1. Copyright

What we attempt to do is to make a digital copy of an artistic creation. The law that governs these things is copyright, and sadly, they differ from country to country, so I can’t give an in-depth look into each and every variation on copyright here, but since most of our readers are from the U.S.A. and germany, I’ll try to give a general overview on copyright in these countries. Please note that this does not replace legal counsel by attorneys, should you require complete certainty about whether or not something you do is legal.

Subject of copyright is a work, which needs to be created by an author. In most cases the work needs to be a significant artistic or scientific effort by the author. This means that a single prim box will not be protected by copyright, just because the effort to create it is not significant enough to consider it a “work” in terms of copyright. This also means that anything that’s not created by a human is not protected by copyright (because it has no author). For example, a texture created (solely) through applying a filter in FilterForge might not be protected by copyright, since it is created by a computerized process. (Note that the filter itself, i.e. the process describing how to create said texture, will indeed be protected by copyright, just its results may not be.) I say “might not” because copyright is a case law and whether or not a work is protected by copyright is decided on a case-by-case basis. If you’re in doubt, it’s best to consider something copyrighted, though.

Copyright is automatic. The author doesn’t need to do anything to have his works protected, they are covered by copyright from the moment they’re created.¹ Copyright is transferable by US law (and can even be given up). It cannot be transferred by german law (as it is considered part of the “personality right” of the author, and is inextricably linked to the author’s personality), but can still be “licensed”. A license is basically a contract between the copyright holder and the person about to use the copyrighted work, describing what can and can not be done with the work, and as with all contracts, these are mostly free and can contain any kind of regulation.

Copyright is limited, and currently expires 70 years after the death of the author. When it expires, the work falls into the public domain, and can be used by anyone for any purpose; it cannot be re-copyrighted. (This doesn’t mean public domain works can’t be sold; obviously there are lots of old works still being printed and sold, even though everyone would be free to make a copy themselves.) There are also legal exceptions when use of copyrighted material does not require the permission of the author. According to US law, these cases are regulated by the fair use doctrine, which does not clearly define the circumstances, but describes factors that need to be considered when deciding if a use was a fair use or not. German laws however define specific exceptions to copyright (for example quotations, satirical purposes, public places, private non-commercial uses, etc.).

Breaking copyright (using a copyrighted work without neccessary permission) can have both civil and criminal consequences; the author can ask for compensation for the unauthorized use, and it can additionally be punished with a fine or, in extreme cases, with jail time.

These are the basic cases, where copyright is fairly easy and clear. However, most cases involving copyright are far from easy, because many works have several authors (with varying degrees of involvement) or make use of other works (with or without the consent of their authors). Some of these cases are specified in law, others have been covered by court cases, and a large number of cases are simply unclear.

2. Terms Of Service

Terms of Service are, by their nature, always more limiting than copyright law. Because they cannot replace or extend the law (since the law is stronger than a company’s terms), all they can do is further regulate uses which are already regulated by law. Also, their nature and binding force is subject to discussion; at best they’re a contract between the provider of the service and the user, at worst they’re useless.² For the scope of this article we will cover the Second Life Terms of Service (TOS in short).

While the TOS clarifies that you retain copyright to everything you create within Second Life, they also state that the actual data is property of Linden Labs and to be used at their sole discretion. This means that, while you are still free to define who may and may not have a copy of your creation, you have no right to get an actual copy of the data your creation consists of, off the servers operated by Linden Labs. It also means that Linden Labs can restrict your access to their service (and your creations along with it) at any time without being oblieged to hand you a copy of your creations, or any compensation for their use. The Terms of Service do, however, allow you to export your creation with the use of third-party solutions, provided you are the sole creator of every part the creation consists of. This means, every prim and every texture on every side of the prim needs to show your avatar as the creator for the export to be legal according to the TOS.³

Additionally, the Second Life Policy on Third-Party Viewers (TPVP) disallow the access to Second Life with software that circumvents the permission system or alters content metadata (like creator name). This leaves only a small window of exporting creations out of Second Life, as allowed by the TOS, and many uses that would be legal under copyright law are restricted by the TOS. For example, any building that uses megaprims can, effectively, not be exported, since megaprims have been created by only a handful of users during several short occasions when a bug in the SL server software made their creation possible, and are being distributed with full permissions, but still state the megaprim creator as creator. So if your building uses megaprims, they will show the megaprim creator in the creator info, while all other prims show your own avatar name, which means the build is not completely, technically, made by yourself and can not be exported. The same applies for creations that were made by several people, or use someone elses creation as part of themselves.

Breaking the TOS can lead to a suspension or ban from Second Life, even if the act in itself was legal. Note that bans affect not only one avatar account, but most probably all accounts that were accessed from the same computer. Also, all inventory assets, land holdings and L$ on all banned accounts will be irretrievably lost without compensation.

3. Technical

Having covered both the legal and contractual framework of copying Second Life creations, this entry will cover the technical means. Note that the methods described here are tools, their compliance with the law is up to the user. That said, several of the below methods are in violation of the TOS and may result in a ban from Second Life.

