This is not my cup of tea.
I’ve begun to notice some things. Coupled with Linden Lab’s lack of want to actually deal with any DMCA filings, rumor is that UUID numbers for items are going to replace transaction numbers in November for all transactions in Second Life.
What does this mean? Well, if you are smart enough to file a DMCA with the UUID number of the infringing item, a robot could easily pluck it out of SL’s cyberspace and remove it. Which is great – until it’s maliciously used. What if you lost your entire store for a week because someone filed against you – a competitor?
That would suck. I hope Linden Lab proves me wrong – and has an actual human being doing the investigating. Then again, I suppose it isn’t much different than what they’re doing now — which is nothing.
“Hey! Let’s all throw the residents together in a wrestling ring … with PISTOLS…”
And just as a reminder, here’s what they proposed in the beginning of August:
Improvements to Our Intellectual Property Complaint Process
In the past year, we’ve committed additional staff and resources to our intellectual property complaint process, which many Residents know as our DMCA process (meaning the Digital Millennium Copyright Act).
The complaint process facilitates cooperation between Linden Lab and intellectual property owners. If owners identify particular uses of their content that they believe to infringe, they may send us a notification requesting removal of the uses. In cases of severe or repeat infringement, we terminate the accounts of the infringer.
In response to Resident feedback about the time and effort involved in submitting notifications to us, we’ve been developing an improved process. In the not-too-distant future, intellectual property owners will be able to submit complaints to us electronically through an online form. The form will make it easier for intellectual property owners to submit complaints, and it will help us expedite their processing.
With the online form, intellectual property owners will be able to request that we search for and remove all copies of an identified item created by a particular Resident. Resident content creators have asked us for this capability, and we are working hard at developing tools to provide it. This is one of the most technologically complicated tasks we’ve ever undertaken because the tools must identify the content at issue in the complaint, search for instances of it inworld and in inventories, notify those with copies of it of the intellectual property complaint submitted, remove or disable access to those instances, and in the event of a copyright counter-notification, restore access to the content specified in the counter-notification.
We’re excited about the progress made so far, and we’re dedicated to making these tools a success, but as always with cutting-edge technologies, there’s no guarantee that these tools will work for all situations or complaints. However, we are committed to developing sustainable and scalable solutions that empower content creators to better protect their intellectual property.
We expect to launch our improved intellectual property complaint process and tools later this year. As we get closer to launch, we will have additional information for you. We welcome your feedback and thoughts in the forums, which we will be reviewing and responding to as we can.
"rumor is that UUID numbers for items are going to replace transaction numbers in November for all transactions in Second Life."
The change to the transaction number format is simply replacing the current number format with a UUID for the transaction – which is a unique entry in the database, not the UUID for the item that is sold.
This will allow a much greater number of transactions to go through SL, because of the longer alphanumeric format of the UUID.
Because you can sell an item more than once, it makes no sense at all to have the same UUID associated with more than one transaction. So – you are wrong and this rumour is wrong. I can confirm this, since I have looked at my transactions history under the proposed changes and the same item sold does NOT have the same transaction UUID. You could have seen this yourself in your own transaction history.
I seriously doubt that changing the transaction ID's format has anything to do with LL's DMCA process changes.
I am struggling to understand how you came to the conclusion that changing the format of the transaction ID will somehow open creators up to being griefed any more than they currently can be.
It seems like they're just implementing a script to allow their admins to better sift through the DMCAs, sort of like how you can rate down a comment on this blog. If anything, I imagine other devs ganging up on you with DMCAs would simply place you on a "don't bother investigating" list.
Here's what I don't get. In real life, lets say I buy a counterfeit handbag, but I don't know it's counterfeit, I think it's the real thing. Later, the vendor who sold me the bag gets busted and goes to jail. The police don't then come into the houses of all the people who bought the handbag and take it away. That's my property. The fact that it was counterfeit property is not my fault and whatever monetary or sentimental value that object holds doesn't just evaporate because it was counterfeit.
Why is it different in Second Life?
Because in SL, we have UUIDs. Also in SL, you can gain unlimited copies of the item instead of the one, like you would have in RL.
