Responding to Questions about the DMCA Process
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 1:20 AM by: lauraplindenLinden Lab inadvertently disabled some inworld content this past weekend. The problem should be fixed now, and we apologize for the inconvenience it caused. If you believe your content was inadvertently disabled, please try re-rezzing it. If that doesn’t work, please contact Support at http://secondlife.com/support.
Linden Lab has not changed its DMCA policy. For privacy reasons, we don’t discuss the specifics of DMCA notifications with third parties. However, when we receive a valid DMCA notification, we send affected Residents email notice so they aren’t surprised when we remove content from their inventory and inworld locations. The email notice explains how to submit a DMCA counter-notification to seek restoration of the removed content. Be sure to keep your email address current and make lindenlab.com an exception in your spam filter so you receive notices from Linden Lab.
We’ve received questions about removing infringing items from Residents’ inventory when an inworld location (a region name and coordinates) can’t be provided. Inventory items may be subject to DMCA claims when the items are sufficiently identified. For example, if you can’t provide an inworld location, provide the names of the allegedly infringing items and avatars. Linden Lab will conduct a reasonable search for the identified items.
Also be aware that persons who materially misrepresent copyright infringement in DMCA claims may be liable for damages, including attorneys’ fees and costs. In one case, a company that sought removal of content protected by the fair use doctrine paid over $100,000 USD. For more on this, see here. If you’re unsure whether certain content infringes your copyright, we suggest speaking to an attorney before submitting a DMCA claim.
More information about Linden Lab’s DMCA process can be found on our DMCA policy page and in our recent blog post on Protecting Your Copyrighted Content. Linden Lab’s DMCA policy has not changed, and this information is up-to-date.
June 17th, 2008 at 12:59 PM
my only comment on this is that my understanding of the DMCA process is that it supposed to be directed at a specific item. In this case you just wiped everything by that particular person - both the infringing articles and the legitimate creations.
but of course you didn’t actually remove everything. To add insult to injury you’ve still effectively left the offending items behind. As you state, it’s easy enough to re-rez the offending item without any consequence.
Lawyers could have a field day with this. whether you agree or not, it looks completely cack handed from where I’m standing. All you’ve done is go through the motions and manage to incovenience a considerable slice of your userbase.
well done.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:01 PM
LL, I really wish you guys wouldn’t add the scare tactic at the end to scare folks out of using the DMCA.
Even if you guys aren’t that hot on copyright in general, it reflects badly to add FUD to the end to ensure that creators are afraid to protect their IP.
For every organization who has had to pay for frivolous claims, there have been several non-frivolous, legitimate infringement claims.
I just don’t understand why LL continues to be so IP hostile.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:03 PM
*sigh.*
You know, I rarely ever bother with the blog comments, but I’m going to go out on a limb here on this one because this is an issue that directly affects me.
For a year I ran a group where I tried to help people who found their content ripped off or their freebies being resold get some help from LL in protecting themselves. For a year I educated people on the DMCA (which incidentally I personally feel is an abusive, over-reaching piece of legislation, but really might as well make use of the tools you have) and what it meant to them and their legal rights regarding US copyright law. For a year I answered questions and helped people file notifications in a calm, rational manner. For a year I watched the happiness and sense of righteousness they felt when they saw the stolen stuff taken out of SL be replaced by disappointment, shock and disgust when days or hours later that content was back in a different place, a different store– though not even that usually, nor did the thieves have to resort to an alt account most of the time.
For a year I watched the disillusionment until even I got tired of it and closed the group, stopped doing anything but answer rudimentary questions, and added this to yet another list of things LL has done wrong.
I didn’t do this for money or to get the opportunity to say, sanctimoniously, a year later how disappointed I am, but because I am a content creator myself and when people feel they can’t make anything because an asshat will steal it from them it destroys the beauty and wonder that, despite everything else that LL does, has kept me in SL as long as I’ve been here.
Now news of this comes to me and you would think I’d be happy about it, that you finally wised up, even if it did take not one but two lawsuits for you to get a hint. But no, I can’t be happy about it, because still, somehow, you’ve managed to mess even this up.
Beyond the residents who’ve legitimately purchased content they didn’t know was stolen losing their property and money, beyond residents who have been harassed with frivolous DMCA notices finding that LL turned over their *real life information* on counter notice (RL info– the freaking staple of all untouchable knowledge in SL), it’s now come down to this, residents using the DMCA to abuse people they dislike, competitors and others. Because now on receipt of DMCA a store owner’s entire line suddenly vanishes not just from SL itself but also their inventory and their customers’ inventory and so on and so forth. And yes, you can counter file, and potentially open yourself up to LL-facilitated RL harassment when the original filer gets hold of your name, address and phone number, but beyond that when LL returns the content, it’s in an unusable format that no longer shows you as creator, has everything you’ve had taken away from you in a disjointed, broken array, and rests on you hoping you’ve somehow backed things up just to get your store and your content and time and creativity in-world again.
The preceding anecdote is not hyperbole. It’s fact. It’s the reality of what has happened to at least one content creator, a friend of mine, who for months has been harassed by a competitor trying to stress her out of business. It’s the reality of watching her discover her store half destroyed suddenly, and then ten days later receiving a bunch of unusable junk. It’s the reality of hearing her say she was on the verge of tears and thinking of just quitting entirely because what’s the point of stressing out over it?
I’m trying to be happy about this blog entry. Surprise, I’m not.
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1278
June 17th, 2008 at 1:04 PM
It would be helpful to know more about the basis of the takedown. Was it for animations? Scripts? Some other content?
I have had items fully disappear from their inworld locations. Others have just had scripts disappear. This means something to us, and needs to be addressed so we can act appropriately. If you have not read http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=264963 or http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=265005, please do. We need clarification about what was infringing.