One of the first tools for exporting prim creations from Second Life is the libOMV test client. This tool has been around for several years now, and its use is described by Rock Vacirca in a recent blogpost. LibOMV is historically linked to copybot, which was basically a bot using libomv to rip and export content out of Second Life. Today, copybot is a synonym used for any viewer that is capable of exporting/copying SL creations regardless of their permissions.

By now, there are countless copybot viewers available for Second Life, many of which are simply rebranded older versions. Since the SL viewer code is open source, anyone with some basic knowledge of code can use it and create their own viewer from it, with or without copybot capabilities. Many copybot clients have been hacked and featured by Inf, who are also developing and selling their own viewer. Please note that the source code of these viewers is not public, so their use may disclose your Second Life password or other sensible information to a third party. Also, use of any of these viewers is clearly a violation of the TOS.

Many other Third Party Viewers offer some limited exporting ability. Both the Imprudence Viewer and the Phoenix Viewer allow the export of prim creations out of Second Life, as long as the creator name on all prims is the same as the avatar name of the exporting avatar. To be fully TOS compliant, Imprudence does not export textures along with the primset from Second Life, since there is no way to check the creator of all included textures in the viewer yet. Please note that the export files are incompatible between viewers, so a build exported with Imprudence can not be imported with Phoenix and vice versa. Also, objects will be exported without contents, so anything that was inside a prim (scripts, sounds, landmarks, notecards, etc.) have to be manually included after importing them to another grid.

On a side note, backups and exports from OpenSim are considerably easier to do, since the OpenSim software includes functionality to do these from within the console. OpenSim can create OARs, which back up regions including all rezzed objects, their textures, contents, permissions and settings (but currently do not retain the creator names when uploaded to another sim), and IARs, which create an archive of inventory assets, either of a user’s complete inventory including subfolders (including object contents, textures, permissions and related assets) or single folders. Usage of these require access to the opensim console though, so they are only viable for users running OpenSim themselves.

4. Conclusion

The only way to back up creations from Second Life that is both within compliance of copyright laws and the Second Life Terms of Service is to export a prim object with either the Imprudence Viewer, the Phoenix Viewer or any other Third Party Viewer that allows exports while checking for creator, then to save the textures of the object separately. Included scripts, sounds, animations, notecards, etc. can not be exported, but should be already available on the creators computer if they made them, otherwise contact the creator for a copy of the original file.

Exporting creations using a copybot viewer may result in a ban from Second Life, even if they’re within the scope of copyright law. It is therefor currently not possible to create backups of collaborative builds, objects that have been created by others with the license to export them, or objects that are publicly licensed (for example with Creative Commons, GPL or BSD). Only use a copybot if you do not plan in staying with Second Life at all, and even then make sure you stay within the scope of copyright laws, as violating these can result in lawsuits from creators and investigations from authorities.

Full disclosure for the scope of this article: I have been hardware banned from Second Life for the use of the Cryolife client. I am also a german judicial executive.

1. It might be difficult to prove the exact time of creation in every case, but I don’t want to go too deep into details about copyright cases here.
2. The argument against their contractual nature is that a contract is an agreement between two parties, which requires some sort of “freedom of negotiation” on both parts, whereas Terms of Service are usually non-negotiable.
3. The regulations for exports mainly cover prims and textures, since every other creation (avatar layers, sculpt maps, sounds, animations, scripts, etc.) need to be created off-world first, and therefor the TOS assumes that the legit creator already has a copy of them.

1.: Second Life is free. That’s right, for all the complaints about overpriced land rates and the constant advertising of in-world shopping it’s easy to forget that the basic service is free of all cost. You can join SL, create your avatar, build in sandboxes and live off freebies without ever spending a single L$ all your second life, and that’s pretty amazing compared to most other online services, which at least have a monthly subscription fee. It lowered the inhibitions and made it a no-brainer for people to just try it out, with many of them finding out they really liked it and some even did spend some money on it later. Free basics are always good.

2.: Second Life is accessible. When I joined it in 2007, I ran SL on a PowerBook G4, which was already 4 years old at the time and had a 667 MHz processor and barely 1 GB of RAM. This didn’t meet the SL minimum system requirements at the time, but it worked; slow, but it worked. Throughout time, SL always ran decent on mid-class computers, and could still work pretty reliably on older hardware when you put up with some lag (which you will have to put up with anyway). This is important; you don’t want to lock out users by demanding too expensive hardware.

3.: Linden Labs is accountable. This is a little bit embarassing to point out, as it should actually be a matter of course for any company to provide accountable information about who runs the service and where, but with everyone and their aunt launching OpenSim grids, this actually has become some rarity. There aren’t many grids that provide any satisfying details about who runs them, and very few inspire confidence in the providers being solid and accountable. With grids appearing and disappearing every day, you’re advised to have a good look at who runs them, and if you can trust them. It would be a shame to put all your effort and work into a grid only to find it shutting down one day to the next.

