Brad Oberwager and Philip Rosedale of @Second Life have announced to take much, much mor drastic measures against content piracy within as well as originating in Second Life.

Some sources:

• Wagner James "Hamlet" Au's New World Notes
• Ava Delaney's Chronicles
• Tjay Wicken on SLNotes

Linden Lab may soon act when:

• you have stolen content in Second Life
• you have uploaded stolen Second Life content somewhere
• you offer stolen Second Life content somewhere
• you host stolen Second Life content somewhere
• you tell others how to steal Second Life content

And "act" means:

• they'll terminate your Second Life account
• they'll purge any and all creations from this account from Second Life, including in-world and from other avatars' inventories
• they'll terminate every last one of your alt accounts
• they'll purge any and all creations from your alt accounts from Second Life, including in-world and from other avatars' inventories
• they'll file a DMCA notice against you
• they'll file a Cease & Desist against whatever you've done and wherever you've done it
• they might even start a criminal lawsuit against you, drag you to court and have you convicted

Now, most talk concerning these measures is in Second Life and/or only concerning Second Life. But OpenSimulator, especially grids connected to the Hypergrid, have been flooded with stolen Second Life content for many years already. My estimation is that over 95% of all sim decoration and at least 99% of all avatar accessories were stolen from Second Life.

Granted, no-one makes any money with this content. And we're talking about over 3,000, maybe over 4,000 individual grids, the vast majority of which are connected to the Hypergrid. But the availability of even premium Second Life content as freebies in OpenSim makes OpenSim more attractive to non-creators than Second Life and gives it an unfair and illegal advantage in the competition between virtual worlds.

If Linden Lab went all the way against OpenSim, the effects would be devastating. Grid by grid would be shut down, either by their admins or by the authorities, and their admins might end up behind bars with a permanent criminal record, just because there's illegal Second Life content on them, maybe even available in freebie stores.

This would not only affect the small grids that are based around young and extremely popular freebie stores that are constantly being supplied with a stream of freshly copybotted content.

OSgrid, the first public grid, the oldest still existing grid, one of the two largest grids with a bigger landmass than Second Life itself and the main testbed for OpenSim's development, would meet its end, and its entire eight-piece grid staff would be convicted for what's on externally attached sims like Agora or Nutella or, in fact, any sim that isn't 100% squeaky clean. In fact, I dare say it's hardly possible for a grid to be so aseptic that it couldn't possible be a target of such actions. One local avatar with a Second Life body, and a grid could be toast.

Better yet: The Lindens won't even have to go look for illegal content in OpenSim themselves. A new category for Second Life support tickets will be created to report cases of stolen Second Life content. If you think this won't be used with malicious intent, I have a bridge to sell you.

Philip Rosedale said that Linden Lab will take care that this won't be weaponised within Second Life. But neither he nor Brad Oberwager nor anyone else at Linden Lab would even notice if it's being used as a weapon in wars between grids, communities or single users in OpenSim. In OpenSim, this report feature could be used as a salted thermonuclear weapon that can not only permanently destroy grids of any size, but all their staff in real life along with them, even those who have never had Second Life avatars.

And believe me when I say that, especially in the German-speaking OpenSim scene, there are enough open conflicts and enough complete nutbars who would "push the button" with glee to get rid of grids and users whom they have a problem with. I think there's only one German grid that couldn't possibly be destroyed this way, and that grid is almost unknown and has spent over a decade under a rock. Our only salvation is how slow the German legal system is, and how digital legislation has yet to arrive in the 21st century.

I've recently posted a lengthy comment on this.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #SecondLife #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Piracy #Copybotting #ContentTheft

@Stex Auer In OpenSim, with the exception of total newbies, everybody knows about copybotting. Everybody knows that probably over 95% of all content that's at most 10 years old was stolen from Second Life. There are even people who staunchly insist that there is literally no original OpenSim content whatsoever.

And they enjoy it. Many OpenSim users who have joined since 2015 have never touched any legal content (except OpenSimWorld beacons and Clubmasters if they're sim owners). And they don't want to. They refuse to. They consider OpenSim's original content sub-par in comparison with the premium luxury content that was copybotted from Second Life.

If I tell people my body is a Roth2 v2, some actually assume I'm either too much of a newbie or too dumb to find the "good stuff". One user has actually given me an unsolicited copybotted SLink Physique Male body. After saying right into my virtual face how COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY GUT-WRENCHINGLY DISGUSTINGLY HIDEOUS Roth2 v2 is, using a whole string of expletives.

