRM in principle and buy my music and software without it when I can. But small and unobtrusive bits of drm are not something I feel need to be done away with. I like to think of sl permisions like the cd key for installing software. Sure if I wanted i could google search for 10 seconds and find a crack to get around that verification but I don't feel any need to. It is small and unobtrusive and 99% of the time not geting in my way of using it as i should be using it. And yes I may be in my rights to use a crack but i'm not going to ask companies to not to use use cd keys any more. I like how stardock releases it's software drm free, but a small bit of drm to herd the uneducated is not a problem, and sl permisions are easy to get around if you have a legal reason to.

But to cut the wall of text down. I don't see how cuting the small bit of DRM sl has well do anything to make things easier on the user. It only seems to make copying against the (implied) eula creaters give you easier. Expesialy since sl as it is now has little to give you for suppling such things to tell uninformed that just becasue you have full permisions it doesn't mean you can do anything with it.

CaleVinson

I think your argument is circular.

You: The ineffective nature of technically-based IP protection means we will inevitably end up removing permissions, and that a no-copy-off-this-grid flag is pointless.

Me: Technically-based IP protection works very well now for scripts.

You: Yes, but it will fail when we move to a model in which servers hand out the script bytecode to other grids.

Me: It will fail then, yes, but the question of whether the servers should handout bytecode or not is *precisely* the point under debate.

Who are you to say that I would not opt for a grid-locked model if I had the choice? Perhaps, as a minnow, my goal is not to "pwn" the entire market, but serve a tiny niche instead. Perhaps, as a minnow, I simply don't have the ability to provide customer service to anything but a niche market. More shockingly still, perhaps I'm sometimes *immune* to market forces - maybe I want to release a scripted object for free, but not have others profit from my work.

If you believe the time of the minnow is over, I could accept that. But say it, rather than tell other people, who's motivation you apparently have little understanding of, how they'll behave.

Its not always about cost. Public ridicule works when you can bring a sufficient amount of it to bear. I think that would be difficult for a niche-market minnow.

Agreed. But my question then is: is the "other side" any less biased?

Gigs

No one is going to buy products that disappear when they TP. If you think they will, great. I hope you disclose that your products are crippled, otherwise it could be considered fraud.

Cocoanut Koala

This is rather extreme, don't you think?

"Crippled." Give me a break.

Fraud? It is to laugh.

This notion that nothing should be a "walled garden" is an extreme notion. The entire world consists of a googolplex of walled gardens, because that is what the world IS. If it weren't, it would be an amorphous primordial soup.

This notion that people expect, even DEMAND, that they be able to take everything out of one grid/website/world/whatever and put it down in another one is almost quaint in its oddity.

The idea that anyone could possibly be committing "fraud" by selling items on one grid only (which would be obvious, in that they would be marked as not being transferrable to another grid) is indicative of some fanaticism on your part, I think, Gigs.

coco

Colette Meiji

Gigs wants a wide open Metaverse I guess.

And thinks that were actually going to get it with Second Life and these other grids?

Joshua Nightshade

Well I do agree that when other grids become accessible and items become transferable, people will have an expectation of taking their things wherever they want.

I don't agree that it will be fraud if they can't though, unless those things are advertised as transferable and end up not being so.

That's not fraud any more than not selling things mod or copy is now.

Gigs

If it's somehow clearly expressed to the user that it can't be taken to another grid then it wouldn't be fraud. I expect that to be very much the exception rather than the rule. People are not going to buy products that they can't take home!

Edit to add: The thing to keep in mind is that the reason this thread exists is because LL isn't going to add a "flag". Copyright licenses on products need to be prominently disclosed, especially if they are asserting that the user can't even use the digital asset in other grid environments, arguably something the far exceeds the protection copyright offers.

Cocoanut Koala

Home.

Now that's an interesting concept right there.

If SL is one grid and a person's "home" is another, then I imagine that person might not have too much difficulty determining that if they want to take an item "home," they need to have their home in that grid.

Your idea of home seems to be "everywhere." In other words, that all grids would interconnect, right? That they should be totally seamless.

Well, with some of the grids having no security, I don't think that will work.

Grids can't be totally seamless when they have different rules.

Apparently, by your thinking (and not just yours), everything - all grids - should be as one, in terms of moving between them (without the horrendous inconvenience of having to log off one and onto another!) and taking stuff from one to another.

