Note the bold.
As we said in our recent Content Management Roadmap blog post, we believe that Resident-created content is the heart and soul of Second Life, and we want to help everyone continue to benefit from the amazing creativity that has been displayed by our Residents inworld. When content creators are successful, Second Life is a better world for all of us–more inspiring, more spontaneous, and more fun!
Today we are pleased to announce continued forward progress along this roadmap: a pilot program to test some early improvements to our intellectual property complaint process. The goal of this program is to make the process more convenient and streamlined for Residents, and to empower content creators to better control their content.  Here’s how the pilot program will work:
- Starting today, a small group of Resident content creators may use a new online form to request that Linden Lab remove content they believe infringes their copyrighted materials.
- The Residents may request that Linden Lab remove the content from a single location only, or also from mutiple inworld locations where Linden Lab is able to find additional copies of the item claimed to infringe.
- Content that’s removed as a result of the IP complaint will be replaced with generic placeholder items as follows:
- Textures, bodyparts, and clothing will be replaced with monochrome items that are the average color of the items they replace.
- Animations will be replaced with a special rotating animation by Blue Linden
- Sounds will be replaced with a new sound recording from Torley Linden
- Objects will be replaced with a plywood ball that displays an IP notice when you click on it.
- More information on, and examples of, these replacements are provided in the FAQ’s located here.
- If a Resident believes in good faith that his or her content is not copyright infringing and has been replaced in error, the Resident may submit a copyright counter-notice to have the content restored. More information is available in our DMCA Policy, located here.
- For shoppers who would like to be certain that they’re buying or using legitimate inworld merchandise, this FAQ contains useful information on how to shop safely and avoid potentially infringing materials.
- The complete FAQ is located here.
As the pilot program progresses, we will collect feedback on testers’ experiences using the improved process. We plan to extend these improvements to the broader community as soon as possible. If you are a content creator, the FAQ’s on the pilot program are located here.
–Pink Linden and the Content Team
Read more here at the LL blog. (A sound recording from Torley? Seriously? …that makes me wonder if they’re mocking us.)
Also, this does jack for malicious filings. Come on, Pink. Think about that too.
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Oh come on, a sound from Torley would be AWESOME!!! I can’t wait to hear it! Mocking us? Hardly. Mocking those who steal stuff, definitely.
Interesting. It adds the “naughty, naughty!” factor to things, but does absolutely nothing about those people who are violating first life infringements, especially broadcasts.
Broadcasts in Second Life? Howz doez that work?
Sorry but the Torley sound is not a recording of the ever cool Torley voice saying “Friendly Greetings! I’m stolen and your money is gone!”
If you care about “first life infringements” then become a whisle blower and let the RL copyright holder know about the SL content you think violates their copyright. Its up to the copyright holder to decide how they defend their copyrights.
Hmmm. Sounds like this policy could
1) Humiliate innocent people. LL sending notices to everyone who bought the content is a PR nightmare, which, I suppose, is the point…but…far more likely to damage legitimate content creators through bogus complaints filed against them than to hurt the legions of copybotters who use alts and don’t give a fig about their reputations.
2) Do nothing against blatant thieves, who might just counterfile or move to a new location.
What is disturbing to me is that LL’s FAQ makes it sound like they’ll automatically remove anything with a complaint submitted. There should be a review process, and the standards used for removal need to be transparent. And residents found repeatedly in violation need to be banned – not as an avatar, but as a real-world user. Personally, I can’t see why alts aren’t tied to a single user account – which would also be convenient from the user’s POV as well, since we wouldn’t have to age-verify and put payment info on file for each one…
My understanding, Shimere, is that the DMCA requires them to automatically remove anything complained about. They don’t have leeway to do a review; that’s for the courts to do.
Yes, that’s how it’s supposed to work. But no, I’ve seen LL send a notice requesting the user to remove the content. WTF.
“# Textures, bodyparts, and clothing will be replaced with monochrome items that are the average color of the items they replace…”
ummm, seriously? sounds like a full-time job to me.
lol no. but it will be fun the day it breaks and all textures in SL are destroyed.
So just so i am clear on this, If someone has an product that is pulled does this also filter down to the item that say we all bought? SO things we have may start saying “sorry it was stolen” as we wont know this at the time of sale. Also if they are just pulling these items if one of the major players tells them to then everyone will assume guilty, shit sticks in this world ans the SL world and i can see this being a bit of a mess!
This is interesting. So from what I gather, from a consumer’s point of view ….we buy an item, & whether its flagged now, or a year down the road, we go to wear it/rez it/whatever, and all we’re left with is a monochrome shirt or a ball with floating STOLEN text on it ….and we’re out our money? How lovely! I’m sure this will be GREAT for the economy. I know I certainly will shop more, knowing at any time my 10k worth of items might turn into wooden balls.
Think it would be wise not to grandfather this. Start from the date of the pilot as innocent residents may find the bulk of their inventory trash. This does not bode well for those who have spent quite a bit of Linden (i.e. real life dollars) supporting content creators and LL through their purchases. Fact is, I think this will hurt the economic factor of SL as residents will be afraid to purchase anything for fear of the next day it saying “Hey! this item or texture or whatever was stolen!”
1- Linden Labs need to restore the stuff once it’s proven not-stolen. Currently, this doesn’t always work…
2- If the creator left SL for good, all his creation can be subject to false claims of copyright to wipe his entire contribution off SL – this is a huge loophole, one which can destroy unique products and freebies for the purpose of selling a product clone; THIS HELPS THE THIEVES OF TRULY UNIQUE AND VERY USEFUL CONTENT! Not to mention griefing morons having a field day with this.
3- SL needs to keep the claimer’s ID handy in case of lawsuit for false claims. If false claims are used SLAPP (strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) style, entire honest SL-only 10+ employees companies can EASILY be made totally unprofitable years at a time by one-false-claim-a-day griefers. Specialized bots made explicitely to create accounts just to spam false DMCA for racketeering/griefing purposes could be made, say to paralyze a political sim of opinion opposed to the griefers.
4- People who knowingly makes false claims NEED TO BE BANNED. PERIOD. They’re as dangerous as thieves, and can with some effort get a legitimate business disgusted and leave making the plundering of it’s IP assets easy as pie and unpunished.
5- SL needs explicit anti-copyfraud policies before a horror story happens to force ‘em to make one.