As has been said in those threads, deleting all inworld instances but allowing people to re-rez infringing content is a flaccid means of addressing the problem, and does not actually help content creators. We need a longer-term solution than that.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:06 PM
What if anything have you done internally to help prevent the deletion of legal items from happening again?
June 17th, 2008 at 1:09 PM
oh and please clarify
inadvertantly disabled…. what was inadvertant about it….
if this was an attempt to show due diligence……phew….. we are in trouble
June 17th, 2008 at 1:09 PM
The problem I have with all of this is that from what I have read. Infringing material from several different people was deleted in world and in some cases wont rez from inventory. But other works created by at least one of these persons still exist in the inventories of some folks.
We as content creators don’t know if the stuff left behind is ok to use or not. If its still in my inventory does that mean it wasn’t deemed infringing? Or did you guys just miss it?
It a very confusing situation for honest content creators that bought sculpt packs in good faith only to find out they may or may not be infringing on someone elses rights. We badly need some clarification.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:12 PM
This is too little too late.
Your poor implimentation of the DMCA takedown is only exceeded by your increadibly poor job of communication. This occured arond the morning of Saturday June 14th, and we get no word about it until Tuesday June 17th? How can anyone at LL®™ think that this is good customer relations? I am hoping you have some underhanded reason for this, tha alternative is just plain incompetence.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:13 PM
Are you saying you “inadvertently removed” because of a technical problem or “inadvertently removed” because of a miscommunication or “inadvertently removed” because of a false DMCA accusation? I would like more clarity here. Thanks
June 17th, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Sorry, should have said “inadvertently disabled” above…
June 17th, 2008 at 1:15 PM
My gf lost 75% of her inventory…none of which had to do with this issue…….same time….. so did a monkey drop a banana somewhere…. what else are we missing from your INADVERTENT actions…. and forget support tickets! I’m conceirge and I have one or two not answered in months. No refunds offered, no fixes….. just plain disgust. Are we on candid camera?
June 17th, 2008 at 1:17 PM
PLEASE, LL: TELL THE TRUTH, don’t LIE.
Saying that the content was “inadvertently disabled” makes it sound like you didn’t *mean* to do it.
You could have said “Due to a mistake, content was disabled”. The fact that it was a mistake in judgement rather than a technical one is left to the reader as an exercise.
But boldly lying like this reduces my (previously high) opinion of the veracity of LL’s blog posts.
Really. Please make sure every statement actually is true, before hitting the “post” button.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:18 PM
What i dont understand is that you also removed all mlp scripts from her
mlp is open source so anybody can improve the scripts
can you explain why that is
and you destroy items from many residents who had nothing to do with this they cant rerez items because the most are no copy and the losses a lot of money by your action
i had a box in my inventory with the mlp scripts in it and i can rezz the box but it is emty no scripts anymore so als in inventory we lose it all and where can we get other items as replacement ?????????
June 17th, 2008 at 1:21 PM
To be fair, Lear, I think Laura is addressing the removal of the non-infringing works (the MLP scripts). I think she means to say that they didn’t think it through and overreached in the removal of content. But in order for me to fully believe what I just wrote, we need more clarification as to the basis of the takedown.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:22 PM
The person whose stuff was deleted was a known thief.
A great deal of the stuff that ordinary end-customers in SL owned was made and sold to them by retailers who managed to get the raw material cheap, and decided not to ask too many questions because they knew it fell off the back of a turnip truck.
As a retailer, you owe your customers a duty of care to ensure that you are using quality, reliable material in making your content. If you’re not sure, you investigate, you ask questions: that’s how it works in RL too, and ignorance is no defence.
Here’s who was hurt by this whole situation:
- Customers, because the people who sold them goods didn’t exercise a duty of care;
- The animators, whose items were stolen in the first place;
- All those retailers who go to the expense of making sure that they are using quality, fully-licenced legal animations.
All in all, this take-down had a silver lining because it alerted customers to the fact that they’d been ripped off by being sold pirated animations that the retailer had bought for a song (or got free) and had sold onto them on a huge profit, because the retailer had avoided the real costs.
I’d like to issue the challenge to all who are creating furniture with this package of 62 animations from Craig Altman, Johan Durant, etc, to get legal by either deleting them from their inventory and never using them again, or by contacting the animators to arrange legal licencing. You won’t get in trouble; they realize that you may have been taken in by EC (the person whose stuff got deleted) or by someone reselling even what she sold.
So instead of directing rage at Linden Lab, I’d direct it at pirates who started all this, and at retailers who didn’t do their homework and just slapped something out onto the store floors.
(ducking now, because I know blasting LL is far more fashionable.)
June 17th, 2008 at 1:25 PM
And, btw, content was deleted, not just disabled. Whole objects were deleted; notecards and scripts (perfectly legit scripts with GPL licenses) were deleted from object contents.
So, a more accurate phrase would be “content was mistakenly disabled or deleted”. Not unintentially, but intentionally, due to an incomplete understanding of the situation.
Here’s what I know: One party obtained full-permissions copies of a number of animations and used them in an MLP-script powered bed, which was widely distributed with full permissions. The owners of these animations legitimately wanted this content removed. LL seems to have deleted inworld content created by this party.
I support the claims by the animation makers, and hope that LL can come up with a good solution for this difficult problem.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:28 PM
Ah, thanks Crystalle — by that interpretation, it isn’t lying. I apolgize for my rant above. It would have been clearer if she had said, “In addition to removing illegal content, …”
It’s a tricky job saying enough without saying too much. In this case they hardly said anything.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:30 PM
it alerted customers to the fact that they’d been ripped off
Did it? Or did their purchases just stop working without explanation?
