1. Even at market rates, I just got an exchange rate ten points better than earlier in the day. SOMETHING is afoot, that's for sure...

Posted at 1:17AM on Nov 15th 2006 by Erbo Evans

2. Copybot reminds me of the name2key databases. Their largest effect on SL was not that they were used for evil (they weren't, really) but how SL's residents reacted fearfully to the possibility that they might be.

Posted at 3:26AM on Nov 15th 2006 by Tateru Nino

3. I've now also heard rumors that some SL businesses have closed their doors because of the "threat" of CopyBot. If true, this strikes me as overreacting.

I did note that GuRL 6 issued a very strong statement that people using CopyBot to copy their products would be AR'd and DMCA complaints would be filed, and offering a reward for information leading to the account termination of unauthorized copiers. I crafted a similar statement on behalf of Don't Panic! Designs, and posted it at the store. Perhaps "a word to the wise" will be sufficient.

Posted at 4:18AM on Nov 15th 2006 by Erbo Evans

4. Amend the above...the mass closures appear to be temporary, in protest of the CopyBot brouhaha. Which may draw attention to the problem but accomplish little else...

Posted at 4:20AM on Nov 15th 2006 by Erbo Evans

5. I submitted this as a tip, but it's been a while, and I am doubtful that it will be posted as an article, so I'm just pasting it here:

There has been so much misinformation and so many rumors and accusations flying around the last few days with the copyright violation fiasco, that I felt I needed to try to set a few things straight, or at least give you all some food for thought.

Comparisons between Second Life and the WWW (WWW as in web pages - I won't say Internet; both SL and the WWW run over the Internet) have been made before - and they are more right than many people would like to believe.

Both SL and the WWW have servers which perform the same basic functions: user authentication, handling client requests, data storage, data processing, and distribution.

Both also have clients, running on home computers, that allow users to log in, send requests for data, accept the data from the servers, and then display it in a presentable fashion. With SL, this is the viewer, with the WWW, this is your web browser of choice.

So the process goes like this:
1) Client logs in
2) Client requests data
3) Server processes request
4) Server sends data
5) Client receives data
6) Client presents data

Steps 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are, or can be, encrypted or otherwise made safe from prying eyes. Encrypted or invisible (server side) data is not very useful to humans though, so it has to be made presentable - using the viewer.

Both SL and the WWW (among other distribution technologies) have the same weakness. Whatever reaches the client is inherently copyable and unprotected. If it were encrypted every step of the way, all the way to display, you would see nothing but a pile of random polygons covered with staticy textures. Encrypting sensitive data is important, yes, but if you want people to see what you are showing them, the data must be unencrypted when it goes to be displayed.

And because the unencrypted information ends up on the client computer, the data is copyable, one way or another. The only way to prevent people from stealing textures, models, avatar shapes, and the like, would be for them to NEVER exist in the client computer's memory.

Or, put more simply:

The LL servers would have to generate and render everything, and send it to the users as streaming video, like cable TV.

And I don’t think anyone wants that.

Once the data is on your computer, ready to be displayed, both the pictures (images/textures) and presentation data (HTML layout/prim shapes) are copyable, one way or another. With the WWW, it's as simple as right clicking a picture and clicking save, or hitting 'File > Save As...'. SL has made it more difficult - but any determined programmer can get at the data by just reading the memory off the video card, or any other place it happens to pass through.

About the only thing that can’t be outright copied is backend server programs, or in SL’s case, scripts, as they are never sent to the client unless the client has permission to view them.

In essence, those models and textures you see, are just like web pages, and just as insecure. No amount of encryption will make them uncopyable, unless/until 'Trusted Computing Modules' (hardware DRM chips) are installed in every last piece of hardware, from the network card, to the motherboard, to the CPU, to the video card, to the monitor's electronics. (This is almost a reality - think HDCP - but that's another topic.)

So remember, if you're trying to sell objects and textures, do not compare them to real objects or real paintings. Compare them to web pages and images. Because that is essentially what they are, and no amount of permissions or encryption will change that.

-Laser

(Note 1: Some people make comparisons to WoW and other online games, and how they have been fixed to prevent people from obtaining things they should not have. That is another issue entirely, because those games do not allow user created content in the first place. All the actual data regarding what objects the player has, is stored on the server. If the client tries to say "Use the Sword of Smiting on this creature!", the server can say "Oh, but you don't have a Sword of Smiting. All you have is a Stick of Swatting", and either ban the user or correct the error on the client.)