4.: Second Life is equal. Every user (except for Linden Lab employees) has the same abilities as any other user, there are no special powers for a special group of people (except for a few moderatory rights for land & estate owners). This bears the fundamental promise of everyone being able to achieve whatever others did before them, which basically is the american dream in virtual reality. It might seem needless to point this out, but other virtual worlds (like Blue Mars) divide their users into different groups with different priviledges, and I recently had to learn that there are even OpenSim grids who give certain “certified” users special rights (for example allowing uploads only for “creators”). By doing so, you take aspiration away from those without priviledges, and make those with priviledges content and complacent. On top of that, I don’t think people can be put into boxes – many of us love this technology because we’re amateurs, barely passing as “professionals”, but still enjoying to dabble with the tools we’re given.

5.: Linden Labs listened. This might sound very bold to say, but I remember times when the Lab had as little clue about what this Second Life thing was as every user on it, so they communicated with the users, through blogs, forums, inworld office hours, etc. This has been drastically reduced over the years, and most of the times, the wishes of the community didn’t get responded, but at least there was communication, which is still better than not being (or feeling) able to make your voice heard in any way other than to walk away from the service. Also, at the time I didn’t know many companies that would keep that level of communication with its customers, so when I joined Second Life, I was very pleasantly surprised about it. Yes, it has changed, but still we can learn from it.

6.: Linden Labs sat through problems. This is not nice, and I don’t advocate it. Still, looking at controversities one can’t help but acknowledge that the possibly best solution is to just sit them out. Not adding fuel to the fire, just being quiet about them and wait for the discussion to cease. In the end, out of all the threats and drama, there is very little actual change happening. People might say they’re leaving, or stopping their business, or not spending any money anymore, but talk is cheap. That said, it is possibly still not the best, but second-best solution to problems. A better one would be to actually be transparent, explain decisions, talk to people about their concerns and, where possible, grant their wishes.¹ But since this is not possible in most situations, especially for companies and larger groups of people with colliding interests, sitting it out would be the best thing you can do.

1. I also would love to have a rainbow pony.

You might know, or you might have guessed, that we (we being the proprietors of this sweet little website) handle sexuality quite openly; you can get a creative commons licensed porn here, some naughty bits for OpenSim, and some of our own stories are equally pornographic in places.¹ Obviously, though, not everyone thinks like that, and, being the world we’re living in, you will run into people who disagree with you. In most cases this is no problem, as sex is a private issue that doesn’t need to be worn around your neck at all times, but being as it is, sex is also a play with taboos and fantasies, and some tastes require including “the public”.

For OpenSim this means: Know your own wants and desires, and find a community that fits you. This is not as easy as it sounds from the get-go. Some grids do have some rating guidelines about what’s allowed on them and what is not; I once tried to include them into our gridlist. However, many grids don’t provide clear guidelines, or do not display any rules at all, so it might be weeks and months in getting involved in the community until you know what’s allowed and what isn’t. Just today there’s been a heated debate on Meta7 (an OpenSim grid & community) about changes to their Terms Of Service, and of course discussions like that are going on in Second Life all the time.

I guess, the lesson to take away here is: Learn to acknowledge that there are other people who are offended by, and don’t agree with, what you do in regards to sex. This goes both ways; people who like nudity and like to openly play with sex are probably as much upset about being restricted in it as the people who are offended by these acts. My proposed solution, as always, would be to stick with a private standalone, and only visit grids on hypergrid without being involved in them and their policies. Of course, this doesn’t absolve you of minding your manners. It does, however, take the strain off the grid operators for being (or feeling) responsible for everything their users do, and it allows their users to go to a safe place (their standalones) for activities that aren’t tolerated anywhere else, while the only solution for users registered to a grid would be to either accept the rules of the grid, or make an entirely new account on a different grid, which – hopefully – will accept their behaviour.

That is to say, there are surprisingly few explicit adult grids and communities in OpenSim, and, of course, the community is very small, so any “special interests” might travel fast, and further than you would want. Still, I assume it might only be a matter of time until more and larger venues for sexual encounters will spring up and grids will have to make up their minds on how to deal with the them, which, again, calls for more hypergrid integration. On the web, you just don’t go to pornhub or 4chan/b/ when you don’t like it, and the people who do will not come after you² ; on a grid, all these different people are in one “place”, and can’t easily be ignored, so it’s the unappreciative task of the grid operators to put rules in place to govern these conflicting interests. The hypergrid would distribute this conflict and allow people to avoid each other again, contributing to a more peaceful metaverse.

So, if you came here to find out the best places to have sex in OpenSim, I apologize for not being of any help with that. I would like to encourage you to have a look at our small assortment of sex-related creations, though; they might prove useful. And set up a standalone, go on the hypergrid and look for places that allow you to enjoy your fantasies.

Godspeed.