I don’t know anything about this particular issue; I’m just curious how it was handled.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:30 PM
This did NOT alert customers that they were using stolen animations as the animations were not deleted!
June 17th, 2008 at 1:38 PM
[...] today, Linden Lab® announced that it had “inadvertently disabled some inworld content this past [...]
June 17th, 2008 at 1:40 PM
I don’t know Kat, don’t often read this blog so my post here isn’t about her or taking a shot at her but I’ve asked point blank questions in tickets to LL that just are ignored. And Cristalli, if you have to explain the post of the Communications Officer ….we are in deep doo doo.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:41 PM
This issue is not the removal of the pirated animations… those were NOT removed.
What WAS removed was every item that had Eva listed as creator.
This included PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE scrips, INCLUDING those modified by Lear.
Chaz, HOW MANY TIMES do we have to keep repeating this?
LL removed EVERYTHING by Eva, including LEGITIMATE content (those scripts). People who made things using those scripts used the scripts LEGITIMATELY, and their customers bought those scripts LEGITIMATELY.
Yes, in many cases, including the pirated (illegitimate) animations, which should have been disabled, removed, or whatever.
But LL didn’t do that.
They removed the LEGITIMATE scripts instead.
Now… would care to explain again why this “blasting” of LL for doing this is somehow being an LL-bashing fanboy?
I’m happy they are taking steps against content thieves. But NOT if they are going to remove perfectly LEGITIMATE items in the process, because they are too lazy to be bothered or too stupid not to.
And if you crop up with a “breaking eggs to make omlets…”
June 17th, 2008 at 1:43 PM
THANK YOU Linden Lab for removing STOLEN content, not only from the place inworld but from the database.
This is funny, now everyone with a copy of stolen stuff is whining, but when they get their stuff ripped, they all say “Oh LL doesnt do anything, only removed the i tem from the store and now its all spread over SL”…
That is the RIGHT thing to do, otherwise what is the point of removing items from the thief if its already spread all over SL?
LL cleaned up a sim on 14th all full of copyboted stuff, and now this script thing, CONGRATLATIONS! and you all that are whining that your stolen itens were removed, should be ashamed and go learn how to make your own products.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:44 PM
@ Solomon. Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:47 PM
Why was the content, that was found to not be in violation, returned in a broken form?
The blog post does not address this issue and we have no assurance it won’t happen again.
The door is left open for griefing by DMCA.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:47 PM
infringement != theft
June 17th, 2008 at 1:54 PM
@Chaz - I take it then the next time LL needs to break some eggs, you’re volunteering to have yours broken, even if they weren’t infringin eggs? Very generous of you!
/me waits for LL to delete all items created by Chaz.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:59 PM
“However, when we receive a valid DMCA notification, we send affected Residents email notice so they aren’t surprised when we remove content from their inventory and inworld locations.”
I think it’s pretty clear that in SL, it’s not just an alleged infringer who is affected.
If you are going to remove inworld content, people need to know, because it clearly affects a lot more people than just that person. You need to find the right balance because the creator isn’t the only one whose rights get violated in this scenario.
Of course the response is going to be that in order to ensure removal of the inworld content, you can’t broadcast what items are going to be removed. I understand that, but the removal process has to be smarter than this.
If you mean to get rid of infringing animations, you can’t leave behind an inventory copy with the infringing animations intact. If it’s scripts, that would unfortunately be the only way to go to ensure that the infringing script wasn’t put onto a notecard. If it’s textures, whole prims cannot disappear! Replace it with MISSING IMAGE or DMCA’d TEXTURE so people don’t have to wonder what happened.
And most of all, do not wait three to four days to explain what happened.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:59 PM
[...] mistakes. Thank you for being up-front in admitting it and owning up to it. And the first words in the posting, too. So, on behalf of all users of Second Life that ever have been and ever will be, I accept your [...]
June 17th, 2008 at 1:59 PM
Im not a communications expert but the title of your post LL is Responding to questions….. Am I the only one that doesn’t see any answers here?
June 17th, 2008 at 2:01 PM
Solomon,
The eggs they break are the bad ones
People ripp stuff and put in full perm 10l boxes, you all go thinking you are smart asses, “wow what a bargain!!!!” and buy the stuff, not even worried if its stolen or not.
Attacking Chaz wont help, I dont know him but he surely have morals and is not hipocrat so I bet he doesnt have ripped content,
as for the rest who is mad about this, I recommend dont buying at business in a box stores anymore, go learn something.
I cant wait to see LL removing all those stolen skins from the database!!! I’ll laugh so hard to see all these people wearing “Missing Image” skins… what will they do? complain too? I guess the full perms now arent paying off uh?
June 17th, 2008 at 2:06 PM
You remove legal bed *inadvertedly*, but keep stolen skins inworld?
Why don’t you remove all stolen skins from inworld.
The “michael skin”, the “buffy six pack skin”, the “naturally” skin, The “perfect skin” the “hot” skin, the “extreme” skin and all other stolen items that you have ignored for a year?
Linden Labs DMCA is a joke.
We should better consider moving to IMVU, at least they take copyright infringement seriously.
Here are just a bunch of lindens who don’t give a crap about copyright infringement and come with these pityfull “Oh were so sorry but we aint doing a thing about your shop beeing ripped down” blogs and ignore helping people who need it and avoid to answer any questions.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:06 PM
An issue here, amongst others, is that the avoidance of actually detailing what happened when all of the non-infringing content was removed along with the infringing (though, I understand, lots of infringing animations remain) and dismissing it as “inadvertant” means that there is still doubt as to _what was meant to be done_ and _what will happen in the future_.