(Note 2: I can think of two solutions to the problem. One: limit and audit uploads and object creations. If user w wants to create texture x or sound y or link-set z, and it is too close to an existing object with owner u and permissions v, then disallow creation of that asset. But that would be a pain in the hindquarters for everyone involved. Two: Don't try to sell web pages, or be prepared to defend your copyright using the legal process.)

(Note 3: I thought of another solution (which unfortunately doesn't apply to textures and clothing): Make your products FUNCTIONALLY unique. Scripts cannot be copied - so if your product does something unique, that is not easily copied - much of the incentive to copy it for profit - or for free - is lost.)

Posted at 5:24AM on Nov 15th 2006 by Laser Pascal

6. Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but the conspiracy theorist in me can't help but wonder if it wasn't a coincidence that the Copybot shows up right before a controversial increase in land & tier fees takes effect. However, I would be the first to admit that it was probably just a coincidence.

Posted at 8:33AM on Nov 15th 2006 by Alan Hearn

7. The copybot can not copy experiences. Therefore a great many professions in Second Life are not threatened by it. You can't copy the experience of a great dance club or an awesome live music venue. Writers can't be copied, neither can people who give interior design advice. Copybot doesn't threaten prostitutes or other paid Role Players. Copybot also won't create content on corporate or non-profit islands.

Posted at 10:28AM on Nov 15th 2006 by Tad McConachie

8. I'm really tired of the exploitative New Class who benefit from using the labour of others in SL making a world -- and use it like toilet paper -- telling us that this is all *able* to be done and has been coming and we should all just suck it up.

It's really nasty, unseemly, and even criminal.

I don't care how hard or how easy it is to intercept another's work (and tekkies seem to fall all over themselves trying to tell you both are true at the same time).

People's time and labour is exploitable, made vulnerable, and being exploited, and that should be a social concern far more than it is from this bunch making millions from being metaversal consultants.

name2key was done maliciously, to pwn people and make them uncomfortable. While these things are always portrayed as innocent "information just wants to be free" experiments, they are almost ALWAYS accompanied by a rhetoric of malice, glee at others' misfortune, smugness, arrogance, and condescending, hectoring lectures about how the rest of us are chumps for believing otherwise.

Why are we expected to be chumps over the issue of our labour and our time being scoured, harvested, and enlisted into the Metaversal Mill for free, so that others can make big consulting fees off it? And by "we" I mean those of us making goods or services for micropayments involving commodities.

Tad's highly smug contribution sums it up: corporations have nothing to fear because they are buying one-time shows that they harness a team of programming and designing efforts for, by hire, at huge prices by contrast with inworld micropayments.

Prostitutes, however, can't command sums more than what the micropayment economy can command. People will not come in and pay a prostitute the $30,000 Lindens of a $100 real US dollars she might get if she were "in real". Instead, they'll pay her more like $1.50 US for her hour of time. So prostitutes -- and for that matter live musicians collecting mere $10 or $100 tips from people inworld and not even the $2000 that might cover, say, a $6.00 US RL cover charge -- are being exploited by those who expect thousands of workers to show up every day and populate and provide content to create a world that then high-priced consultants can show off to their clients as a magic place, or knowledge workers who can just burn through SL content making to enhance their portable skils.

Posted at 4:30PM on Nov 15th 2006 by Prokofy Neva

9. >Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but the conspiracy theorist in me can't help but wonder if it wasn't a coincidence that the Copybot shows up right before a controversial increase in land & tier fees takes effect. However, I would be the first to admit that it was probably just a coincidence.

Oh, I think they have all this stuff planned in stages. That's why the dates are all so consist with a calendar: 6/6 have the first free accounts; 9/6 have the first so-called dbase hack so that everyone is forced to re-do passwords, and shake off alts; 11/6 have the copybot deployed, etc.

The plan was first to exploit crowdserfed labour to populate it and add content, then dump those people by wiping out incentives, then have landlords and clubs to have casual users, then dump the dwellopers' awards, then raise island tiers to dump landlords, and the have a copybot to

The purpose of these stages is to dump everybody off who isn't serving one purpose: programming the platform, testing the platform and selling the platform or making it available mainly for corporate use.

However, there is a war between communists and oligarchs.

The communists had a plan November 7 (Soviet Revolution Day) first to blink off squares on the grid to make them red squares (get it, yuk yuk) -- lots of sims went down.

They also created all their bots (look at creation day of all the Mannequins) and beginning spreading the CopyBot that day.

The victory dancers like Prim Revolution have communist hammer and sickle insignia.

The Lindens helpfully put the name Revolution in the name list for this period because they're in on it.

Look, all you have to do is pay attention. It's all like Russia.

Posted at 4:57PM on Nov 15th 2006 by Prokofy Neva