1. At this point, El asked me to mention that she’s currently on vacation and doesn’t have anything to do with this topic, because if she would be here, she would be keeping me “busy”.
2. not so sure about the 4chan crowd here, though

What they did not say, but could have similarly said, is what mothers everywhere tell their children when they go off to play with other kids they just know from school: ‘Don’t play with them. Don’t talk to them. You don’t know them. They’re probably bad. Now off to your room.’ It’s the same things with so-called ‘content creators’ and their peers. You don’t know them, you don’t know their agenda, you don’t know what they really want. Most of the ‘content creators’ in the Second Life universe have no provenance to speak of, much of it is overpriced, and the way it is hyped and praised creates some massive usability and community issues. Currently, these issues relate more to restricting content to the point of unusability and bullying consumers and users, but I can also foresee the day when some lobbyist group decides to create a secret surveillance system attached to some particularly attractive shops and release it on all their customers grid-wide to spy on the shopping habits and inventories of their customers. While I do already know of tech exploits that work in this way, I assume it is merely a matter of time before even worse alliances are being made and maintained, and when they are, I anticipate that these surveillances spread quickly given the dispersion rate of content in the Second Life grid.

I will repeat again: There are many good reasons not to buy from THEM. THEY are preying on us morally, legally and ethically. But even more specifically for the average consumer, and why they should care, is that there is a very real risk of DANGER to their personal Second Life inventories/accounts. I wouldn’t know the exact details of how a SEKRIT CONSPIRACY OF THEM will manipulate and torture you in unspeakable ways, but I know it is something that could be done, and if it will be, DON’T COME RUNNING TO ME YOU DERMESTID BEETLES ON THE FLESH OF THE INTERNET DISEASE VECTORS THAT SPREAD EPIDEMICS!

(This is a response to fashion research’s article “Content, Piracy, and OpenSim-based Grids“. No copyright violation is intended. Indeed, why would I?)

[Edit 4th December 2010: Since the FRI doesn't seem to be interested in approving my comment, I'll just repost it here:

There are just so many things wrong with this article that I don’t even know where to start. Let’s just number them for good measure:

1.) What on earth makes it your problem when someone has copyrighted material from someone else on their, or anothers, grid? Judging from what you wrote, you’re not the creator of the model.

2.) Are you really comparing consumers to kids, who need to be told by their “mothers” (i.e., in your metaphor, you) what to consume?

3.) Are you insinuating that people giving away freebies are in some way more likely to be malicious than those who sell them for money? Couldn’t a “trojan horsed pirated copy” be sold likewise?

4.) Are you aware that the internet is rather international, and that opensim users from other countries might even have a legal right to copy copyrighted material for personal reasons without the permission of the owner?

5.) How do you define “questionable provenance”? People use the freebies I offer without ever questioning me, without knowing me, without contacting me. Am I, to them, questionable? If yes, how can I become unquestionable?

6.) Tell me more about these “disease vectors” and how they spread epidemics. I have yet to see my first opensim epidemic, and this sounds like a whole bunch of bollocks, to be quite frank.

7.) Also, please tell me exactly what your fears are based upon that you need to warn the consumer community so very intensely. Are there trojan horse copies distributed? Do you have evidence? Could you give names? Or is it just a little conspiracy in your head? ]

Die meisten Leute werden jetzt denken, dass OSGrid, oder jeder andere Open-Simulator-betriebene Grid einfach eine quelloffene und billigere Version von Second Life ist, und oberflächlich betrachtet ist es auch schwer, Unterschiede zwischen den beiden festzustellen. Die Welten sehen gleich aus, werden ähnlich gerendert, man (kann) die gleichen Viewer verwenden und den Avatar auf die gleiche Weise steuern, die gleichen Werkzeuge verwenden und viele andere Merkmale sind ebenfalls so, wie man sie von Second Life gewöhnt ist.

Darunter jedoch sind die beiden nur schwer vergleichbar. Ich rede hier nicht von dem Code – auch wenn es scheint, dass dieser ebenfalls komplett anders ist – sondern von einer komplett anderen Herangehensweise an Virtuelle Realität. Second Life und OpenSim haben beide ihre eigenen Vorteile, und Grenzen. Ein Vergleich, der mich überhaupt erst zum OSGrid gebracht hat, war Marcus Llewellyn’s Artikel ‘What is a Grid?‘. Grundsätzlich ermöglicht es Open Simulator jedem, den eigenen server (selbst wenn man hierzu nur den eigenen Heim-PC verwendet) mit einem bestehenden Grid zu verbinden, und somit kann jeder seine eigenen Regionen zu sehr geringen Kosten von zuhause aus betreiben, während in Second Life alles was man tut von Linden Labs gesteuert und festgehalten wird, und es fast keine (genehmigte) Möglichkeit gibt, die eigenen Werke zu speichern. (Das ist es, was überhaupt erst zu meinem Ban führte.)¹

Es gibt also mehrere Dinge, die man im Hinterkopf behalten sollte, wenn ein Second Life Bewohner nach OSGrid, oder einem anderen OpenSim Grid wechselt.² Viele davon wurden bereits von Zonja Capalini in ihrem Artikel “The Openspace fiasco: six months later” besprochen.