I mean, good god, saying “we meant to remove assets which were identified in a DMCA takedown but by mistake also removed assets which weren’t, sorry, won’t happen again” would not be too hard, if indeed that is the case. It isn’t as if that would actually cause _problems_ for LL - a lot of people think it in any case. Faffing around with “inadvertent” is not going to help at all. Be specific as to what the course of action is. Who could that hurt?
Now, we are still confused as to precisely what the practical response will be to DMCA actions. I’m afraid that LL policy on _action_ on DMCAs _has_ changed - this is unprecedented. This didn’t happen previously and now it does - that is a change.
The intended change may be a good one. I am in favour of removing infringing content in the current legal atmosphere, as long as it can be appropriately restored, and if the broad content removal was a correctable error, fair enough, we all make mistakes. But I am not left any more educated now. Will further DMCA takedown requests result in the same effect?
June 17th, 2008 at 2:06 PM
@ Mr. Right
They eggs they broke in this case were NOT the bad ones.
Many of the scripts that were removed were LEGITIMATE scripts, which happened to have Eva listed as the script creator, but were in no way infringing.
So explain to me how removing LEGITIMATE and VALID and NON-INFRINGING content is breaking “bad” eggs.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:08 PM
LL, removing contents from people’s inworld and and inventory without sending out some kind of notice is not a way to run a service. I have in world business and clients to work with and we do not treat them as such. And I’d expect a better service from you too. But, is anyone listening to this that really matters?
June 17th, 2008 at 2:10 PM
So let me see if I got the gist of this blog correct..”This has nothing to do with DMCA…but we take DMCA seriously?” Is that about right? Oh…and I should be made aware that I need to know what constitutes “Fair Use” because if indeed I file a DMCA I could be sued? Am I getting any of this?
Hell yes I am dripping with sarcasm, because this is just one more failed attempt of Linden Lab to disguise their EFF mentality that ALL INFORMATION (your content) should be free! Two lawsuits and two court orders later nothing has changed.
Let me tell you what happened here, some apprentice Linden did the RIGHT thing and pushed the “kill stolen content” button and it broke all the goodies that used it. Come monday morning all the builders who used the stolen animations in their products called LL and whined because they didnt know that the BIB they bought could POSSIBLY be made from stolen content?
It’s called Search/People/Profile/IM! Craig, Johan or myself would have happily explained that “No, we never intended for our name/anims to be included in a freebie/BIB/resale” IF you had bothered to ask. (But you didnt)
So now that bad bad Linden who pushed the kill button has been admonished and all the stolen stuff has been reactivated/restored and everyone is happy…Right?
June 17th, 2008 at 2:10 PM
What I would like to know about this specific case is if the ripped content has also been deleted from the still active alt accounts of the people who have committed this content theft? Or can they just rezz new copies of the stolen items and simply set up new ripoff stores?
While it seems that most of this group’s accounts have been banned, there are still some active ones around and I would hate to see my stuff being resold by them again.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:11 PM
Yeah, that was a whole lot of clarification…NOT.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:13 PM
Well the way I am reading that little public service anouncement is that actualy removing things from the database that are infringing was not ‘normal DMCA policy’ for sl. Maybe someone had a attack of consious along with to much zeal and started actually following proper DMCA procedure… and then deleting everything else that the avatar had made to. Now deleting more then just the offending material is a stop to far but deleting stolen material is not.
But luckily instead of learning from the mistake and changing standard DMCA policy to remove offending material form the database they are going back to just removing it in world and not touching the stolen objects in the inventory. So the bottom feeding slim that live off of other peoples hard work can rest easy knowing they can slap there store or there business in a box back out in minutes and now can use the creators real life phone to attack them verbly and send real life mail to them for daring to protect what is theirs.
Of course we also get no apology for them destroying content that was not breaking any law and WAS NOT DMCAED. And no comment on how some content was given back in completely unusable form (which is against the law according to the DMCA). So… well everything is going back to status quo. The BIAB’s are still going to be around full of stolen content with no recourse for creators. People how are vampires off of others hard work are not going to have to worry about getting there account deleted.
So don’t worry residents Linden Lab has no plans to properly enforce or over enforce dmca’s at this time according to the blog so keep on copy boting. The lindens responsible will not be getting love from the love machine this month as punishment for… trying to to what is right and over reaching themselves. But no one get less love for not replacing content they broke cause ‘it isn’t their department” and “the system is complicated”
June 17th, 2008 at 2:16 PM
@37 I hear ya. I feel your pain. But when you get it nailed down in your head that LL only sees IBM and other big biz as legit and considers the rest of like content creators and sim owners as “players” you will stop bleeding from each orifice. Land pricing and the drastic changes as well as total and blatant disregard for outright questions from well known Linden starting with a J saying to me …. I got your email…I’m really busy don’t think I will have time to answer you are examples that what we do here isn’t consider a business. They don’t tell us their plan, they don’t explain their decisions…so how can we. Writing is on the wall. Now pass me the bandaids.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:16 PM
@ 36
They eggs they broke in this case were NOT the bad ones.
Many of the scripts that were removed were LEGITIMATE scripts, which happened to have Eva listed as the script creator, but were in no way infringing.
So explain to me how removing LEGITIMATE and VALID and NON-INFRINGING content is breaking “bad” eggs.
You can cling to this if you like, as many have. But everyone conviently leaves out the part about the STOLEN animations that were included in every single one of these “broken items” along with the scripts.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:18 PM
By the way, Stroker, just in case it’s not clear (because I’ve been accused of otherwise today on the forums)…
…I happen to think you content creators are in the right wanting the infringing content taken down. I’m a content creator myself, and fully support content creators’ rights!
What I am AGAINST is what LL did, which was leaving the infringing pirated animations alone, and removing the legitimate SCRIPTS that had Eva as the creator.
