M&M Target of Copybot Attack, Threats

M&M Creations informed SL Newspaper that they were the target of A Copybot attack that ripped off many of their content creations, and then someone threatening to distribute copies of the pirated goods around. “Isn’t this outrageous,” 10 Goosson commented, “This is bizarre, but so open. We traced the thief, and his account was deleted. Then we were approached by a new av who says he is a friend of the thief. So openly?!” Porting reporters to the scene, a sandbox in the sky in the Mythos sim, 10 told, “the more things will rez, the more you recognize our main-stores complete content.” And indeed as shapes and colors formed, familiar goods appeared, “Behind you Bixyl, 2 other plateaus, all rezzed permanent ready to be taken, stolen ... This is still a bit shocking, the way the Hamarack Krovac and Swiss Ryada did this.”

10 handed over a notecard of the conversation she had with Hamarack Krovac, “im gonna give your scultie to every peopla.” “I'll report this, small effort.” “its too late. its on my computer ... LOL, i got your shop in my invent, come see ... adresse renew, its easy. i can come every time, second life cant banned  me. ...  FREE SCULTIE COME HERE, ALL IN THE BOX FOR ) LINDEN, 0 linden*, alll its free.” At times, the griefer claimed he was trying to “help,” but his threats and boasts spoke otherwise.

The incidents confused the Goossons and others. Marcthur Goosson remarked, “the craziest thing is that the copybotter told me he copybotted.” A woman responded, “He TOLD you?  Do include that in your AR , and near the time he said that to you.” “I know, I am struggling with word scanner pictures...  just to relief myself, this matter pisses me off. I am standing in a sandbox with half my shop copybotted. I talk to live chat and they tell me to send DMCA. I have to work my a** out with documents, pictures, notecards, faxes and PDF etc etc. And I am still standing in that sandbox with all proof in front of me.(it is an exact replica of my shop) Where is LL ??? They are hidden behind the papers, crawling in a stupid system. ... Sorry to drop this out of the blue.”

10 claimed the items had been in the sandbox for some time, “We're so sick of these little children! And LL is not showing up while we're standing here, no we need papers, forms, proof, (how much do you want to have) digital signatures ... It's still standing here, for hours!!! ... We both filed abuse-reports but it is bizarre. LL asks us to make such a long wait while all things are here, proof enough even the names and notecards, and still LL responds this bureaucratic paperwork-way, I can't imagine!! For a virtual world that moves this fast, being so so so bureaucratic, is this normal??? Can we as hard creative workers expect this?? Even the event tree, what a cynical thing to see. Pathetic if you ask me.”

10 went on, “I just want to express what happened to us and show all in-world some stupids are playing against LL-Terms Of Service and OURS, and nothing has been done. Marcthur (has been) standing here for hours!! Tell the proof is still here ... I've no idea how many 'friends' this idiot has.”

More people dropped in, and the discussion went on. One visitor after looking the scene over commented, “... Makes me wonder what the hell was the point ... We know: 1)He did this without any monetary benefit, 2)Informed the creator he copied. So this is probably a troll.” 10 told a little more about the incident, saying they had found the first guy at M&M Creations a few days ago, “Swiss Ryada, we approached him friendly, but he just went through with rezzing before using his copybot right under our noses!! So after several requests, we banned him. And now, a few days later this Hamarack is 'back' for helping his friend Swiss.”

Eventually, Marcthur announced, “I talked to the landowner, he banned the guy and waits for my signal to wipe this.” When someone asked why they didn’t go ahead and get rid of it, “I want LL over here, better proof is not be found. ... So we residents have to solve our own business and all LL does is read reports. I cannot file a DMCA in a few minutes. It is good newspapers are here.” Someone commented, “I remember back in 2004 and 5 when Lindens (were) in-game with us, and you could look one up and they (would) just fly right over and issues like this were addressed right away. It’s sad really. ... This makes me feel very uneasy as a designer where Second Life is headed.”

Eventually, everyone left the scene. Hours later when the sandbox was checked again, the copy of the stolen goods was gone. Question is, is this the end of M&M’s problems?

By Bixyl Shuftan

WHAT’S A BOT? A BENEFIT OR A MENACE?

Is that a good, appropriate question to ask, nowadays or a worn out record. Let’s find out.

A bot is an avatar which is controlled by a machine, rather than by a human, simple really. So why worry about that? If a human can do a thing is Second Life, what does

it matter that the process can be automated?

On the positive side, it means that all regular or widespread communications can be done at a single stroke of a key and left to be run by a bot. So what’s the fuss?

It is the purpose to which a bot is put that is contentious. The notorious copybot is a case in point. It is possible to steal a design, change permissions, sell the design/product in huge quantities without the original creator benefiting from his or her work. Worse than that, a copybot automates this process. It can be placed in or around a designer’s premises without being identified and steal, steal, steal.