Zunächst: Ihr Inventar wird weg sein. Technisch ist es nicht möglich, Gegenstände von Ihrem Second Life Konto zu exportieren, außer den Dingen, die Sie selbst erstellt haben. Mehrere alternative Viewer bieten eine Exportfunktion für Werke, mit unterschiedlichen Graden dessen, was exportiert werden kann. Die meisten davon exportieren nur Gegenstände, deren einziger Schöpfer Sie selbst sind, und mehrere ‘copybot’ Viewer machen den Export von vielen anderen Dingen ebenfalls möglich. Diskussionen zur Legalität des Exports virtueller Güter sind häufig im OSGrid und ich habe darauf keine richtige Antwort. Persönlich habe ich für mich entschieden, dass es am sichersten ist, auf meine eigenen Kreationen zu vertrauen und ich versuche daher alles, was ich brauche, selbst herzustellen, was soweit ganz gut funktioniert.

Dies bringt uns zum nächsten Punkt: Sicherheit. Dinge im OSGrid (oder anderen Open Simulator Welten) zu erstellen ist nicht so ‘sicher’, was die Beschränkungen angeht, wie es in Second Life ist. Grundsätuzlich kann jeder, der eine OpenSim region betreibt, alle Beschränkungen jedes dort befindlichen Gegenstandes aufheben. Das ist jedoch einfach das gleiche Problem, welchem kreative Menschen auf dem ganzen Planeten gegenüberstehen, seit ihre Schöpfungen ‘digitalisiert’ werden können (und wenn diese Schöpfungen sowieso nur digital existieren, ist es ein Problem, dem man sich stellen muss); und ein restriktives System ist keine Lösung. Man muss wahrscheinlich eher die Tatsache akzeptieren, dass es unehrliche Leute gibt, die Ihre Werke kopieren werden, egal was ist. Und diese Leute sind keine Kunden, und werden auch nie welche werden. Sie werden Ihre Werke nicht monetär schätzen, aber eine Kopie ist noch immer das ehrlichste Kompliment.³ Und es gibt RL Gesetze um Urheberrechtsverletzungen zu begegnen. Es mag schwer verständlich sein, aber die “Sicherheit” in Second Life ist nicht einmal viel sicherer als gar keinen Kopierschutz zu haben. Man vertraut sein Inventar, sein Guthaben, seinen Serverplatz (Land) einem einzigen Unternehmen an, und dieses Unternehmen kann einen jederzeit verbannen, aus irgendeinem Grund, ohne eine Entschädigung.⁴

Schließlich ist die Community noch sehr klein im Vergleich zur großen Userbasis in Second Life, und die Software ist noch in Entwicklung und experimentell. Es liegt bei jedem selbst zu entscheiden, ob dies eine Herausforderung, oder ein Hindernis ist. Für mich ist es eine aufregenden Chance, die Grenzen der Virtuellen Welten zu erforschen und neue Wege zu schlagen.

(english version)

1. Ein Artikel auf rezzable vergleicht die Merkmale von OpenSim mit Second Life.
2. Ich verwende OSGrid als Beispiel eines Open Simulator betriebenen Grids. Mir ist klar, dass er bei weitem nicht der einzige ist. Jedoch ist er der größte und ‘offenste’ (was Beschränkungen und Regeln angeht) den ich kenne.
3. Um eine unbekannte asiatische Quelle zu zitieren.
4. Es ist verführerisch zu glauben, dass jemand mit so viel Macht und Verantwortung vorsichtig damit umgeht, ich musste allerdings eine andere Erfahrung machen.

Recently, after a while of absence, I started playing with the OpenSim software again. I dropped it in the past after the refactoring of OSGrid, which wouldn’t let me connect my regions to it anymore, and my technical understanding didn’t reach far enough to modify it. However, I wanted to finally post my animations on this sweet site and thus needed a place to take snapshots of them, and uploading them all to SL just for that purpose just didn’t seem very appealing.

I’ve been renting a region on OSGrid for a while now, and while I’m very happy with the performance and service, I still miss the freedom and playfulness my own OpenSim installation provided. It is, for example, quite complicated to change the terrain, or backup / upload / restore OAR files, and thus play with different scenes. And, of course, it’s more expensive. So I looked at the latest version of OpenSim again, which wasn’t available for my system (Mac OSX), so one thing led to another and I ended up with the Diva distro.

There has been much debate lately about new grids, and new places to go, and a growing nervousness on Second Life, which got me to think – like I sometimes do – about the conceptual direction of the 3d web. And to say it right up front: I think the whole ‘grid’ concept is mislead, and misleading. With the Opensim technology around, there are many grids now, that just try on the Second Life business model by offering a ‘cheaper’ and more ‘friendly’ alternative. Others have already failed at that, and it’s easy to see why: More cheap and more friendly simply isn’t enough to gain a lot of attention when on the one hand you lack at many of the other things that Second Life has – creations, interesting places, large communities – and on the other hand make the same mistakes that Linden Lab makes, and that is – keeping your grid a walled garden.