But - you DON'T think they should be as one regarding permissions, rules, or anything else. Sounds to me like a looter's heyday.

People aren't going to make products when they know other people can take them elsewhere and give them away by the thousands, or sell them as their own.

So the people who you say aren't going to want to buy products they "can't take home" will be perfectly okay, because there won't be any products worth buying to take home anyway!

On several posts now, you indicate you know what LL is and isn't going to do.

How do you know they aren't going to put a flag?

coco

Gigs

Yeah, It's impossible to have a network of interlinked servers with different rules and policies. Just imagine if someone created such a "world wide" system, all "webbed" together in some sort of internetwork. It would be fucking pandemonium and everyone would quit doing everything.

Gigs

They don't get to decide who to "hand off" assets to. The creators of the assets in SL hold the copyright to their own work, not Linden Lab.

Gigs

I disagree that they will do that. The point here is to turn SL into something bigger than the web. That doesn't happen with discriminatory content policies.

In any case, the only thing they can possibly do that with is scripts. Everything else we can rip out legally (if the creator allows) whether LL likes it or not.

Cocoanut Koala

You are making my point for me.

The internet itself is a vast series of separate, walled gardens.

On the internet, you do not get to one website directly from another. You log off of it, to get to another,or open another window. The websites themselves don't flow freely one into another, for a multitude of obvious reasons.

You are making the point that they SHOULD have different rules and policies; which is what I have been saying.

***

To be fair, I think we are all at the mercy of the Lindens having done things backwards, and having done one thing while secretly intending another. (Such secrecy and duplicity never work out well.)

What they have done is created a walled garden. Which works out very well for what it is - a place where people can create content and sell it to one another.

But what they REALLY wanted to do was create a 3-D internet.

Had they just gone ahead and created a 3-D internet, that would be just fine and dandy. But they created SL instead. And they created SL simply to get enough people in to create a buzz about themselves, and to make enough money from; planning all along to switch horses on them.

We wouldn't be HAVING this debate if LL had just done the thing they wanted to do in the first place, instead of starting a thing they actually had contempt for, fully intending to pull the rug out from under it.

***

So they built a world with a built-in economy and rules. Then went about trying to open that up to make it into the 3-D internet.

That's like trying to make the regular internet and beginning with your university's own web site, including its internal documents (grades, professors' info, pay scales, payment info for tuition, payment info for housing, and other information that has to be kept secure).

And then think you can open all that up, and not kill it.

Naturally, people are not going to want SL and all their businesses and products thrown out for anyone anywhere to use, in some kind of free-range oasis.

I would be just fine with a 3-D internet. I'm not just fine with thinking that SL should be the backbone, or the mother ship for it.

And don't forget my question - what makes you think the Lindens wouldn't put a flag?

coco

Gigs

To Anya:
It is interesting the way you use the term "entitlement crowd". It seems to me the ones that have an entitlement complex are the ones that expect their customers to buy their texture over and over for each new grid.

Copyright is an artificial and limited right. It is granted by the government, unlike most other rights, which are inherent to being a human (like the stuff in the bill of rights). The goal of copyright is to encourage creation of new works, not give creators absolute control forever.

Gigs

I think we are in agreement there, more or less. I don't think grids necessarily have to be "seamless" in the sense that you have the same login and identity on each grid. Loosely coupled doesn't necessarily imply walled garden though.




This picture is on my server. Your computer connected to my server to get it. You didn't have to log off SLU and log into gigstaggart.com to get it.

So yeah I do agree that we don't necessarily need them to be completely meshed together, but I don't see that as walled garden necessarily either.

Cocoanut Koala

The stuff in the bill of rights is also granted by the government. Just like all rights are.

Anyway, that aside, this is so interesting! You really do make me think so much!

It makes me think that the future might include:

a. a whole bunch of grids
b. each with their own agenda
c. and maybe their own economy
d. and maybe stuff that can only be used there (or wouldn't make sense to use elsewhere)

and

e. A whole new business of people who sell goods that can be used anywhere.

In other words, there would be websites of people displaying their things to use everywhere.

Seems to me THAT will be what happens. Not this business of insisting that everyone in each little grid agree to have their things sold everywhere.

coco

Gigs

Oh sorry I missed this question. Because Rob said they won't. And because Zero and Tess and everyone else at LL really likes the idea of using the power of copyright law to enforce things that are really hard to enforce with technical or mechanical means.