Just because it can happen doesn't mean it should.
oops forgot to subscribe to comments..
because most of the time its obvious that something is stolen in sl, and its not counterfeit, its the actual object – stolen
Wait, but _I_ didn't steal the object, I paid for it. The money is gone from my account. Unless I'm getting my money back, Linden Lab is in effect stealing from ME when they take that object out of my inventory, no?
It would be one thing if I received a refund for my purchase, but as I understand it, that's not what's happening. Unwitting victims no more deserve to be penalized for BadGuy X's behavior than the content creator, but the thing I paid for is gone, and so is my money. That's not even legal in the real world, why should it be in the virtual world?
mmmm a counterfeit product is different from a stolen product. If you purchase a stolen car in RL, for example, you better bet when its found it is being taken away from you.
As for a counterfeit item? As in, someone making an obvious knock-off of an original item in SL? That is different. And I do not believe any purchasers of these types of items should be punished or have them taken away. However, the person who deliberately set out to make replicas should be shunned, and if any copyright/TM were violated, dealt with accordingly.
Heres a story for you.. A few years back, a little kid made replicas of bart simpson and sold them, innocently. His family got sued. The copyright holder of the simpsons won.
Was he physically stealing actual simpson products from a store? No. But he was selling counterfeit items. Busted. Just something to think about.
To change the topic a bit, SL is a funny place when residents begin choosing what is and is not acceptable. For instance, its typically a big no no to steal from fellow Sl resiednts, but when people blatantly steal from RL nobody really cares. Case in point:
I can think of one in particular "cutesy" brand who sells things like clothing with batman on it, calvin and hobs, where the wild things are, and the likes. I can not understand how that is legal unless there is some parody-like clause somewhere. Im pretty sure batman, etc are copyrighted characters and like the simpson story, reselling of items using these characters is illegal. So if it is, why is this persons shop so acceptable? But steal from another SL resident and happy trip to the stake.
Humans are funny creatures.
I was watching Peoples court one day on counterfeit bags. The lady complaining had bought one off ebay from a guy and found out it wasn't real. She brought a example and the purse to court. It was found both bags she brought in were fake. Apparently she was totally floored by the second being fake. The judge took both purses away from her and pretty much said to bad. She didnt mean to buy fake products but the fact of the matter was they was. I didnt see the judge giving her money back for the second purse but she did win on her orignal complaint.
I guess what im trying to say is if its stolen its stolen. Doesn't matter how sweet and innocent you are, you still have stolen goods. Why would you want something you found out later is stolen? knowing the person who did the original work wasn't paid for it. Just because you didn't know doesn't make it right.
Whats sad in Sl is most know what they are buying is fake. So to clean up all this mess some innocent people may get hurt too. I bought some poses that were named after celebrities. Big mess to clean up for the designer and for me seeing i bought over half her store. Was it my problem she didn't know to change those names so she wouldn't infringe on someone rights? no but i still had to some clean up. Annoying as hell but completely understandable.
Recieving stolen goods (or whatever the US equivalent) is a crime, and your stuff does get taken away by the police.
If you want to only buy legit gear, ask around, its not difficult
I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I think you're wrong about that. Ah here we go:
Receiving stolen property is defined by statute in most states. Generally it consists of four elements: (1) the property must be received; (2) it must have been previously stolen; (3) the person receiving the property must know it was stolen; and (4) the receiver must intend to deprive the owner of his or her property. src: http://www.answers.com/topic/receiving-stolen-pro…
While this is correct – and these are the conditions under which the law can punish you as a criminal accessory to theft – these are not guidelines concerning whether or not you get to keep the stolen property you are in possession of.
Or, to put it directly in terms relevant to this discussion…
You won't get to keep your copy of the stolen item… but you won't have the DMCA filed against you just for having been duped into buying stolen goods, and potentially have to answer for it in court alongside the thief.
Oops didn't mean to submit yet, so the #3 there, if you don't know that the property was stolen, you're certainly not guilty of a crime.
I think, too, there are significant differences between the concept of STOLEN goods versus COUNTERFEIT goods. My original example referred to counterfeit items, not stolen goods.
To illustrate, the purse someone makes in Second Life with the Gucci trademark symbol has made a counterfeit good. The copybotter jerk who steals a full permissions copy of her Gucci trademark infringing bag is a thief.