For some reason, saying that LL was wrong to remove legitimate scripts (which despite having a content thief as a creator, those scripts were perfectly legitimate), makes me a supporter of content theft. Frankly, I don’t follow that.
But just so you’re clear about that. Not all of us who are “whining” are doing so for the wrong reasons.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:21 PM
Stroker, I know of at least one case where that is not true.
A pair of furniture creators, who used NONE of the pirated animations, but DID use the improved MLP scripts by Lear, but which still had Eva as the creator, had all their content broken when the LL sweep removed the scripts created by Eva.
You’re rapidly losing the respect that I had for you about you being a fair-minded sort.
Would you like me to put you in contact with the pair of furniture creators blasted by this move of LL?
Or can you possibly conceive that there are people who just used the properly-licensed script for their own purposes, and got hosed by this?
June 17th, 2008 at 2:21 PM
It’s about the MLP scripts, people. Those scripts are open source, Miffy Fluffy released them to open source. So - doesn’t matter if they were BiB or not. Doesn’t matter of someone who created a bed with it (MLP) and then went and stole Strokers bed, too…
Stroker says ’shame on you” - LL takes down everything said “theif” has created, including the MLP Open Sources script.
Ummm… THAT is the screw-up. So LL restores the MLP scripts. The rest of the infringing junk is still whacked.
So before people get too cynical (Stroker and the rest, with respect) - at least understand the REAL ISSUE and what this post is REALLY ABOUT.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:23 PM
I have to side with LL on this one. Sorry, but in for a penny, in for a pound. If you guys want LL to get rid of pirates and all their infringing stuff, then there are going to be legitimate things tossed out too. I’d be interested to hear some of you explain how an employee of LL is supposed to look at everything ever created by a banned pirate and figure out what’s pirate and what’s not.
What is needed inworld is an contraBBB group. This group has a list of people with DCMA filed against them. A simple bracelet checking a database can warn a buyer that he/she is entering a parcel where the owner has DCMA charges filed against them and how many. Of course people will then have to notify this group and someone in the group will have to be diligent about keeping the DB up to date. And some way of finding out that the charges have been decided in the entrant’s favor needs to be addressed so entries aren’t eternal.
But until there is a way of warning customers about stolen textures and copied prims/scripts, and making them aware that any purchase they make from the alleged thief may vanish without warning, people won’t be able to distinguish legit from pirate.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:27 PM
@38 Stroker. This isn’t about the stolen content. what this is about is the incompetent way LL went about it. No one is whining about taking down stolen animations, sculpties etc. What people are upset about primarily is all the non infringing stuff that got taken out too.
The MLP scripts are a particular case in point. it was perfectly legitimate for her to create her own set and sell them. The scripts themselves are legitimate.
Because of the way LL undertook this action they managed to delete those legitimate scripts inworld along with all the all the other illegal content. That’s not good
They also deleted the animations and sculpties. Great, except i’ve read that someone still has the animations in their inventory and while they can’t be put into an object inworld they can still be run from the inventory. And from another post I understand that the sculpties are still available for use straight out of the inventory - just like any copy objects that were destroyed.
None of us have any problems with removing stolen content. I think the issue here is one of finesse. They’ve not actually managed to achieve anything really substantial.
I think a little more effort on their part when writing and testing the delete job could have resulted in a much better outcome for everyone.
but that would have required effort and commitment i suppose.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:29 PM
“But everyone conviently leaves out the part about the STOLEN animations that were included in every single one of these “broken items” along with the scripts.”
This isn’t true - a number of people had used these scripts in other objects which did not contain the stolen animations (or any other stolen content).
Also Lear Cale had taken these scripts and developed an updated set of scripts (MLP 2.0) which fixed a number of bugs. This was in use in a number of products (again not containing any stolen animations).
As such these scripts *were* deleted from a large number of items which were using the scripts quite legitimately and which did not contain any stolen animations.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:29 PM
BTW: the best solution I have come up with for protecting images is to scale a prim’s texture in y to 0.95 and have the creator name on the very top and bottom of the texture I upload. Any snagged texture going to the video card will still have the full image including the creator name in it. Guess what appears in the stolen textures after the punk has spent the money to upload them?
June 17th, 2008 at 2:32 PM
Several of you seem to think that a bunch of us creators just got a freebie copy and made a fortune from it-THAT is not what happened to me at all.
I paid EC AFTER finding her store in Search under Building Scripts while looking for ways to expand my content in my store. I visiter her store and others several times before deciding to purchase from her after several weeks of evaluation. I looked at her items on SLX. I DID do research-I was newer and needed to make my purchase be valuable to my store. I paid for the entire set directly to her. I read all of her warnings about DMCA usage that she did provide and at length.
My assumption I guess was wrong in ASSUMING LL would not be allowing someone using “stolen” merchandise to pay for a Search ad for over a year for me to find. I myself accidently used the word “gamble” once in an ad & was contacted by LL immediately. Therefore I assume after I watch an ad be in Search for OVER A YEAR that it is legit–afterall LL collected payment for that ad all that time.
I bought the package and followed the directions EC supplied–I changed EVERY perm to NO modify-NO Copy (except the pose ball which had to be copiable)-RESELL ONLY. I then created 4 beds and have sold them for almost a year.
I have attended numerous classes and purchased numerous “kits” that also contained several of the same animations.
NEVER did I recieve an email from Linden Lab about ANY of this. Instead I logged in to have my customers tell me that ALL their scripts were removed. After a customer dropped me the bed I noticed that when the scripts were ripped out ALL the contents were reset to FULL PERMS. Making this be a bigger problem then when I originally designed it. I DID not set the animations to full perm-tampering with my item by LINDEN LAB did.