The Diva distro came hypergrid enabled out of the box (along with preconfigured megaregions, which I spent the first 30 minutes trying to turn off) and thus gave me my first real insight into what the hypergrid architecture is, and can be like. I have hypergridded before, by stumbling on the portal on Samsara in OSGrid and just trying out how and if it works. Back then, it seemed to be a promising, but rather unstable technology to me. With my own standalone being hypergrid enabled, I took a deeper look, though, and the sheer possibilities just took my breath away.

I don’t want to be part of a grid anymore that keeps me locked in. The OpenSim project finally gave us control over our creations, control over our avatar, control over our assets. I will not check these at the door anymore when moving through the metaverse. My assets, my avatar, my inventory, my private regions, they are mine to control and shall not be subject to the laws of grid operators – along with the very real danger of losing it due to arbitrary bans, change of policies, or financial losses.

I hypergridded from my standalone to my OSGrid region Ever 01 first, transferring some of my inventory from there and trying out what did and did not work in hypergrid. Even though some things were limited, asset transfers worked; slowly, but they worked. That also meant that for the first time ever I got things made by someone else and was able to use them on my private OpenSim installation. I could hypergrid to other hypergrid enabled grids and buy things there and bring them ‘home’ with me. I never felt so free in the Metaverse.

Why do we need the grid approach still? Even now, today, it is possible to run your own installation of OpenSim on your machine, and hypergrid around, meet people all over, chat, explore, buy things, have fun, and bring them home with you. And it’s all free. I mean, really free. Not just free of charge, but you’re free to use the software, the assets, the creations, in any way you want. With a little technical understanding you can edit them directly in the database, changing their properties, their permissions, basically anything.

And this is, by no means, a drawback of OpenSim, but actually the biggest chance this technology does have. On the net, all data can, and will, be copied. You will never be able to protect and control the distribution of your creations. Permissions checks, and walled gardens, are an illusion. Does this mean there will never be traction, there will never be an economy, there will never be money to be made? Of course not. The fact that things can and will be copied has been a ‘problem’ for the software industry right from the start, just as it is for the music, film, and media industries, yet nobody would claim these industries do not make any money. And with OpenSim, we’re part of the software industry. We can’t just act as if we can make our own rules and implement ‘unbreakable’ drm barriers when all the rest of the internet is much more creative in that respect.

I’m not saying there is no use for grids. Actually, they are very neccessary for the 3d web, but not in the way their business model envisions it. Grids are communities. They’re places for people to meet, to chat, to roleplay, to dance, to play, to have common experiences. But they will not be the places people will ‘live’. They will not be the places people will keep their assets, or where they will stay in private. There is no need to keep your inventory, your purse, your home, your friends, and your playground all in one location – actually, it’s contrary to what we are usually doing.

So, for myself, I want to be part of the larger Metaverse, that is hypergrid enabled, against all odds and security concerns. I want to be a free citizen of this universe of grids and standalones, of small home regions and larger grid clusters. Join me, if you want. My OSGrid region Ever 01 is up and running at all times, and The Loom (my private standalone) is on occasionally. Click any of the links to hypergrid there (provided you’re on a hypergrid enabled place).

There has been a heated debate recently about the most popular of all Second Life Third Party Viewers, especially regarding the integrity of its development team. While it is quite hard to distinguish rumour from fact, what happened is, to my very own conviction, this:

Early this year, Gemini Cybernetics released their ‘Client Detection System‘ (CDS). The system detects the use of certain ‘blacklisted’ viewers with griefing and copybot abilities. Once detected, the person who used the viewer will be stored in an external database and users of the CDS can ban all those listed in said database from accessing their land. It is being sold mainly as a tool for shop owners to fight copybotting (the copying of inworld assets). Representative and main merchant of Gemini Cybernetics is Skills Hak, who is also a developer of the Emerald Viewer (Screenshot). While the Emerald team states no involvement with the developing of the CDS, it is featured on Arabella Steadham’s developer blog and recommended by LordGregGreg Back (link broken, no cache available), another Emerald developer.

On March 4th 2010, Fractured Crystal went public (cache: screenshot 1, screenshot 2) with Onyx (access currently password protected) (link broken, no cache available, screenshot here), a project several Emerald developers (among them Skills Hak, Fractured Crystal and Lonely Bluebird) are involved in, and which deals with identifying and testing the exploits of ‘blacklisted’ copybot / griefing viewers. 2 months later, on May 7th 2010, Fractured Crystal admitted the Onyx project made use of bots (cache: screenshot), that scanned avatars all throughout Second Life for ‘stolen attachments’ (i.e. attachments, whose specifications have been registered by the creator, but show a different creator name on the wearer).