So, I'm pretty sure it is not illegal to own counterfeit goods, and it is not illegal to purchase goods that you didn't know and had no way of knowing were stolen.
But that's all besides my original point, which is simply that the police do not have the right to come into your home, unannounced, and take property from your closet because it was counterfeit OR stolen. They need a warrant, they have to inform you, there has to be reasonable cause, all sorts of due process.
In Second Life, however, it appears that Linden Lab can and does just delete all items with a given UUID if it is determined to be.. which? Counterfeit, stolen, or both?
Of course the RL to SL parallels are not exact, and the law is no where near being caught up with reality, let alone virtual reality, but it seems me to that these kinds of issues bear thinking about.
Oh, and last but not least, I, uh, wouldn't take The People's Court as an example for legal advice. It's a TV show, not a real courtroom. I'm sure Wikipedia or something can give you the full scoop.
You kill me. Really, you kill me.
LL had to register an email address for DMCA filings when they registered as an ISP for safe harbor. Then LL made a policy that they would not accept electronic DMCAs. This corrects that deficiency and expedites the process. People filing false DMCAs are quite stupid and risking real world imprisonment for committing perjury over virtual stuff that doesn't even exist and has an extremely low value. I can't even imagine what would happen to them in the prison when they explained what they were "in for".
The transaction UUID simply makes sure they don't have any primary key collisions down the road in the data warehouse that will apparently document our transactions for perhaps 5 years. I sure would like to have my own little data mart to perform transaction analysis against.
I live in Texas which is bound by the laws that was listed above. My boyfriend in his teens bought a bike(not a motorcycle but a bicycle) from a friend. He was riding down the road minding his own business when the cops pulled him over. They ran the serial number off the bike and arrested him for POSSESSION OF STOLEN GOODS. it didn't matter that he wasn't the one who stole. He had possession of it. Did they have reasonable cause to stop him? no. He had long hair and they wanted to mess with him. Also had he known the bike was stolen he wouldn't of bought it.
Another case. My sister opened the door one night to 4 policemen who shoved her a piece of paper and began to turn every drawer and closet upside down in her home. They found a watch her boyfriend gave to her for her birthday and arrested her on sight. He had been stealing from the place he worked at and they "suspected" she might have some of it. She didn't steal this stuff and certainly didn't know it was stolen. It still cost her a night in jail. And lots of court fines and legal expenses. Both cases listed it stays on their record they received and had possession of stolen goods.
So yes you can get in trouble in real life for being in possession of stolen goods. Even with a warrant they don't give you a courtesy call telling you they are about to rip through your house.
And for the record, Peoples court is just like Judge Judy. Just because they are on tv doesn't mean they aren't a judge and those people aren't legally bound to the results of their hearings. They tell you at the begin it is a real court room and real cases.They restate that in the fine print as the credits roll too. So yes, they do have to go by the law whether its tv or closed court room. And as far as wiki goes, anyone can add whatever they want to those description. Id find a better source for real information.
Ignorance of the law or the facts doesn't make it not illegal. Whats from stopping every crook from saying they didn't know? I think that applies to rl and sl.
But don't you think that fears like his contribute to an overall lack of consumer confidence? I keep hearing a lot of designers saying, "You bought something stolen – suck it up," and they seem deaf to the possibility that the answer is, "OK, I won't waste my money buying things." Yes, designers need protection. When will they see that consumers need protection also? It isn't just ethics, it's common sense!
Ok, let's put it this way….
A little old lady gets burgled and her jewellery gets nicked, you then buy some jewellery from the thief.
The jewellery should go back to the original owner, and you lost your money.
It is not difficult to NOT buy stolen stuff in SL, if you need help in spotting it IM me
Buy from trusted brands just like in real life.
A newbie has no idea who the trusted brands are in Second Life.
It isn't like buying counterfeit goods, and it isn't like receiving stolen goods. Those examples are just not at all relevant, regardless of whether we are dealing with virtual handbags here.
In order to understand what happens we actually have to look at what is taking place, and not fall back on these twee RL comparisons. The law is not the same and the activities are not the same either.
Oh, and the answer to "can the Lindens take this copybotted dress away from me" is: "Do you have a licence to distribute this digital content? No, you don't. Would LL be allowing somebody to distribute unlicenced content if they continued to let you wear it? Yes, they would."