Of course I tried to contact EC as by now it was Monday and LL had made NO contact with me telling me anything. Of course EC was gone.
I called Concierge and was told by Dee to change all the perms in my items to COPY but NO Resell and I’d be OK as I didn’t know I was using stolen SCRIPTS. I spent an hour doing this contacting my group and THEN it pops up in Concierge group the link to a TOTALLY conflicting FORUM post with YET another opinion of WHAT the offending material WAS. Said post also states a Linden directed a creator to “copy” the scripts and paste them to a new script to make it appear that the prim creator created the script!!!!
As a creator I support stopping theft. WHAT I do NOT support is NOT telling us WHAT is the problem–the scripts-that WERE removed-the animations that WERE NOT removed..WHAT???? I do not want to use any item I purchased inadvertantly that could be illegal I will change what I need to change–IF SOMEONE WOULD TELL ME WHAT IS THE “STOLEN” THING!
I again called LL this morning and “opps got hung up on when I asked just that question”.
So now this vague post of crap that does NOT tell what the problem was so those of us who DID pay for the items will not continuing using the wrong thing. OR does this post mean there WAS no wrong thing?
This post is another “lets post something-answer no question only create more–and smile cuz we DID make a couple people happy run of the mill junk” that you’ve been throwing at us for a long time. ANSWER questions and quit running us around in circles like were little children that still believe in the Tooth Fairy.
FYI I did take it upon myself to contact the creators of the anims in CASE that was the problem. So far I’ve heard back from 2 people saying no worries those were freebie animations I give out for anyone to do with what they’d like to ages ago. 1 other has replied asking for $L10,000 per animation-which I can not pay after paying Eva and refunding purchases since Saturday waiting for LL to tell me WHAT it is I need to do or not do. No word from the other 2 at this time. AND no email as indicated above. AND yet no CLEAR answer on what content inside my creations were “bad”.
I am so unimpressed with the customer service here I can not think of a bad enough camparison to liken it to.
I love SL–I love the creativity–sadly–I belive its biggest enemies are sitting behind the desk running the show at this point.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:32 PM
@39
Go to SLX and/or OnRez and search “sexbed”. 80% of those products use Eva C’s freebie anim engine with stolen/unlicensed animations. Some are sold full perm.
Break some eggs? Some (another name for roosters) should be sterilized.
This isnt about a few anims or BIB’s. It’s about a attitude of ambivalence towards content creators in general. Even when LL ACTUALLY does a takedown they screw that up as well!
@44
I certainly did not mean to imply any support for content theft. And I wholeheartedly agree..this was a botched placation at best.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:34 PM
Inadvertent is a stupid term to use. Clearly it was a deliberate action. Yes, in order to keep their Safe Harbor status, LL must act on DMCA claims, and also restore if a counter claim is filed. That’s all they can do, otherwise they become party to the infringement, like Napster was.
However, if they don’t restore the content, then LL are infringing the Safe Harbor rules, and lose their protection, and can be sued. However I’m not surprised, since LL manage to bork up every single thing they touch. Once again inventory has been Lindened.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lindened
As for the argument over who sold what, take it to RL court and let them decide, and see which one was lying, and is prosecuted and serves jail time for perjury. It’s the court’s business to decide, not LL’s.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:40 PM
There are a lot of stolen full perm items on slexchange and in resell shops. Don’t buy them.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:41 PM
LL should submit it’s DMCA requests (with names removed of course) to http://www.chillingeffects.org/ like Google does.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
I think the majority of us support stopping content theft and like myself IF I could get a clear answer about WHAT the offending “thing” was I’d gladly modify my objects to NOT include that item.
Since the scripts were removed NOT the animations-and I was directed to change the perms on the animations by one Linden–however most posts by other residents seem to believe that it was the animations…so which is it? Obviously I’ve removed the entire items I created containing EITHER of these things until I get clafication..but why in the world is that taking so long???
If they had proof enough to take this drastic of action-they aught to be able to state which it is so we can all correct our prims and pick up the pieces.
All I want to know is this: WERE the scripts the offending items in my creations as they were removed–OR was it the animations that WERE left and reset to full perm?
June 17th, 2008 at 2:51 PM
English is not my native language. What does LL exactly mean with the end lines in the blog post? For example: when I think my original handpainted textures are stolen, should I be afraid to report it to DMCA because I have the risk of being sued myself? Can someone please explain what that text says?
“Also be aware that persons who materially misrepresent copyright infringement in DMCA claims may be liable for damages, including attorneys’ fees and costs. In one case, a company that sought removal of content protected by the fair use doctrine paid over $100,000 USD. For more on this, see here. If you’re unsure whether certain content infringes your copyright, we suggest speaking to an attorney before submitting a DMCA claim.”
June 17th, 2008 at 2:56 PM
@54 Goldie is demonstrative of my point. LL cannot have this vague post “for privacy reasons” and expect things to change. You must clearly outline what the nature of the infringing material was. We don’t need people’s RL names. But you can do a lot better than this post.
@55 Paulo - no, you shouldn’t be afraid of filing a DMCA takedown notice unless you make a false claim.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:58 PM
It’s a total shame it seems to be so easy for Linden lab to delete all content by one person, but yet they refuse delete all infringing material from thieves if honest creators file dmca’s.
This makes absolutely no sense to me.
Taking down stolen content from ‘all’ locations is something linden lab never does, if legit DMCA’s are filed, but ‘accidentally’ they can remove all contents created by 1 person. This shows linden lab for no reason does not comply with the DMCA rules they pretend to follow.