Finally, on May 11th 2010, the Alphaville Herald reported that a ‘secret’ database had been leaked from Modular Systems (who is hosting the Emerald project, along with Onyx), and soon thereafter published the names of all avatars the database contained. According to Lonely Bluebird (a.k.a. Phox Modularsystems) and Fractured Crystal, the database was used for testing purposes in order to track down griefers that attacked their Second Life regions, and contained the names of avatars who registered through the API on modularsystems.sl or visited their regions. Both the CDS database, as well as the leaked database, link Second Life accounts to the according IP adress and possible geolocation data, and store this information. Also, in the comments of the Alphaville Herald article, the source code and revision notes of an ‘Onyx’ client have been leaked. Subsequently, Phox admitted the Onyx team had been working on vLife (a copybot / griefing viewer originally made by Fractured Crystal) (screenshot 1, screenshot 2, just in case) besides Emerald, which later became the Onyx viewer.

While it is true that almost everything someone visits on the internet will record and store the IP adress, these databases are linking IPs with other information they gathered, apparently in order do make single accounts traceable, and they are doing so without informing anyone about it, and thus especially without the consent of the person whose data is being stored. It is a safe bet to say this is a violation of data protection laws in many countries. In addition to that, the fact that a large number of Second Life residents is randomly being scanned without any provocation puts the whole population under a general suspicion of doing something wrong and needing to be watched. There is also a certain strange twist to the fact that people, who have been creating copybot viewers and thus enabled copybotting, are now working on systems, which, for a regular fee, are supposed to protect people from the very same viewers their protectors made. In addition to that, they are still working on a viewer with copybot abilities.

So far, no official statement from both Linden Labs, or Modular Systems, about the implications of these events, and the future of Emerald and Onyx has been made.

[EDIT 13th June 2010: Obviously at least Phox ModularSystems is involved with the Gemini CDS as well, as I witnessed him today having access to the CDS database.]

[EDIT 28th July 2010: ModularSystems changed their website a while ago, so most of the links in the above article aren't working. All the developer blogs are gone, as well as all the blogposts regarding these events. I found a few of them in google cache and provide them as screenshots here.]

Dear EFF,

judging from the blogpost at http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/fair-use-gets-fair-shake-second-life on April 2nd 2010, I think you are aware of the changes Linden Labs did to their Terms Of Service. Therefor, I am surprised, that some >minor< changes get your praise, while major changes are left uncommented. Linden Labs now stated that it only grants ‘licenses’ to their services, despite having claimed in the past that the users would ‘own’ their content, and the virtual land they trade. Linden Labs also made severe changes to their third party viewer policy (http://secondlife.com/corporate/tpv.php) which had put an enormous amount of liability on third party developers, up to a point where several of these developers simply quit developing. Furthermore, it reserves the right (section 11.5) to cancel accounts and restrict access to Second Life ‘for any reason’ and without compensation for any losses. Finally, the digital rights management system of the Second Life service is, by design, much more restrictive than neccessary, allowing for no ‘fair use’ of content at all. Even contents that have been licensed by their creators under a creative commons license (such as the popular art exhibition ‘the far away’ by user A.M. Radio) can not, by design of the Second Life permission system, be used in the terms of the license.

As a sustaining member of the EFF and a strong believer in digital rights, I am worried at this single-sided report on Linden Labs behalf. I would like to hear your stance on the issues raised above and if, or if not, these will be discussed within the EFF or on the blog.

Thank you,
V

I do have higher hopes on this one, for at least getting some statement about why issues, that are relevant to the cause of the EFF get ignored while the small, but – admittably – sensible Machinima Policy gets praise. Stay tuned.

All that got me thinking, even prior to reading Massively, Nicholaz’ post or Prok’s usual rant. I am living in a country that states in its own constitution that “ownership commits. Its use should at the same time serve the common good.”¹ Also, our copyright law allows explicitly for copies of any work for private, non-commercial use. And I think what upset me is that all these rights are being counterfeited by ‘terms of service’ that got pressed upon the users without any prior communications or discussion.

Therefor, I had, somewhat in a haste and without taking time to voice my concerns properly, written an email to Mitch Kapor, both one of the presidents of Linden Labs and co-founder of the Electronics Frontier Foundation (whose member I am). The email is quoted here in its entirety.

Dear Mr. Kapor,

I write as a resident of Second Life, which I have been for more than 3 years now. During that time, and especially during the last few months I have witnessed several changes which have been conflicting with my beliefs in digital rights, and as I understand you’re both a director of Linden Labs, and a co-founder of the ECC, I’d like to hear your opinion on them, if possible.

From its onset, Second Life had several technical restrictions in place that made it difficult to share content in-world, and served as strong copyright tools for creators. Also, it lacked the ability to backup anything that was stored under each Second Life account. Now it is my personal impression, that this stance has become worse with time.