All activities in Second Life are based on the open source Linden Scripting Language (LSL) (open source means that it is available for anyone to use in any way that they can devise) this brings many benefits to Second Life residents’ lives. We can build houses, vehicles, clothes, we can write scripts to power our cars, planes and boats, to greet people, send them messages, invite them to parties etc.

Open Source means an open world.

However, it also makes virtual criminal activity possible, too. Like a knife, its use depends on the motives of the user. A knife can save a life (in surgery) or take a life (in a robbery). A bot can enhance our second lives by opening up communication channels, for instance, or it can bring misery, if used to steal our hard-earned designs of anything that can be built in Second Life.

There had been calls to revoke the open-source rights to residents. When the furore had cooled down, it was realised that this was just a knee-jerk reaction. Pandora’s box is open and it’s too late to close it.

Do we want to put our freedom back in the box? Just look at the figures when you log on to Second Life: 50,000 or more people logged-on at any one time. So many of those people are creating, contributing to their home-from-home.

Beautiful houses, “wild” animals, pets, cars, planes, even our own virtual bodies have been made possible by this open source policy. Linden Lab started everything but it’s the residents who have continued it to heights we see today.

And that’s the problem. With freedom comes the abuse of freedom. So, why should we NOT revoke open source lsl. Because we will also revoke our creativity.

We must protect our freedom over and above our commercial and financial gains, because those gains would not exist without “freedom” or ”open source”. Freedom is not the culprit here, it is the abuse of that freedom and those residents who abuse it to their own, selfish, ends that are the culprits.

With freedom comes responsibility, so let’s take that responsibility as a community and hunt down those who abuse our rights and remove THEM.

Kim Trefusis

CopyBot rears its ugly head at Styles of Edo

This morning I awoke to an email from Edo Tone of Styles of Edo he was very upset and showed me photographs, taken by Maggie Mahoney of Runway magazine. The pictures showed copies of his 'famous' tailcoat worn by M(ark) Linden at his first public appearance at the SL5B opening on sale at OMG! Inc.
When I arrived at Sununu, next to our head office, home of OMG! Inc and saw the suits on offer, I could see for myself it was his tailcoat, it is unique. But I was also disturbed by the similarities of others on the wall and buying the white tux shown found it too was from Edo. Edo came and confirmed it but more disturbing he also pointed out designs that were from another designer Simone Stern.
I brought Simone in and, although blurred and photoshopped a good deal, she confirmed some were her textures, pointing out highlights and shading that were unique to her designs.
Next I tried to contact Kaddan Yue CEO of OMG! Inc. but it was the middle of the night for her so I asked Intlibber Brautigan to remove them from the sim which he did as soon as I appraised him of the situation. I admit I was impressed with the speed he grasped the facts and dealt with them.
When Kaddan came online she immediately confirmed that she had bought the textures some time previously and they had been sent to her by email. She was totally unaware they were copied/stolen and shocked when shown the pictures. She took immediate action and removed all designs made from textures sent by kraus Folland. I know Kaddan and the work they are trying to do with OMG! is commendable, these designs were bought at the beginning of the project. Kaddan told me that now they are using only inworld designers and no longer buying textures because of the copybots.
I have rarely seen anyone so upset and I can't blame her. It was a horrible position to have innocently bought stolen textures and used them.
I arranged a meeting with Kaddan and Edo where Kaddan apologised personally to him for the mistake which Edo accepted with an offer of friendship to Kaddan.
Later Kaddan released this statement;
"OMG Inc is a co-operative company meaning we collect designs to sell from many designers as well as creating our own.
We have bought designs from many places like XStreet and designers inworld.
When I was informed that some of the designs we were selling were copies I took immediate action and removed them from all of our stores.
I will also delete all copies of the textures I bought from kraus Folland.
These textures were delivered to me by Email and I have destroyed the originals stored on my PC.
I wish to apologise publicly to those that have had their textures copied.
I would never deliberately resell someone Else's work without their express permission in writing and had I known that these were copies I would never have bought them.
Texture theft is a big concern in Secondlife and because of it we are now working only with designers inworld in the hopes of preventing this from happening again.
All I can do is apologise to Edo Tone of 'Styles of Edo' and also we think Simone Stern of 'Simone' and accept full responsibility for reselling their designs."

My question now is WHY IS COPYBOT ALLOWED IN SL?
This situation was awful for all involved, Edo and Simone had their textures ripped and altered, Kaddan and the OMG! team were, in all innocence, selling stolen goods (which in real life is no defence) but here we can see the ones to blame are those that continue to use the CopyBot and decide to profit from other peoples hard work!
I guess some will always try to profit from others hard work - just make sure you know the source of any textures you buy! So we can minimise the profit these people can make from copying.

Dana Vanmoer