It's too late to go and sweep OpenSim clean of illegal content. Most OpenSim users come from Second Life and want OpenSim to be Second Life for free, but with the same content or at least at the same level of quality. Remove all sales boxes with illegal content from freebie stores, and 90% of all freebie stores will be completely empty. Have sim owners remove all illegal content from their sims, and you'll end up with a lot of sims that are barren land, save for a lonely OpenSimWorld beacon that may actually even hover in the air because even the ground it used to stand on was copybotted from Second Life.

And if you take copybotted Second Life content as freebies away from people, they'll go log into Second Life with hacked or copybot viewers and export their own inventories by and by instead. Just for their own private use.

For example, you've got three ways of making an avatar in OpenSim.

One, with copybotted SL content. It's easy, it's convenient, and you'll get a gorgeous avatar with next to no effort. But it's illegal.

Two, with legal meshes. You can be certain that it's legal. But it requires a whole lot of detective work to find legal content because it's absent from most of the popular freebie sims. Most of if can only be acquired from the creators, either because it's no-transfer, or because it's too obscure for freebie sim owners to know about it, or because it isn't on par with copybotted SL content in quality, or a combination. That is, some offer Second Life content that was imported with consent from its creators. But the more recent it is, and the clearer it is that it's legal, the harder it is to find because it's no-transfer.

And then you'll have to tinker a lot. There is almost no clothing rigged for the most recent legal BoM mesh bodies (Ruth2 v4, Roth2 v2), so you have to make do with meshes made for the system body, clothes made for Ruth 2.0 RC#2/RC#3 etc. You have to learn how to make alpha masks because Ruth2 v4 and Roth2 v2 don't have fine-grained alpha HUDs; they rely on alpha masks. You have to spend hours tweaking their shapes until they look good; no out-of-the box sexy/badass shapes available.

In the end, you'll have an avatar that's much more unique and individual than those a-dozen-a-dime Athenas and Legacys and Adonises and Giannis. But it's still nowhere near LaraX + LeLutka EvoX + Doux + what-have-you.

Three, the classic way. System body + layer clothes + prim/sculpt attachments. It's most likely legal. But at best, with a whole lot of work, your avatar will look like 2013. It's more likely to look like 2009 because you probably can't be bothered to tweak the shape until even only the face looks more like a real human than like Ruth. Also, it has become difficult to find classic layer + prim stuff, also because it's either no-transfer and only available in one place or Linda Kellie.

I simply can't see a way to purge illegal content from OpenSim. It's ubiquitous, and people depend on it. There used to be a time when DigiWorldz, an entire and not exactly small commercial grid, did not allow avatars with an Athena body (= copybotted 2014 Maitreya Lara) to enter. You wore an Athena, you were kicked. I think only this one mesh body was affected. But they removed that ban because it kept the vast majority of OpenSim avatars out, and back then, there were no known viable alternatives to Athena except ditching mesh and going back to around 2010.

Idealists are few and far between, and many of them don't get far. Social Mouse wanted to rebuild her entire small grid (which previously was chock-full of botted stuff) with only legal creations, even as sim decoration. She built her own buildings for residential sims. She started reworking old Selea Core rezboxes and upgrading them to modern-day OpenSim. She wanted to build a freebie sim with lots of stores that only offer legal content. But first Social Mouse disappeared, and then so did her grid.

Zoe Synclair wanted to build her own freebie sim with only legal content. I know she had quite a bit because she had already had it in store. She had her own licensed Second Life clothes, and she had gathered a whole lot of original OpenSim content (Ruth2/Roth2, classic avatars by Ina Centaur, one of the biggest Selea Core collections ever, her own Linda Kellie Clutterfly warehouse etc.). But this didn't really come to fruition either. I guess she was mobbed out of OpenSim, because she passed her grid and even her avatar and identity on to a new owner.

Aaack Aardvark had a tremendous amount of creations of his own at his ArcadiaShop. That stuff was so good that it was repeatedly copybotted, imported into Second Life and sold for money as original creations, and Aaack always had to step in. A few months ago, he practically disappeared from OpenSim entirely and shut the ArcadiaShop sim down, making most of his products unavailable. His friend Bibiana Bombinante of Encantada fame hasn't been seen for months either, but at least her Encantada sim is still online. Their products are full-perm, but the scripted sales boxes which Aaack had made aren't.

Few are left. For example, Hyacinth Jean (who used to be on Mastodon and PeerTube) only offers her own creations and some from other grid residents on the landing sim of GroovyVerse which seems to be devoid of copybotted content otherwise. Jamie Wright is working on a freebie sim dedicated to preserving older legal content, including a vast collection of boxes and items from FleepGrid, but it isn't ready to be opened yet, although I've been there a while ago.