It seems to me that Linden Labs has been, and is increasingly catering to inworld businesses, whose interests are – just as any other person or organization profiting from selling copyrighted material – to restrict the use and distribution of that material as much as they can. For example, it is not possible to have several accounts in Second Life and share assets between them, as these are either non-transferable, or non-copyable. Or, it is not possible to make a backup or export of creations released under a Creative Commons license, such as the famous art exhibit ‘The Far Away’ by resident AM Radio.

While this issue has been around for long and was certainly discussed more thoroughly before, I am worried that with the recently updated Terms Of Service, things might go even further into the direction of a strictly copyright controlled environment. The way I understand the updated TOS, all we ‘own’ in Second Life are licenses. Either licenses granted to exchange services in return for others (like the inworld ‘currency’) or licenses to use certain content created by others, or even ourselves. We, the residents, no longer ‘own’ the world, and maybe we never did. But then, Linden Labs has been misleading us in the past by claiming that the world was not only created, but also ‘owned’ by us.

And while this direction does not only contradict Linden Labs original claims, it must certainly contradict what the EFF stands for. The way Second Life is managed now, it
1. only caters to the interests of copyright holders, not users
2. strips residents of any ownership rights, replacing them with ‘licenses’ which are revocable at any time
3. prohibits them from backing up any of the content they have acquired legally, or even made themselves.

Dear Mr. Kapor, I highly respect your work and dedication to digital rights, and therefor would be most happy if you could give the matter some consideration and maybe tell me about your take on this situation.

With kind regards,
V

I believe this, most of all, sums my personal frustration with Linden Labs and the Second Life TOS up: They are way too restrictive in regards to a fair use of copyrighted material, and cater way too much to the constant demands of ‘creators’, especially those who thrive on in-world businesses. The technical restrictions of Second Life do never allow you to make legal copies of works for yourself, unless you are the creator of these works. This especially conflicts with works that the creators themselves have set free. Many of my own creations are published under Creative Commons, and I am not the only one; the popular exhibition ‘the far away’ by AM Radio, for example, is published under Creative Commons, too. Consequently, this means that the work itself, including all parts of it, may be copied by anyone and used, at least privately, for anything. I personally distribute a notecard along with my creations, stating the allowance of these uses explicitly. Still, the copying, and more importantly, the saving and exporting of someone elses work requires the use of a copybot client, which can very well result in a ban from the Second Life service.

Now, we’ve got a Snapshot and Machinima Policy, which was hailed by the EFF, but all in all unneccessary from my (but not only my) very personal point of view, as it regulates things that fall under a fair use doctrine anyway. It would be ridiculous to ask each and every creator of anything visible on a snapshot for their permission, just as ridiculous as it would be to ask every creator of everything appearing on a photograph in RL (starting with clothes, hair dresses, buildings, furniture, you name it).

I repeat: I believe, in adherence to the constitution of this country I am living in, that ownership commits. It is not only a right, but also a duty to further the common good along with it. So far, there’s been a lot of talk about rights. I wonder when we will start talking about our duties.

1. Translation by myself.

However, I still have mixed feelings about this. Mike Wilson, CEO of Makena Technologies (the providers of There.com) wrote in the statement that announced the closing the very true and revealing sentence: “There is a business, and a business that can’t support itself doesn’t work.” The people who created content in There, or even had their own businesses based on There’s in-world economy, will lose their creations forever. There, like Second Life, is a walled garden, yet unlike SL there is no open sourced community that is working on a compatible virtual world. In short: Everything will be gone. And while There.com will try to reimburse recently converted Therebucks (There’s in-world currency), everything else will sleep the long sleep of cables.

This, once more, gives me opportunity to think about the concepts of virtual worlds, and which is the best route to follow. As long as your virtual world depends on business, it will rise and fall with the economy. It is nice to think it won’t happen to SL, as it is too big and economically strong, but the current crisis has brought even bigger giants down. I’m not saying I have reason to believe SL will close. I guess my point is just that, as long as it is in the hands of an economic business, its fate is doubtful. (Would the internet ever have grown to what it is today, if it would have been backed by a capitalist venture?) The new black is Blue Mars, which just launched its Beta a few months ago. Many people are putting a lot of effort and creativity into it now. Will it work? Will it survive and honour those that contributed? I would hate to put my heart into creating things there, only to see it close because of economic reasons. I wish it all the best, but it’s still the same fear as with Second Life, and every other business virtual world.

Many players of There will probably switch over to Second Life, and I welcome them with all my heart, and hope they will find a place that is just as great, or even greater, than There was. However, I would even more like to see them in OSGrid or in another non-commercial open simulator grid. Not just because every new face there is refreshing, but also, because I believe these are the foundations built to last. From what I have come to learn is that: If you don’t NEED to make business, don’t try. It removes a lot of pressure from you, and gives you more room to breathe. Also, only the things you share can never be lost. Because they can be shared back with you at any time. If you keep them to yourself, they are vulnerable to loss due to unforeseen circumstances.

THERE for: Welcome Therians. We salute you.