DMCA: Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (”OCILLA”), creates a safe harbor for online service providers (OSPs, including ISPs) against copyright liability if they adhere to and qualify for certain prescribed safe harbor guidelines and promptly block access to allegedly infringing material (or remove such material from their systems) if they receive a notification claiming infringement from a copyright holder or the copyright holder’s agent. If ISPs do not remove content they become co-responsible for copyright infringement
It clearly states servive providers (which Linden lab is) should BLOCK acces to the infringining material) if they do not want to become part of copyright infringement. Since linden lab only blocks acces to links to stolen material (since textures are not inside objects but just containt a link to the texture used), it does not comply with the DMCA. Before they could state it was too hard for them to delete all stolen material, but this mistake clearly shows it’s not hard at all
Also i offer 100.000 L for the person that can arrange a meeting for me with Laurap Linden, the linden that is supposed to handle copyright cases in second life. LauraP linden does not ever has office hours, does not ever respond to messages and has no way to be contacted. Also, other lindens claim (not true)to have no clue why it is so hard (impossible) to contact lauraP linden.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:05 PM
Not good enough, LL.
If the owner of the IP rights of a work request you to take down the ACTUAL content (not just references to it in the form of specific objects) you are legally required to do so. For example, if the content is in question is a texture, you are legally responsible for taking down the actual image off of your serers, not just references.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:06 PM
Paulo Dielli, it means that if someone is using your content for certain purposes , it could be that this person is using it in compliance with the ‘fair use’ rule. It means that under certain circumstances it is allowed to use other copyrighted material. Selling other people’s work , however, is always copyright infringement and could never be fair use. So if someone is selling your material, you always should be in your right.
fair use means: “the fair use of a copyrighted work (…) for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright”
June 17th, 2008 at 3:06 PM
@55 Paulo, unfortunately my solicitor agreed with the statement “Also be aware that persons who materially misrepresent copyright infringement in DMCA claims may be liable for damages, including attorneys’ fees and costs.” it seems if the person you are putting the takedown order on decides to sue you in a californian court they can. So make very sure of your claim.
However, i gather that in the US you do get full costs if you win and I know that if the thief has made more then 5k USD you can take them to court (I even think there may be jailtime as a penalty.)
As with everything in SL, you have to balance the cost of justice against the sheer aggravation factor and the potential to be seriously out of pocket to recover what could be pennies.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:09 PM
dam.mit
I did not see STOLEN CONTENT STORE writted anywhere when I payed L$ 200 for that nice bed.
Shall we talk about the LEGITAMATE USAGE of LL ROBOTS now?
June 17th, 2008 at 3:09 PM
It would be great if another virtual world like SL would become bigger that would comply propherly with copyright rules. I’m pretty sure most content creators here feel ripped of by linden lab that claims to handle copyirhgts, but simply ignores most of it and refuses to give us answers to questions we ask over and over again.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:09 PM
“Stroker Serpentine Says:
You can cling to this if you like, as many have. But everyone conviently leaves out the part about the STOLEN animations that were included in every single one of these “broken items” along with the scripts.”
“Go to SLX and/or OnRez and search “sexbed”. 80% of those products use Eva C’s freebie anim engine with stolen/unlicensed animations. Some are sold full perm.”
So which is it, Stroker? EVERY SINGLE ONE of the broken items used the stolen animations, or they don’t?
You’re being as bad, as 100% broadly judgmental, without knowing for a FACT that every single instance used the stolen animations. Especially since I know of at least one pair of content creators where that wasn’t the case.
You just keep dropping lower and lower.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:21 PM
@63 Solomon Devoix
“You just keep dropping lower and lower.”
I’m sorry..who’s judgemental?
When, you have had your content stolen and spread to hells four corners, and you do the “right thing” and file AR’s and DMCA’s…and when that goes nowhere and you finally have to resort to litigation to protect your livelyhood. EXPENSIVE litigation that could have been circumvented by a responsible ISP in the first place. Only to have that very same content never removed, nor the accounts associated with it.
Then, kind sir…when you have done all of that…I will begin to give a damn what you think of me.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:26 PM
Stroker is right.
I think Lost Thereian also still wonders why that soulless ripper that sold the stolen skins for months and made lots of money on it still is in the game and his acount was not deleted.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:29 PM
@Stroker:
When YOU stop thinking that innocent people being blasted by LL by the crippling of their legitimate items (legitimate scripts with no stolen animations) is okay, then I’ll start considering you someone worthy of paying attention to.
When YOU stop stating that everyone who got their items crippled by this sweep is a thief and was without a doubt using the stolen animations, I’ll start considering you someone worthy of paying attention to.
You’ve been hard done to. I support you getting your stuff taken care of and infringing content removed.
But your steadfast belief that innocent people caught in the crossfire is fine, just because you’ve been hurt (and not by the innocents so mentioned) makes you at least as low a form of life as those who stole your content. Because you’re doing the same thing as the thieves… utilizing or pushing forward an agenda that serves your purposes without caring about the innocent damaged in the process.
You were an innocent damaged in the process of the thieves making money off your hard work.
You say that’s bad, and I agree.
Innocents damaged in the pursuit of getting your stuff taken care of is good, you say.
I simply can’t support that. And the more you maintain it’s right/just/proper, the more you expose the type of person you are: someone who just like the thieves, doesn’t care as long as your personal agenda is served.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:35 PM
For once, I think Linden did the right thing in re-enabling the content, and perhaps a few content creators need to take a decidedly less hostile approach when it comes to other legitimate content makers, and especially honest customers who paid for the products. Instead of demanding a scorched earth policy to delete any legitimate content that might contain traces of alleged pirated content and to punish the innocent with the guilty, why not take a cue from customer focused software makers and make an aggressive attempt to convert grey market consumers by offering certified genuine products, product updates, and quality support. Meanwhile, punish the person who allegedly stole the scripts to begin with by suing them for damages and/or putting them in jail. Alienating customers or potentials customers by equating them to, or treating them like the alleged thief indicates a distinct lack of business acumen.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:37 PM
Let’s face it folks - content in a digital world is a complex enough issue that the DMCA actually came to fruition. And this in the late 90’s before the issue itself became as prevalent. So we shouldnt be too surprised when its implementation becomes, er, complex.