I myself own two body shops dedicated to the Ruth2 and Roth2 families, one of which is already prepared for Max, and both of which offer some of the biggest assortments of bodies and accessories for these bodies. Next to one of them, there is a shop with increasingly harder to find layer and mesh clothing. For example, I've managed to rescue all Deva Moda clothes and make-up and other things from crumbling Klamotto as well as most Damien Fate meshes textured by Illiana Blachere and a lot of skin-tight layer clothes. In some cases, I'm the only merchant who still offers it.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #SecondLife #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Piracy #Copybotting #ContentTheft

@Ava Bloodrose Delaney I've written an article about this yesterday: Will they go after OpenSim copybotters now?

Essentially, if they did, and if they even did so outside the USA, some entire grids would be shut down, especially if they were built around big freebie sims in the first place. But I doubt that they'll even go after the spreading and offering of content that was stolen in the 2010s instead of only after recent cases of content theft.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #SecondLife #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Piracy #Copybotting #ContentTheft

@Stex Auer I know from personal experience that many OpenSim users expect OpenSim to be Second Life, free-of-charge, but otherwise Second Life. Including the same content, but free-of-charge. Or at least that subset of the same content which they desire. For example, that's what makes female avatars look sexy (or what these people take for sexy) and male avatars look badass.

Let me put it this way: Over the last years, more female footwear with 6" platforms and 12" spike heels was stolen from Second Life than with flat soles. There are more medium-heeled female shoes made in OpenSim and rigged for Ruth 2.0 RC#2/RC#3 than there are stolen medium-heeled shoes for all female Second Life mesh bodies combined. It's magnitudes easier to dress an Athena-based avatar like a completely overdone slut than to make a veritable and credible winter outfit. And I guess you can't even dress Legacy for autumn in OpenSim.

Fully legal mesh avatars are very difficult to make and maintain, especially if you don't want to run around with the same outfit on all the time. It's possible, but very difficult. One reason for this is because it isn't really worth making mesh clothes from scratch, especially free mesh clothes. If you have a male avatar, you have to trust certain merchants when they say that they've imported Second Life content with the consent of its creators. If you have a female avatar like @Juno Rowland, you have to make do with Clutterfly, textured Damien Fate meshes, skin-tight clothes as layers, and you have to know very obscure creators for the rest.

Second Life creators traditionally barely have any chance in OpenSim. This is largely due to that "Never buy in OpenSim" mantra which some seem to believe to have originated from OpenSim's own creators, but which was actually coined by the copybotting mafiya in the 2010s to get rid of legal payware merchants. Getting rid of legal freebie merchants was attempted with its own tricks.

Also, the vast majority of OpenSim users doesn't want to invest any money anyway, at least not beyond what little they pay for their sims. Most of those who cite anti-capitalism as the reason for supporting "Never buy in OpenSim" are either poor or just plain cheap.

The items that sell the best, both in Second Life and in OpenSim, are avatar accessories. You can't sell avatar accessories in OpenSim for money. There's next to nothing in this regard that isn't already available in OpenSim as illegal copies, at least not if it's actually (considered) wanted by the users. And even if you want to offer brand-new clothes, wearing them requires a stolen body. That is, unless you rig for Ruth2 or Roth2 which were made in and for OpenSim (terrible devkits notwithstanding), and doing so isn't even worth the effort in Second Life.

Lastly, if a Second Life creator offers something in OpenSim for money, and it's good in some way, you can be certain that someone else wil copybot it from Second Life and then offer it as freebies. In fact, I'm not sure if Studio Skye joined the Kitely Market before or after their beach kit was copybotted.

But I'd really like to see what happens if Linden Lab, with Second Life creators by their side, sue the owners of some of those small American or European grids that are built around massive freebie stores into submission, have their grids shut down and even make sure that they won't start new grids. I guess if the legal action that was threatened some ten years ago already is actually taken, and entire grids (albeit small ones, but with popular, significant freebie sims) fall victim to it, this may shock quite a few people. Especially if these grids don't pop up again within no time.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #SecondLife #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Piracy #Copybotting #ContentTheft

@Stex Auer

the second the enhancement of creativity.

This reminds me of how rampant copybotting of Second Life content killed off almost all creativity in OpenSim in no time back in 2015.

Speaking of which, I'm wondering if Linden Lab is specifically targetting OpenSim here. This could end up either impossible or not worth it or really ugly. If you've got too much time to read...

CC: @Metasocieties

#SecondLife #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Piracy #Copybotting #ContentTheft