What was LL to do? Deleting content in inventories seems insidious, but, as Joshua said, imagine combing through all this legal stuff, prevailing, and then seeing your ripped-off products for sale … again?! LL makes it pretty clear they won’t tolerate DMCA violations, and I (who am not a lawyer) would take this to mean, Caveat Emptor.
Imagine going to a RL shop, purchasing a stolen item unknowingly and being arrested? Nope. BUT, the itam will be confiscated and the purchaser’s redresses are limited to civil litigation against the seller.
This is analogous to LL’s actions.
You Lindens need to do more to communicate with us residents. The elitist and standoffish attitude you’ve developed is a monster of your own creation, and was spawned the day you opened SL so wide that every time I see a new avatar I just take it for granted it’s someones alt. You know this to be fact, you just don’t want to boot 8 million accounts. You can’t grow without a plan, and you were soooo busy with all this foofy Pay City and Windlight crap that now you’re in a put up or shut up position, having painted yourself into a virtual corner so tightly that the only action to take was this one, which was most drastic. You conduct meetings that are little more than fluff. You have certain people here who you take seriously, and the rest of us (many of whom have been complaining of IP rights enforcement) be damned. SL is out of Beta! Act like it!
June 17th, 2008 at 3:40 PM
OK, I’m a pretty computer-savvy guy, and even I’m not sure I quite get exactly what happened. Let me see if I can suss it out…
Someone got hold of (somehow) full perm copies of animations by Stroker Serpentine, and used them with some open-source pose scripts. Linden Labs removed all instances of the open source pose scripts because they had the perp as the creator, but didn’t actually remove the animations that had Stroker as the creator… but they’ve blacklisted those animations so even if you have them in your inventory you can’t rez them?
Is that a reasonable summary?
June 17th, 2008 at 3:41 PM
so the SexBeds in question were not removed as everyone claims, rather the Removing of scripts was a Mistake made on the part of Linden labs? or am I reading htis part incorrectly
“Linden Lab inadvertently disabled some inworld content this past weekend. “
June 17th, 2008 at 3:42 PM
Sorry Lindens, but that sucked really hard.
You deleted a legal open source script (MPL) only because the creator had done something wrong in another case.
I was really never that much dissapointed than this time of LL. The try to make something against illegal content turns in the absolutely wrong direction and turns out more worse than good.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:48 PM
OK…. this is precisely why I am still wearing the same clothes and hair that I’ve had for a year and don’t go shopping. How about when someone steals the raw files I sell? Some uses a land bot to copy my sim? So many frauds so little time.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:54 PM
@69, I have a more accurate analogy as it pertains to this case. You buy a car from a auto maker and a year later, it’s legally determined to have a fuel injection system that infringes on another auto maker’s patent. Does somebody get to come on by and “delete’ your car”? No, they don’t. Does the offending auto maker get sued and have to pay damages for patent infringement? Yes, they do and that’s fair.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:04 PM
@70
No Argent..not 100%. The content in question was a combination 58/62 animation system that had Craig Altman, Johan Durant and Nytemyst Grace’s unlicensed animations in it. It was sold in beds and as a “Sexgen insert”. The scripts inside this package were cut and pastes of Miffy Fluffy’s Open Source MLP system that showed Eva Capalini as creator.
Apparently someone at LL removed the scripts from the database along with other textures and animations associated with the account in question. In effect a “purge”.
Some creators are upset because they used the product unknowingly in their builds for sale. Some are upset because they used the scripts. Some used it intentionally, knowing it was an illegal copy. Either way it disabled a lot of content.
For what it is worth, I have been told by several lindens over the years that it is impossible to remove a specific item from the database entirely. I guess that theorem is out the window.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:10 PM
@ Stroker and anyone else who says that “STOLEN animations that were included in every single one of these “broken items” along with the scripts”.
That is a bald faced lie. As a content creator who was affected by this I can attest that we use no stolen content, and make the animations. I don’t think that spreading falsehoods helps this matter.
We spend enormous time and effort making legitimate high quality merchandise, not only in the animations, but the design. Our customers agree.
I know many of us have been hurt by illegal ripped-off products. but ill-considered actions such as this do not solve that problem at all. We need well thought out, well founded approaches to the pirating of content, not this sort of fiasco that has cost many huge amounts of time - which equals money - to clean up the mess.
Further, we are making sure all our customers are taken care of, but I’m certain there are many consumers who will lose money over this through no fault of their own. That in turn hurts every creator and merchant in Second Life. An environment in which consumers lose confidence because their purchases may not be safe from some unexpected “purge” hurts everyone’s sales.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:11 PM
Stroker@76: Out of professional interest, who was the listed creator of the animations in question? I haven’t created animations, or used anything but Linden animations in my products, but that’s likely to change and I really want to know what actually happened here.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:11 PM
@Strokerz Serpentine: Am I now facing the risk of losing some of my beds (legitimately bought (no copy/trans) at strokerz, deviant and others) due to having added two or three of the “standard” MLP anims that can be found all over the grid and you have defined as “stolen”?
I modded quite a few sexbeds in SL using all sorts of anims I found (mainly no copy).
June 17th, 2008 at 4:12 PM
To obtain the safe harbor the OSP must:
* not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing (512(c)(1)(A)(1)).
* not be aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent (512(c)(1)(A)(2)).
* upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, must act expedit